Why Abby Won't Be Muscular in The Last of Us Series: Neil Druckmann Explains

Kaitlyn Dever has been officially cast as Abby in Season 2 of The Last of Us series. Unlike her video game counterpart, the character won't have a heavily muscular build and appears physically similar to Ellie. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, creators Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin explained why the actress wasn't required to bulk up for the role.

The showrunners stated that casting for Abby followed the same approach as for Ellie—prioritizing an actress who could truly capture the character's essence. Druckmann also noted that Abby’s muscular physique in the game served a gameplay purpose rather than being essential to her character.

We would've struggled to find someone as good as Kaitlyn to play this role. In the game, you have to play both characters [Ellie and Abby] and we need them to play differently. We needed Ellie to feel smaller and kind of maneuver around, and Abby was meant to play more like Joel in that she's almost like a brute in the way she can physically manhandle certain things. That doesn't play as big of a role in this version of the story because there's not as much violent action moment to moment. It's more about the drama. I'm not saying there's no action here. It's just, again, different priorities and how you approach it.

Kaitlyn has the spirit of the game in her. What I always loved about the idea was that you are going to continually be challenged as you were in season 1. When you try to pick a hero, it's tough because we're human beings, we're not heroes. For every heroic act, there's someone who suffers on the other side who may see you reasonably as a villain. When you look at Kaitlyn, there's just something in her eyes where, even no matter what she's experiencing, you connect. It was important that we found somebody that we could connect to the way we connect to Bella.
— Neil Druckmann

Season 2 of The Last of Us premieres in April.

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