It’s not the same,” explained Mazin to The Hollywood Reporter. And you can do the math like: Mandalorian = Joel Baby Yoda = … but then you realize, actually, no. “We talked about the fact that he was in The Mandalorian. However, all the producers were delighted with the idea of having Oberyn Martell, a DEA agent and the Mandalorian as the protagonist. Casting Pedro Pascal was relatively easy and it took the team 'no effort' to imagine the actor as Joel, but in the case of Ellie, the network considered more than 100 actresses before landing on Ramsey for the part.Ĭraig Mazin, the showrunner of the series, tells that when he sent a first draft of the script to Pedro Pascal, the actor was so excited that Mazin himself began to fear that the thing would not work precisely for that reason, in case his emotions overwhelmed him. A very interesting story because both cases have very little to do with each other. A few days before the premiere of The Last of Us on HBO, the creators of the series have revealed why they ended up opting for Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey as the new faces of Joel and Ellie.