His first opportunity was at a table read, where a tall and slim Troy Baker - who wasn’t as widely known at the time - arrived to read the part of Joel. Though he’d dealt with Druckmann and some of the Naughty Dog team, Pierce was yet to meet the rest of the cast. That was Neil’s attack back then and that was his attack on the last game as well.” But the ability to go into a room with someone who cares so deeply about what they’ve done that you can do your best work, and then you get a chance to collaborate for 15 minutes on an audition - that is incredibly rare. “There’s very little redirection - especially in the days of coronavirus because you’re just putting yourself on tape. “When you go into a meeting most of the time - especially these days - you just go in, you give your read, and you give your concept, then you take a hike,” Pierce explains. Eventually, with the backing of the actors and co-director Bruce Straley, he filled the role himself. And so he read books on directing and began taking acting classes.
![last of us 2 cast last of us 2 cast](https://static3.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/The-Last-Of-Us-Part-2-Abby-Voice-Actor-Body-Double-Face-Model.jpg)
Sure, he’d learned a lot from Hunt, but he felt like he needed a better grasp on the process to understand who to recruit.
#Last of us 2 cast how to
Still, there was another problem - Druckmann didn’t know how to hire for the role, due to his lack of directing experience. Hunt had worked on everything from The Jetsons to Soul Reaver and Final Fantasy 14, but the director regrettably died in 2016 at the age of 87.īecause The Last of Us took on a darker tone than the Uncharted series, Naughty Dog needed a director who could pull that tone off. Previously, actors in Naughty Dog games had been directed by Gordon Hunt, a pioneer of modern video game cinematics.
![last of us 2 cast last of us 2 cast](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/647oXNleOsA/maxresdefault.jpg)
But it wasn’t clear that he was going to be directing the game at that point.”Īs a concept, The Last of Us originated from Druckmann - but he was originally just supposed to just write the game, not direct the talent. Initially, Neil was the writer - a sweetheart, and very thoughtful with all his notes. “In video games, things take a lot longer to gestate,” he says. Related: The Last Of Us 2 Becomes Third Highest-Grossing Game In US PlayStation History In film and television, it’s usually a bad sign. Pierce didn’t hear anything for six months.
![last of us 2 cast last of us 2 cast](https://gamewith-en.akamaized.net/article/thumbnail/rectangle/18321.jpg)
“I remember seeing Troy at the audition and there were a handful of guys who were definitely ‘name’ actors, which is always an interesting thing when you’re going in to read.”Īt this point, he’d had two meetings and Naughty Dog fell silent. “I don’t know if they ever read anybody for Tommy,” Pierce says.