‘The Last of Us’: Unveiling Family Reactions to Pedro Pascal’s Iconic Role and More

The Last of Us has stirred not only the hearts of millions of viewers but also touched the lives of the cast’s families in unexpectedly personal ways. Since its debut on HBO in January 2023, the emotionally charged series—based on Naughty Dog’s critically acclaimed video game—has followed the harrowing journey of Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey), navigating a post-apocalyptic world filled with danger and heartache.

Pedro Pascal, who masterfully brings Joel to life, candidly admitted he was unfamiliar with the game prior to being cast.

“I didn’t know about the game before I got the job,” Pascal said on The Graham Norton Show in March 2023.
“Then I got the job and found out very quickly about the game. It needed to be explained to me.”

After landing the role, Pascal excitedly shared the news with his sister, Javiera Balmeceda—mother to two teenage sons, Bruno and Pedro.

“I was on speaker when she answered. She was dropping them off at school,” Pascal recalled.
“I said, ‘Well, there’s this job offer… or opportunity that is based on a video game.’ They’re like, ‘What is it?’”

When they found out the project was The Last of Us, his nephews’ reaction was immediate:
“You better get that job.”

Pascal’s family weren’t the only ones with passionate reactions to the show.

Gabriel Luna, who portrays Joel’s brother Tommy, shared a humorous anecdote during an April 2025 interview on Virgin Radio UK. Luna flew his family to Los Angeles for the premiere screening.

“There’s this very intense moment in the first episode, and I was like, ‘God, I hope she’s OK, it’s so loud and violent.’ I turned to my grandmother—just completely knocked out, totally asleep,” Luna said with a laugh.

Meanwhile, Kaitlyn Dever, who debuted as Abby in Season 2, reflected on a heartfelt memory with her father. Speaking to Variety in March 2025, she revealed how the game became a meaningful bonding experience between them.

“It’s such a cool thing to get to share this with my dad,” she said.
“We played the first game together, and then I played the second game with him up until we got to Abby… and I kind of bailed because that game is long and I’m a bad gamer.”

Her father’s joy at her casting in the series was, she said, one of their most special shared moments.

As The Last of Us continued to captivate audiences, Pascal revealed in a March 2023 interview with IGN that his nephews’ enthusiasm reached comedic extremes.

“They turned into demons,” he joked about their over-the-top reaction to seeing him as Joel.

But not all family reactions were filled with laughter.

Following Joel’s devastating death in April 2025, Pascal’s sister Lux Pascal revealed to Remezcla that she had an intense emotional response:

“I wanted to throw the iPad,” she admitted.
“I burst into tears. I knew how that episode would end. I knew what was going to happen. It’s not the first time he’s done it to me.”

Listing his many tragic on-screen endings—Game of Thrones, Equalizer 2, The Last of Us—Lux expressed genuine pain seeing her brother suffer so violently on screen:

“Each is more violent than the other… Seeing my brother die that way, I didn’t like it at all.”