The second season of The Last of Us is going to be introducing Abby to the story, and she’s going to be played by Kaitlyn Dever. With so much negativity surrounding the character when the game first came out, Dever has confirmed that she knows what she’s signed up for.
Talking to ScreenRant, Dever explains, “Well, it’s hard not to see those things on the internet. It’s hard not to stop myself from looking at it every once in a while, especially going into this, for sure. And I want to do this character justice and make the fans proud by bringing her to life in this kind of way.”
While there were a lot of toxic reactions to the character of Abby, there were some fans (myself included), who were completely in for the ride of the game, which was to have players initially hate Abby and be forced to slowly empathize with her.
People who hated the game usually complain about being forced to understand Abby’s arc, and that’s going to be the big hurdle that the series has to tackle.
Despite the possible backlash, Dever says, “My main focus was just the collaboration between Neil [Druckmann] and Craig [Maizin], and making sure I was really getting to the core of who she is and what drives her and her emotional state; her anger and her frustration and her grief and all of that. I wanted to make sure that that was what I was focusing most of my energy on.”
With Marvel and Star Wars already setting examples of just how toxic fans can get, some are already worried that HBO may not have any systems in place to defend Dever when the backlash eventually comes. Even Abby actresses Laura Bailey and Jocelyn Mettler got harassed by fans—and that’s reacting to a video game character, which means they did the research on who to harass.
Hopefully that won’t be the case (but it probably will be).
The Last of Us Season 2 premieres on Max on April 13.
