Troy Baker, who played Joel in The Last of Us video game series, has commented on what it was like to pass the baton, so to speak, to Pedro Pascal, who plays Joel on the HBO series. Speaking to Variety, Baker said he is a big fan of Pascal and went on to sing his praises.
“He does this thing where he’s so confident in his grasp on the character that it allows him to just sit comfortably in his own conviction,” Baker said. “He does everything on a knife’s edge. There’s nothing that’s wild. If you watch all of his choices, [they’re] so minimal, and because of that, they’re profound. And it makes Joel, in a lot of ways, more dangerous.”
Baker went on to say that Pascal brings a new layer of physicality to the role of Joel that wasn’t possible in the video game series.