HBO’s The Last of Us: Actress’s Campaign to Play Dina Scores Millions of Views  

Athena Nickole’s video went viral on TikTok trying to get cast

The series of The Last of Us will come to our screens in 2023 and the adaptation of HBO so far seems to have liked it , as it succeeded in the style of video games based on the first trailer. However, it is difficult to achieve a perfect match between the real actors and the character models. There are also exceptions like that of Merle Dandridge who, like in the game, will play Marlene again. 

An actress used the power of social media and specifically TikTok to “bounce” on HBO’s radar and become the live-action Dina from The Last of Us Part II . The reason for Athena Nickole who, through a video on TikTok, showed that she is practically the doppelgänger of Dina, Ellie’s companion from the sequel. “HBO cast me as an actor” she captioned the video, already analyzing the likeness she bears that reaches all the way to her ears. 

Her unofficial campaign to land a role in HBO’s The Last of Us has gone viral on TikTok with over 5.6 million views . 

In another video Nickole revealed that a picture of Dina from the game confused her mother thinking it was her: ” My mother thought it was my picture, ” she said. 

In the case of the original Dina from The Last of Us Part 2, the character was modeled after Cascina Caradonna and voiced by Shannon Woodward. We cannot know what HBO might be thinking about the actress who will play Dina. However, he certainly has an option on his hands that seems to have the acceptance of the world as well. 

Information from The Last of Us production:

The expensive HBO production, which is said to cost upwards of $10 million per episode, will be quite different from the video games in several ways, and we recently learned one more detail  regarding the timeline of events .

It has been said that the  10-episode first season  will cover the events of the first The Last of Us, with some necessary temporal tweaks of course.

Season 1 episode directors are:  Kantemir Balagov  (Beanpole),  Jasmila Žbanić  (Quo Vadis, Aida),  Ali Abbasi  (Border),  Peter Hoar  (Marvel’s Daredevil, The Umbrella Academy, Cloak & dagger, Altered Carbon), showrunner  Craig  Mazin  (Chernobyl) and  Neil Druckmann  who also wrote the script and is an executive producer on the project.

Meet the cast of The Last of Us:

As for the cast,  Gabriel Luna  of “Terminator: Dark Fate” will play Tommy,  Nico Parker  will play Joel’s daughter Sarah,  Anna Torv  of “Fringe” and “Mindhunter” will play the role of Tess. Also, Parks & Rec’s  Nick Offerman  will star as “Bill,”  “Euphoria’s” Storm Reid  will play Riley, and video game personalities will also be in attendance. Specifically,  Merle Dandridge  will play Marlene,  Jeffrey Pierce  (Tommy’s voice actor) will participate in an unknown role and with them “Joel” and “Ellie” from the games, 

The Last of Us is set to air on HBO in 2023.