In a brand new interview with EW, Druckmann and Mazin addressed the selection to not embody a extra muscular Abby on the present. Briefly, they solid Dever within the function as a result of she’s an excellent actor.
“We worth efficiency over the rest,” Druckmann defined. “We want somebody to essentially seize the essence of these characters…. We don’t worth as a lot, ‘Do they appear precisely just like the character with their eyebrows or their nostril or their physique?’ No matter it’s. It’s not nowhere on the precedence checklist, but it surely’s beneath a bunch of different issues that we contemplate.”
Druckmann additionally went into element about how they approached writing the character for tv versus the online game. Not having to contemplate gameplay when it got here to casting Abby on the present meant that her physique wasn’t as vital an element this time round.
“Within the recreation, it’s important to play each characters [Ellie and Abby] and we’d like them to play in a different way,” Druckmann defined. “We would have liked Ellie to really feel smaller and form of maneuver round, and Abby was meant to play extra like Joel in that she’s nearly like a brute in the way in which she will bodily manhandle sure issues. That doesn’t play as massive of a job on this model of the story as a result of there’s not as a lot violent motion second to second. It’s extra concerning the drama. I’m not saying there’s no motion right here. It’s simply, once more, completely different priorities and the way you method it.”
However there’s extra to the change than a easy “video games and tv are completely different media” clarification, in line with Mazin. He sees Dever’s model of the character as a contemporary technique to inform the story from the sport.
“I personally suppose that there’s an incredible alternative right here to delve into somebody who is probably bodily extra susceptible than the Abby within the recreation, however whose spirit is stronger,” Mazin stated. “After which the query is, ‘The place does her formidable nature come from and the way does it manifest?’ That’s one thing that will probably be explored now and later.”
