‘The Last of Us’ showrunners on season 2, Kaitlyn Dever’s Abby
Liane Hentscher/HBO
When The Last of Us returns to HBO for season 2 in April, it’ll pick up five years after the events of season 1.
In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, its showrunners Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin opened up about how the second season feels different from the first, including the introduction of new a character named Abby.
Little has been said about the character, though she’s described as “a skilled soldier whose black-and-white view of the world is challenged as she seeks vengeance for those she loved” in press material from HBO. Kaitlyn Dever portrays her, and Druckmann says it’s due to her incredible talent.
“The reason we cast Kaitlyn is because she’s an incredible actor. You look at her body of work and the way she throws herself at that stuff… We value performance over anything else,” Druckmann said.
While fans of the video game may notice that Dever’s physique differs from that of Abby’s in the game — the digital character is a towering, muscled woman while Dever’s Abby closely resembles star Bella Ramsey‘s Ellie — Druckmann says that the show has different priorities than the game.
“There’s not as much violent action moment to moment,” he says. “It’s more about the drama. I’m not saying there’s no action here. It’s just, again, different priorities and how you approach it.”
Going further, Druckmann said Dever has “the spirit of the game in her.”
“For every heroic act, there’s someone who suffers on the other side who may see you reasonably as a villain,” Druckmann said. “When you look at Kaitlyn, there’s just something in her eyes where, even no matter what she’s experiencing, you connect. It was important that we found somebody that we could connect to the way we connect to Bella.”
Ariana Grande and Demi Moore are among the many stars reacting to their 2025 Oscar nominations.
Nominations for the 97th Academy Awards were announced Thursday, with Emilia Pérez scoring 13 nods, the most nominations of any film.
The Brutalist and Wicked followed closely behind with 10 nods apiece, while A Complete Unknown and Conclave earned eight nods each.
Following the nominations announcement, Grande, who is nominated for best supporting actress for Wicked, took to social media to thank the Academy “for this unfathomable recognition.”
Moore, who is nominated for best actress for The Substance, also shared a statement and said that being nominated for an Oscar is “beyond my wildest dreams.”
Several nominees, including Mikey Madison, Coralie Fargeat and Diane Warren, spoke to Good Morning America about earning recognition from the Academy and what this moment means to them.
Madison, who is nominated for best actress, said she is “grateful” and “so happy for my entire film.”
Check out reactions from Oscar-nominated stars below.
Ariana Grande
Grande shared an emotional Instagram post reacting to her best supporting actress nomination, writing, “picking my head up in between sobs to say thank you so much to @theacademy for this unfathomable recognition. i cannot stop crying, to no one’s surprise.”
Grande continued, “i’m humbled and deeply honored to be in such brilliant company and sharing this with tiny ari who sat and studied Judy Garland singing Somewhere Over the Rainbow just before the big, beautiful bubble entered. i’m so proud of you, tiny. thank you again, from the bottom of my heart, for this acknowledgement @theacademy.”
She also thanked Wicked director Jon M. Chu “for taking this chance on me and for being the most unbelievably brilliant leader, human being, and most fierce friend.”
Grande ended her message by mentioning her Wicked co-star, Cynthia Erivo, who is nominated for best actress, and said, “i am so proud of my Elphie, my sister, my dear @cynthiaerivo. your brilliance is never ending and you deserve every flower (tulip) in every garden. i love you unconditionally, always.”
“i don’t quite have all my words yet, i’m still trying to breathe. but thank you,” she added.
Demi Moore
Moore shared a statement with ABC News about her Oscar nomination: “Being nominated for an Oscar is an incredible honor and these last few months have been beyond my wildest dreams. Truly there are no words to fully express my joy and overwhelming gratitude for this recognition. Not only for me but for what this film represents.”
Her statement continued, “I am deeply humbled. This is a time of incredible contrasts and right now, my heart is with my friends, family, neighbors, and community here in LA. The fires have devastated so many lives but to see the way our community has united leaves me in awe of the resilience and compassion that defines us, and this moment is a reminder of how incredible we are when we stand together.”
Mikey Madison
The Anora star told GMA, “It’s incredibly exciting and very, very surreal. I’m so grateful, humbled — I’m so happy for my entire film. I’m so happy for Sean Baker, Sammy Quan, Alex Coco, Yura Borisov. It’s all so exciting. I’m just absolutely floating right now.”
Madison said she was watching GMA and FaceTiming her mom when she found out about her nomination. She said her mom was “crying and it was very sweet” but said “she immediately humbled me by saying in the same sentence, ‘Oh, congratulations sweetie, I love you so much. Also, you need to take your dogs to obedience training.'”
When asked if she had ever manifested an Oscar nomination, Madison said, “No, I don’t think I ever wrote it down, it always felt so far-fetched and far away from me and my life, but I always dreamed of it so it’s amazing.”
“I’m just gonna be soaking it in and digesting it and just trying to keep this memory of this morning and hold it forever because it’s so special,” she added.
Coralie Fargeat
The Substance filmmaker spoke to GMA about her best director nomination and said, “I feel so good, this is such amazing news and amazing news. I was really screaming out of joy.”
“When I write a film, a part of me always hopes and believes that this can happen because this is why I make films,” she said. “Because this is the magic of putting stories out in the world and this story in particular for what it says, I kind of felt if I succeeded to do it right, it could have a strong resonance about what it says about women in society so I mean you could never know then how it’s gonna go to the audience and in the world, but when the magic happens, this is such a joy and I’m really so proud.”
Fargeat, who is the only female director nominated in the directing category this year, commented on the lack of female representation in the category, saying, “It says a lot about the road we still have to go and personally I’m extremely proud to be proud of this change that we need … I have wanted to be a filmmaker and director since I was 15. That’s who I am, that’s where I feel free and good and powerful.”
She said she is “most proud” when she hears from young directors who are inspired by her.
“I’m really proud to be invited to the table,” she added. “I think we need even more progress regarding this. But personally, that’s a critical achievement and I’m so so happy.”
Diane Warren
Warren, whose song “The Journey” from the film The Six Triple Eight is nominated for best original song, told ABC News’ Chris Connelly that she had “been up all night” leading up to the nominations announcement.
“I’m so excited,” Warren said. “I’m not cool enough to go to sleep and have someone call me. I have all my friends over and we sit very anxiously in front of the TV and [this] time there was a little commercial break before the second set of nominations and jumps up in the air just with excitement.”
“This is a really special song, I think to me one of my best songs. And I love the movie and you never know what’s gonna happen so I’m just so excited, I’m so thrilled,” she said.
Warren said the nominated song now “takes on a whole other meaning” after she lost her home in the LA fires. “A lot of people lost their houses, lost everything — I had a really beautiful beach house I had for like 27 years or something like that that burned to the ground basically, the first day of the fires,” she said. “But as terrible as that was, I think a lot of people had it a lot worse. I also have an animal rescue ranch also in Malibu that nothing happened to thank God. As bad as it was, it was so bad for so many people.”
“The song, if you listen to the words of this song, it’s about strength and resilience. It almost takes on a whole other meaning now with what’s going on in Los Angeles,” she added.
Yura Borisov
Borisov, who is nominated for best actor in a supporting role for his performance in Anora, reacted to his nomination in an interview with GMA.
“We are happy!” he shared, smiling alongside his family.
“It’s a big laugh everywhere here,” he said before explaining that all his friends were reaching out to congratulate him. “It’s a great moment. I feel that a lot of people are very happy because of this.”
Kris Bowers
Academy Award winner Bowers, who is nominated this year for best original score for The Wild Robot, told GMA that he’s excited about the recognition.
“I’m just excited to be there and it’s awesome to see the other nominees,” he said. “I’m such a huge fan of all of them and through this whole awards season, been seeing all of them at these other awards and everything and it’s always such a friendly, familial relationship with all of them. So i’m just excited to celebrate with everybody no matter what happens.”
Star Wars legend Mark Hamill is among the Malibu residents who have had to evacuate the raging Los Angeles wildfires.
The actor revealed on Instagram Tuesday that he and his family fled their home.
“7pm-Evacuated Malibu so last-minute there [were] small fires on both sides of the road as we approached PCH [Pacific Coast Highway],” Hamill posted.
He added that he, his wife and their dog later arrived safely at their daughter’s house. “Most horrific fire since ‘93,” he wrote. “STAY SAFE!”
Actor James Woods documented the spread of the Palisades Fire into homes in the hills around Los Angeles on Tuesday, writing in posts to social platform X that “all the smoke detectors are going off in our house” as the blaze approached.
“It tests your soul, losing everything at once, I must say,” he wrote.
Other celebrities gave updates on the fires as well, including Mandy Moore, who evacuated her home, and The Hills stars Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt, who shared on social media that their house had burned down.
More than 30,000 people were told to evacuate in Southern California on Tuesday after a fast-moving brush fire erupted in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood near Los Angeles. The fire has burned more than 2,900 acres.
By early Wednesday morning, the Eaton Fire — which broke out miles away from the Palisades Fire, in Altadena, California, prompting immediate evacuations — had spread 1,000 acres.
The Hurst Fire, meanwhile, erupted and spread northeast of San Fernando, California, burning at least 500 acres.
Extreme winds have made the fires difficult to contain, fire officials said.
Timothée Chalamet does his own singing and guitar playing in the upcoming Bob Dylan movie A Complete Unknown, and apparently he had to learn a lot of the Dylan catalog to be ready for the film.
In a new featurette shared by Entertainment Weekly, producer Fred Berger shares just how extensive Chalamet’s preparation was for the role.
“There are 40 songs in the movie that he performs,” Berger says. “On guitar, on harmonica, and singing live take after take after take.”
The clip features behind-the-scenes footage of Chalamet performing as Dylan, set to his take on the Dylan classic “Like A Rolling Stone.”
“It was important for me to sing and play live,” Chalamet says. “Because if I can actually do it, why should there be an element of artifice here? And I’m proud that we took that leap.”
His co-star Elle Fanning said she had “goose bumps,” watching Chalamet at work, noting, “You can see how much love, and how hard he’s worked and how much he cares about getting this right.”
The clip also features footage of Boyd Holbrook performing as Johnny Cash, Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez and Ed Norton and Pete Seeger.
“It’s a movie about music that is unadorned and authentic,” the film’s director, James Mangold, adds. “You could feel the thing working for everyone.”
