{"id":76413,"date":"2026-08-14T17:10:07","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T09:10:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=76413"},"modified":"2026-08-14T17:10:07","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T09:10:07","slug":"matthew-mcconaughey-discusses-passing-on-playing-joel-in-the-last-of-us-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=76413","title":{"rendered":"Matthew McConaughey Discusses Passing On Playing Joel In The Last Of Us Show"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.gamespot.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/mud-Large.jpeg?w=300\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Pedro Pascal plays Joel in HBO&#8217;s popular The Last of Us, based on the Naughty Dog game, and he has been praised for his performance. However, he wasn&#8217;t the only actor in the mix for the role.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Oscar-winner Matthew McConaughey revealed more details on the Happy Sad Confused podcast about why he didn&#8217;t star on the show. The Last of Us &#8220;was really good but it wasn&#8217;t for me at the time,&#8221; the actor said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He added that signing on to The Last of Us would have also meant committing himself to the project for potentially years on end. &#8220;In success, this is something you&#8217;ll be doing for years and years and years,&#8221; he said. At the time he was circling The Last of Us, McConaughey said he &#8220;wasn&#8217;t really acting&#8221; and was focusing more on writing and leadership roles in filmmaking.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It would have been a reunion for McConaughey and HBO, as he previously starred on True Detective. That is an anthology series, and McConaughey appeared in the first season only, alongside Woody Harrelson.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Matthew McConaughey on THE RIVALS OF AMZIAH KING, INTERSTELLAR, TITANIC audition, TIPTOES, &amp; more!\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/peXOgVAUm40?start=2364&amp;feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Before this, The Last of Us showrunner and writer Craig Mazin said he had talked to McConaughey about playing Joel, but it was more of, &#8220;Hey, here&#8217;s something we can talk about&#8221; as opposed to a definite thing was that happening.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;Look, Matthew McConaughey is an amazing actor. I\u2019m sure it would\u2019ve been great, but it would\u2019ve been different and I like the one that we made,&#8221; Mazin said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Last of Us Season 1 was released in January 2023 and it was a huge hit. Season 2 followed in 2025, and a third season is now coming in 2027. In addition to Pascal as Joel, the series stars Bella Ramsey as Ellie and Kaitlyn Dever as Abby.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As for the game series, it&#8217;s rumored that Naughty Dog is working on The Last of Us: Part III, but this is not confirmed. What we do know is that Naughty Dog is making a new game, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, though we have not seen it in some time. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\n<p><br \/>\n<center><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gamespot.com\/articles\/matthew-mcconaughey-discusses-passing-on-playing-joel-in-the-last-of-us-show\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article At Source <\/a><br \/>\n<center\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pedro Pascal plays Joel in HBO&#8217;s popular The Last of Us, based on the Naughty Dog game, and he has been praised for his performance&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":76415,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[5104,14207,11486,28225,28226,4965,616],"class_list":["post-76413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech-gadgets-reviews","tag-discusses","tag-joel","tag-matthew","tag-mcconaughey","tag-passing","tag-playing","tag-show","wpcat-32-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=76413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76413\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/76415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}