HBO’s The Last of Us stands as one of the best game-to-TV adaptations of all time, and that’s especially true for its first season. It preserved everything from the games and only improved where necessary, sometimes even to its own detriment. And a big part of what made it good was the acting, with Pedro Pascal handling perhaps the toughest role in the series—Joel. He gave us a different take on the character from the games, one more in tune with his own balance of charisma and grit. But that almost never happened: Matthew McConaughey was initially offered the role of Joel before the production settled on Pascal, and after some deliberation, he decided to pass on it” McConaughey confirmed this himself in an interview with Josh Horowitz, saying the show was “really good” even if he did not participate in it. “I wasn’t really acting at that point,” the actor explained after confirming he had “seriously considered” playing in The Last of Us. “That was part of when I was doing more writing and looking at leadership roles and life and stuff,” he added. “It was really good. I was really excited.” McConaughey went on to say that the first season of True Detective was a real “coup” and that prior to it, prominent actors didn’t really look at TV shows as something worth their while. Destructoid is headed to gamescom 2026. Subscribe to the Destructoid Checkpoint newsletter for daily live updates from the biggest gaming show outside the US. While thinking the role over, McConaughey said he’d have wanted the series to succeed, but that success by itself meant the show would then be renewed and he’d have to participate in it “for years, and years, and years,” which seems to have played a major part in his passing on doing another TV show. His persona would have definitely rendered a Joel that’d be completely unrecognizable compared to the one both in the games and what we got from Pascal. McConaughey is very into the philosophical side of things and has been for a very long time now, which is a funny contrast to his beginnings as primarily a romcom actor. Following True Detective, his characters and real-life mannerisms have all been sort of very postmodern and philosophically layered, and I’m pretty sure his take on Joel would’ve ended up being quite similar to his Rust Cohle and, well, himself. That’d inevitably draw comparisons and unnecessary discussions, so I kind of have to say that I’m happy Joel was passed over to someone else. Still, it’d have been awesome to hear Joel all right, all right, all righting in the post-apocalypse. Perhaps in some other universe. The post We almost had Matthew McConaughey in HBO’s The Last of Us but he had a strong reason to decline appeared first on Destructoid.