Young Mazino Watched All The Last of Us Cutscenes Like a Movie Years Before The Last of Us Season 2 Casting

A cursory search through YouTube shows hundreds, if not thousands of videos that tie all of The Last of Us’ cutscenes together so viewers can watch them like a movie. Count The Last of Us Season 2’s Young Mazino as one of those viewers.

Beef star Mazino, set to play Jesse in HBO’s The Last of Us Season 2, told Variety that he’d never played The Last of Us before because he was a PC and Xbox guy. But he had watched the game’s entire story via YouTube videos that cobbled together its cutscenes.

Mazino, who starts shooting The Last of Us Season 2 in just two weeks, said: “I only played Xbox and PC, so I hadn’t played the first game. However I watched the cutscenes. They stitched it all together on YouTube, so it’s a whole movie. So I watched the whole thing like a movie, and then years later I played the second game before the meeting. It’s phenomenal.”

The meeting Mazino referenced was with The Last of Us showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann to discuss the show and Mazino’s potential inclusion. Ahead of that meeting, Mazino actually sat down to play The Last of Us 2.

“After the strike ended I was able to get a meeting with the showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann and we kind of just shopped it up,” Mazino said. “I played the video game before the meeting and we had a long talk about their process and what they were looking for. I guess Beef pushed me the rest of the way.”

According to Variety, Mazino’s training for Season 2 includes learning how to ride a horse and firearm training. “I haven’t met Pedro or Bella,” he added. “I have DM’d Bella, but I haven’t had the pleasure of talking to them, but I will soon.”

Young Mazino will play Jesse who, as those who’ve played The Last of Us 2 know, is a resident of Jackson and friend of Ellie’s. As HBO describes, he’s “a pillar of his community who puts everyone else’s needs before his own, sometimes at terrible cost.”

We don’t know too much about The Last of Us Season 2 yet, apart from the fact that it’s slated to debut sometime in 2025. Kaitlyn Dever will play Abby, and Isabela Merced plays Dina. The first season, of course, was a massive hit, and one of IGN’s favorite shows of 2023 — as was Beef — and we gave it a 9/10 in our review.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.