The cast of The Last of Us might have looked very different.

The Max series, which is inspired by a popular video game, premiered to rave reviews in January with Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey in the lead roles.

However, showrunner Craig Mazin recently revealed that another person was considered for Pedro‘s role before he was cast – Matthew McConaughey.

In an interview, he explained the series of events that led to the final casting decision and revealed how far along Matthew got in the process.

Read more about Matthew McConaughey’s connection to The Last of Us…

During an appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Craig looked back on the situation. He confirmed that he had a conversation with Matthew, but it didn’t get too far by the sounds of it.

“I can’t say that it was serious, it was more of just like, ‘Hey, here’s something we can talk about,’” he explained.

Craig added that “Pedro was on our list from the start. We were told he was unavailable, and then as we were floundering about a little bit, I got a call from his agent who said, ‘You know, he actually might be available.’”

They sent him a script but weren’t sure when they’d hear back. “He was in England at the time working on a movie, so I thought between the movie and the time change already this will be forever. And I sent it on a Friday. Saturday morning I get a call, he loves it, he wants to get on a Zoom,” Craig said.

Pedro was taken with the idea and expressed interest in making it work from the start!

Obviously, we all know how the casting worked out in the end, but Craig revealed if he had any regrets.

“Look, Matthew McConaughey is an amazing actor. I’m sure it would have been great. But it would have been different, and I like the one that we made,” he added.

Last year another co-star revealed that they fought to get Matthew cast in an iconic role.

Press play on the interview below…