{"id":87556,"date":"2026-08-13T15:58:36","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T19:58:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/?p=87556"},"modified":"2026-08-13T16:36:46","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T20:36:46","slug":"matthew-mcconaughey-discusses-passing-on-playing-joel-in-the-last-of-us-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/?p=87556","title":{"rendered":"Matthew McConaughey Discusses Passing On Playing Joel In The Last Of Us Show"},"content":{"rendered":"\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 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=peXOgVAUm40\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=peXOgVAUm40\">Happy Sad Confused <\/a>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<p>  https:\/\/youtu.be\/peXOgVAUm40?si=iOBaVWIfRAm1mX3X&amp;t=2364  <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Before this, The Last of Us showrunner and writer Craig Mazin said he had <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/2023\/tv\/news\/matthew-mcconaughey-the-last-of-us-casting-talks-joe-1235653037\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/2023\/tv\/news\/matthew-mcconaughey-the-last-of-us-casting-talks-joe-1235653037\/\">talked to McConaughey about playing Joel<\/a>, but it<\/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. However, he wasn&#8217;t the only actor in the mix for the role. Oscar-winner Matthew McConaughey revealed more details on the Happy Sad Confused podcast about why he didn&#8217;t star on&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":87558,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-external"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87556"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=87556"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87556\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87559,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87556\/revisions\/87559"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/87558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=87556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=87556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=87556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}