Isabela Merced On Her Breakout Role As Dina In The Last Of Us: Love, Loss, And Fighting For Joy

May 05, 2025: When The Last of Us creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann first met with Isabela Merced, they didn’t tell her the role they had in mind. Though Merced was familiar with The Last of Us Part II — the video game that serves as the foundation for Season 2 of HBO’s hit series — she had no clue she would be cast as Dina, Ellie’s best friend and eventual love interest.

“I just thought we were getting to know each other,” Merced recalled in a recent interview, during which she was battling a cold. “Then they told me I’d be playing Dina, and I thought, ‘Oh my God, this is so much bigger than I thought!’”

Though she received only one script at a time, Merced eventually realized Dina had been elevated to a co-lead alongside Bella Ramsey’s Ellie. It made sense to her: “Dina’s sort of a clean slate, a blank page in a lot of ways,” she said. This gave the writers creative room to evolve her character and ease the transition from game to screen.

In Season 2, Dina becomes a beacon of joy in Ellie’s increasingly tragic and violent world, especially after Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) murders Joel (Pedro Pascal) in a brutal act of revenge. “Like, OK, Ellie’s really fucked up and angry,” Merced said. “But whenever Dina’s around, it’s like she suddenly is able to access the joy that she once felt.”

“Day One”: A Colossal Episode of Love, Violence, and Revelation

In the standout episode “Day One,” written by Mazin and directed by Kate Herron, Dina learns Ellie is immune to the cordyceps infection. The two finally confess their feelings and share an intimate moment, their first time having sex. Earlier in the episode, Dina reveals she’s pregnant — her former partner Jesse (Young Mazino) is the father — and expresses fear about the future vanishing when she believed Ellie had been infected.

“I thought you were gone, and then all of a sudden, this future I was imagining wasn’t going to happen — where we’re together and have a kid,” Dina tells Ellie.

Ellie replies simply, yet powerfully: “I want it with you.”

Balancing Brutality with Intimacy

The episode doesn’t shy away from violence either. Ellie is bitten at the end of an intense sequence filled with elaborate stunts and battles against both the Wolves and a horde of infected in a subway tunnel. The two also stumble upon the grotesque aftermath of a Scar ambush — a room of lynched, disemboweled Wolves.

Despite the chaos, love emerges. As the episode ends, Ellie and Dina stand on the rooftop of the abandoned theater that has become their safe haven, looking out at the Seattle skyline, toward Abby’s presumed location. Ellie urges Dina not to follow her, given the pregnancy, but Dina refuses. She reaches out, says “together,” and they hold hands — the screen fading on their shared determination.

Behind the Scenes with Merced: Queer Representation and Connection

Originally from Cleveland, Ohio, Isabela Merced began acting as a child and is known for roles in Dora and the Lost City of Gold (2019) and Alien: Romulus (2024). As a queer actor, she spoke candidly about the importance of LGBTQ representation on the show and the experience of filming vulnerable moments with Ramsey. The pair worked closely with the show’s intimacy coordinator and even developed a “secret sign language” to stay connected during intense scenes, especially the adrenaline-pumping subway fight.

For Merced, the show is more than just a post-apocalyptic drama — it’s a platform for powerful storytelling, emotional honesty, and inclusive representation.

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