Nico Parker has responded to trolls who were upset that she was cast in the TV series The Last Of Us despite the fact that her character in the video game was initially white.
The 18-year-old actress, who is the daughter of Thandiwe Newton, plays Sarah in the post-apocalyptic series based on the popular video game franchise of the same name.
It follows Joel (Pedro Pascal), a guy tasked with smuggling a young child named Ellie (Bella Ramsey) across the United States. A pandemic has destroyed humanity, infecting thousands of people with a mutant fungus, but Ellie is immune to the virus and may hold the secret to a cure.
Some video game enthusiasts were furious that Sarah is now played by a biracial actress – Nico’s mother Thandiwe is biracial, while her father, filmmaker Ol Parker, is white.
‘I can realise there’s one side of it where there are individuals for whom the game is really important to them and they care very strongly about an adaptation of it,’ Nico remarked in response to the backlash.
‘But when it comes from a place where it’s just a disdain toward any kind of inclusivity, is where I don’t care. I don’t value that opinion and I don’t agree.’


‘I hope they can look past it and still enjoy the show, but I think inclusivity is incredibly important. If young kids watch the show and feel they’re in any way represented through race or hair or anything, that’s 10 times more important than anyone who doesn’t like it because they don’t like to see different people on their screen,’ she told Yahoo! Entertainment.
It comes after her co-star Pedro, who plays her on-screen father, similarly spoke out against the series’ poisonous fans.
The former Game of Thrones actor, 47, recently told the publication: ‘Sorry. What is it about it, that characters aren’t cast exactly as they want them to be cast? You can’t make everybody happy.’
He added: ‘I think that the game is very, very innovative in its inclusiveness. So really, it’s a way of honouring the original source material, the way that [the TV series’ creators] Craig [Mazin] and Neil [Druckmann] have gone about casting and telling this story.’
Pedro’s co-star Bella, 19, chimed in to add: ‘Yeah, 100%.’
Nico recently acknowledged to feeling ‘pressure’ ahead of the series’ premiere this week, which has been compared to The Walking Dead.
‘Craig and Neil and everyone were incredibly good at keeping the set away from that mounting pressure,’ she told Deadline.
‘It’s more like the internal, “Oh my God, am I doing justice to this game? Am I doing justice to this character?” But I think it was just trying to separate the two.’
The Dumbo actress added: ‘The show is one thing, the game is the other and to keep the two separate was the main aim, but it was definitely incredibly stressful.’
The Last of Us premieres on Monday January 16 on and NOW.