SHOOTING STAR

Isabela Merced is ready to slay (and not just zombies)

- ROBERT ITO

On a cool morning in late March, actress and singer Isabela Merced was walking BonBon, her Chihuahua, on Melrose Avenue in West Hollywood.

"He likes to be behind you," she warned after we became tangled. Her dog Pluto, whom she adopted in Australia while shooting Dora And The Lost City Of Gold, had stayed home that morning. Pluto was rescued with three legs.

"He tried to jump over a fence that wasn't completely done," she explained.

In Season 2 of the hit HBO Max series The Last Of Us, Merced plays the new character Dina, a wry, flirty, tough-talking orphan who loves killing clickers, the most afflicted of the show's fungus-infected zombies. "That's her hobby!" Merced said.

Dina also has a thing for Ellie (Bella Ramsey), her killing partner. In the season's first episode, their relationship heats up with a kiss during a dance at a holiday party, as Dina's on-again-off-again boyfriend Jesse (Young Mazino) — and much of the rest of the town — watches from the sidelines. Dina seems positively gleeful to play the provocatrice.

"I'd like to imagine that's how I would be in the Apocalypse," Merced said of her character.

Will Ellie and Dina's love last? "I would love to tell you everything!" she said. Because of some major plot twists, however, HBO has kept a tight rein on what it shares with journalists about the new season — and on what its stars can talk about.

"I love talking," she said, "So yeah, it's been very hard for me."

After a run of critically applauded but less-visible roles, Merced, 23, may be at a turning point with