HBO is primed for another hit with “The Last of Us,” an adaptation of the mega-popular PlayStation video game from 2013. The game presents a poignant and haunting tale of the human costs of survival when civilization collapses following a zombie outbreak caused by a parasitic fungus; it’s regarded as one of the best video game stories of all time. Premiering on Sunday, Jan. 15, HBO’s live-action adaptation — created and executive produced by Neil Druckmann (who wrote and created the game) and Craig Mazin (of HBO’s Emmy-winning “Chernobyl”) — is already garnering rave reviews as a gripping interpretation of the game, at once faithful to its story and unafraid to expand upon and even change some key plot lines.
The show follows Joel (Pedro Pascal), a hard-bitten smuggler with a grief-stricken past who is charged with transporting headstrong teenager Ellie (Bella Ramsey), who’s never known a pre-infection world, across a decimated United States. Together, they face monstrous, fungus-ridden “clickers” and transform their rocky relationship as total strangers into a father-daughter bond.
Pascal, Ramsey and their co-stars Gabriel Luna, Anna Torv, Merle Dandridge and Nico Parker explain to Variety how they brought their video-game characters to life and what to expect in the show.
Joel and Ellie (Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey)
Past work: Pascal: “The Mandalorian,” “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent,” “Narcos,” “Game of Thrones.” Ramsey: “Catherine Called Birdy,” “Becoming Elizabeth,” “His Dark Materials,” “Game of Thrones”
Had you played the game before you signed on?
Pedro Pascal: Before we signed on? No.
Bella Ramsey: No. I’d heard about it. But I hadn’t played it. I’m not really a gamer. So I hadn’t experienced it.
Pascal: I am really, really good at “Mrs. Pac Man.” I was really good at “Mrs. Pac Man.” I can’t even say that I’m good at it now. But I didn’t know of the game. I knew who Craig Mazin was, and was desperate to work with him. I got those scripts. I read them. And then I just begged him to give me the job, basically, and he was foolish enough to do so. And then the world of “The Last of Us” opened up to me and I realized that I had been under its influence in ways I didn’t even know since its release in 2013.
How much for both of you did you want to draw from what had been crafted in the game with these characters versus making them your own?
Ramsey: I mean, I think a lot of that work was done for is by Craig and Neil. Neil being the creator of the story, the game and Craig being such a huge fan that together, they really brought the best of the game into the scripts and just expanded on what was already there. And I think that was really cool, to sort of have it all there for us. Ellie was someone that came very naturally to me. So that was just a cool process. It’s always the dream when you read a script, and you feel like they’re a part of you already. And that was the case for me on this. Most of that is because of the voice that Craig wrote for Ellie that was directly from the game.
Pascal: I thought it was really useful to get a tonal understanding of the source material. With Ashley Johnson’s Ellie and Troy Baker’s Joel, there’s something so exciting about discovering a puzzle and all of the new pieces and different ways of putting it together and not being too committed to a specific process, but learning what the process will be for this particular project. I needed to see what had been done to discover what I could bring to it and also to meet what was on the page and what was already loved by the people that know the game.
What would your characters be doing and if the outbreak had not happened? For Ellie’s sake, let’s just presume that she was born and there was no outbreak.
Ramsey: It’s an interesting question. I think she would be…
Pascal: She would be doing hard drugs, I think.
Ramsey: Probably! She’d totally be an outcast. She’s sort of an outcast in the outbreak world, but she would be in this world, too. She has a strong interest in space and the moon.
Pascal: What if the outbreak is the only thing to have kept Ellie from being a cheerleader?
Ramsey: I would think I would go and jump off a cliff.
Pascal: I think the Joel would have just been a failed musician.
Ramsey: Yeah, actually! Or he’d have a sheep ranch.
Pascal: I feel like he’d have a band. And his body would be pretty broken from working construction. Sarah would be looking after him. Maybe he’d be a grandfather. Oh, this is getting sad!
What would you guys do in a zombie apocalypse?
Ramsey: Cling to each other and cry
Pascal: Cling to each other and probably not make it.
Ramsey: Yeah, we would laugh ourselves into oblivion.
Pascal: I feel like you would [make it], though.
Ramsey: Do you think?
Pascal: Yeah, I do.
Ramsey: I think I might, you know. I think I’m downplaying it.
Pascal: Yeah, you are downplaying it. And maybe I’m downplaying it. The thing is, I haven’t developed any skills in my middle age. So I feel like there’s nothing I really developed outside of opinions.
Ramsey: I can think of a lot of skills that you have.
Pascal: Yeah, like conversational skills.
Ramsey: Right.
Pascal: Well, you can’t really talk to cannibals and infected, fungal, mutated human bodies. Did you see all the different ways I avoided the word “zombie”?
Ramsey: Good job! They’re gonna be pleased with that.
Tommy (Gabriel Luna)
Past work: “Terminator: Dark Fate,” “Hala,” “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”
Had you played the game before you signed on?
I played “Part I” and “Part II” in preparation for this role. It took me about two and a half months, and my whole experience culminated two days before I left for Calgary, so I finished it just in time. My first experience was when it originally came out in 2013. I didn’t play the entire game, but I was able to play a little bit of it at a friend’s house and got to see the prologue of the game and got excited by the fact that the characters were in Austin, Texas, which is my hometown. That stuck with me for a long time.
How much from the game did you draw on for your portrayal of Tommy?
It’s animated, but he still feels like a person that exists in the world and has for the last 10 years. It’s very similar as if you were gonna do a biopic about somebody. You want to nail down the things that are very important that you know have to be this way, and then, of course, you got to give yourself the freedom to be in the moment. I’m a lucky one, because Tommy is me and I am him and it couldn’t have been a more seamless transition into him as a character.
Did you pull out anything from growing up in Austin?
Willie Nelson, of course, lives in Austin, and he and Kris Kristofferson were in The Highwaymen. Kristofferson was a big inspiration for me, like a young Kristofferson. The vibe of Tommy is that of somebody who’s really relaxed, a go-with-the-flow guy, which is kind of counter to his experience as a soldier. I think he’s making a concerted effort to be better person and somebody who has left that part of his life behind him. The outbreak happens and he very quickly has to resort to what he knows in defense of himself and his family. I was kind of a consultant in that way, for production design. ‘”Does this look like Austin?” It looked great. There was a lot of University of Texas Longhorns paraphernalia all over the place, which is absolutely accurate.
What would Tommy be doing if the outbreak hadn’t happened?
Once he’s done being a rascal, I’m sure he would have found a nice girl and settled down, fully content to work hard and sweat working his days in construction and come home and crack a beer. Hopefully have a few little ones running around. That’s the dream. He looks up to his brother at the beginning of the story in that way. His brother has what he eventually will. Even in the face of this turmoil, he’s still angling toward the light and wants to create a world where that’s still possible.
