by Gill Pringle in Los Angeles
When The Last of Us debuted two years ago, it instantly transcended its video game origins.
Still recovering from Covid nightmares, we were eager to embrace a far worse scenario where a mass fungal infection has caused its hosts to transform into zombie-like creatures, bringing about the collapse of society.
Audiences sought comfort in the quirky father-daughter chemistry between Pedro Pascal’s smuggler Joel, tasked with escorting Bella Ramsey’s surly teenager Ellie in the hopes that her immunity to the plague might create a vaccine.
Collectively clinging to the hope of salvation then – five years after the events of that cathartic first season – Season Two sees Joel and Ellie drawn into conflict not only with each other but in a world even more dangerous and unpredictable than the one they left behind.
And if our favourite duo is at odds in the new season opener, then in real life, the co-stars’ connection is palpable when we meet them in West Hollywood, Ramsey snuggling on Pascal’s shoulder and laughing at all of his jokes.
Having first met four years ago on the set of The Last of Us, their paths might just as easily crossed when they were both on Game of Thrones, had it not been for appearing in different seasons – Pascal playing Oberyn Martell in Season 4 and Ramsey as Lyanna Mormont in Season 6, a fierce young noblewoman who comes out of nowhere to slay a dragon.
Acting from age four, Thrones served as Ramsey’s screen debut, her character becoming so popular that she returned for the next two seasons.
But as popular as Game of Thrones, The Last of Us – Season 2 may have it beat, judging by its recent record-breaking trailer launch, which amassed 158 million global views in three days.
“It’s a little bit scary,” admits Ramsey, 21, who plays Ellie, a tough survivor seemingly immune to the Cordyceps fungal infection which has created this mass pandemic.
“When season one came out, obviously it was like this huge thing. I’m aware with Season 2 coming out that everybody is looking at it and looking at me and it’s quite scary,” says the actress who we will see fall into a passionate relationship with Isabela Merced’s new character, Dina in the new season.
“But it’s exciting and it’s nice to be here, and I’m trying to see it as a celebration of all the hard work that we did. I just hope that people will like it,” she says.
Admittedly, it was tough for her to spend the first few episodes of the new season being at odds with Pascal’s Joel.
“We just had to not like each other for a bit,” she laughs while Pascal jokingly corrects her. “You had to not like me, which came easy.”
“Obviously, a lot has changed over those five years,” says the British actress. “Ellie was 14 and now is 19. And I think in any teenager’s life, that’s always the formative years, so that definitely informed it. But there’s obviously deeper reasons for their little rift. I didn’t enjoy the feeling of feeling estranged from Pedro within a scene. It wasn’t a nice feeling.
“In real life, we still kind of like each other, just about,” she teases her co-star, asking him how he felt during their ‘estrangement’.
“The first thing that I got to shoot was just Bella and I in kind of an intimate setting. And there’s an incredibly painful distance between the two of them in the playing of the scene, but we still got to be on set and fuck around and laugh and stuff like that, and that was incredibly comforting. That was like coming home,” says Pascal, 50, whose Joel is so sincere about repairing their relationship, he even consults a psychotherapist portrayed by Catherine O’Hara.
“My mindset was grateful to being back and yet at the same time, it’s this experience, more than any other I’ve had, that is hard for me to separate what the characters are going through and how it makes me feel – in a way, that isn’t very healthy. And so, I kind of feel their pain and so I suppose I was in an unhealthy mindset,” admits the Chilean-born actor.
“I think there’s such an unspoken love between Ellie and Joel that develops, and there’s so much weight in their silences and behind the things they say,” says Ramsey. “Even if they’re not explicitly trauma-dumping on each other, there is the implication that there is more trauma that’s left silent. That almost makes it heavier.”
Season 2 introduces several new cast members, including Kaitlyn Dever, fresh from her role as Belle Gibson in Netflix mini-series Apple Cider Vinegar.
“I was nervous, I was anxious, but also very excited. I’ve been a huge fan of this game and the show for a very long time. But the show – the reach of this world – is so big. The world of The Last of Us is so large. And so, you can definitely feel that in wardrobe fittings when you’re first in prep and then finally getting on set. It still feels very big,” says the actress who plays Abby, a cunning survivor.
Pascal gives props to the show’s creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann for coming up with new twists to Season 2.
“I think that storytelling is cathartic in so many ways, always has been,” Pascal says. “It’s the way that human beings have made testimony to life. Whether it was handprints on the walls inside of a cave to a television show that you can stream on Max. And so, for me, growing up, all of my development is based on books I’ve read, movies I’ve seen, and television that I’ve watched. And so, it’s very much going to reflect the human experience. And under such extreme circumstances.
“I think that there’s a very healthy and sometimes sick pleasure in that kind of catharsis, in a safe space to see human relationships under crisis and in pain and intelligently draw political allegory, societal allegory and, based off of the world that we’re living in, very beautifully and intelligently,” he says.
If Mazin and Druckmann scored gold with Pascal and Ramsey’s casting, then they continue on a roll, particularly proud of Dever’s addition to the storyline.
“Kaitlyn did things that I’m not sure she should have done,” says Mazin. “When we meet new performers, we’re sort of like. . . we knew her, obviously, as an actor and what she could do – but when you then meet the person and you’re like: ‘Well, what can you actually do? What are you comfortable with?’ And Kaitlyn just would never say no. It was amazing. And when you see how physically tremendous her performance is, it’s kind of insane. We’re very grateful, like, so far, we just haven’t fucked up the casting,” he says.
The Last of Us: Season 2 on Max on 14 April 2025
