‘The Last of Us’ Co-Creator: This Is Our ‘Empire Strikes Back’ Season

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The Last of Us showrunner has a different vibe this time.

When we sat down with Craig Mazin three years ago to talk about the upcoming debut of his HBO drama — which he created along with Neil Druckmann, who developed the PlayStation game the series is based on — the Emmy-winning writer-director still seemed a tad uncertain, as any longtime veteran of this business should have been. Was this post-apocalyptic mashup of undead action and intensive character study that’s based on a video game really going to connect with a broad audience? This time, sitting in a hotel lounge in Austin during the South by Southwest Film and TV Festival earlier this month, Mazin radiates creative confidence. The second season of The Last of Us is a banger, and he knows it.

Not to mention, he adds, “We were filming in Alberta in the dead of winter, which was very Hoth.”

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You mentioned at the SXSW panel how you guys really figured out how to do the show this season. Aside from pacing out the action, what did you learn from the first season that you applied to the second?

Making a first season of television, especially one of that size, is like building a plane in the air. We learned how to improve our process, which means basically more efficiency. Combined with more money from HBO, we could do a lot more. We certainly got much better at portraying the Infected. Our two core actors, Pedro and Bella, now occupy these characters completely. And we assembled this other group of actors who fit right in — maybe that’s because [the new cast members] had seen the first season, so they were coming into a show they understood. Whereas in season one, there was no show to come into. Also, I learned also about myself.

What did you learn about yourself?

The way I do this isn’t really the way most people do things. [Fargo showrunner] Noah Hawley, who I’m about to have lunch with, is the guy who inspired me in the first place to think, “Hey, what if I just wrote this all myself and I direct the first episode?” That meant I’m prepping the season by prepping the first episode. Then I work with the rest of the directors very closely. I’m [on set] every day and it’s important to me to have that constant conversation with them. So I was able to share with our directors that were coming on, “Now that I’ve done a season of TV, this is how I work. Fair warning: I’m going to be there. And if you’re not looking to collaborate like that, this is not the show for you.”

Not that your show needs more hype, but what excites you most about the new season?

There are a lot of duos. Our show seems to be live in this duopolistic world where you have Joel and Ellie Henry and Sam, Ellie and Riley … It’s always this interesting duopoly where everything gets shrunk down to these twosomes. This season we introduce more of these duopolies that I love — by the way, the word is “pairs” or “duos,” I don’t know why I’m saying “duopoly,” that’s ridiculous. Watching Joel and Ellie is special in this season, but our community of Ellie and Dina [newcomer to the show Isabela Merced] is special. Ellie and Jesse [newcomer to the show Young Mazino] have this remarkable friendship. I can’t wait for people to experience our world through these new twosomes.

Maybe the show is that way because you just like writing two-handers?

Well, nothing is more exciting, honestly. When my writing day is writing one character talking to another, like in episode one, with Pedro Pascal and [guest actor this season] Catherine O’Hara. Let’s go.

The relationship tension between Ellie and Joel is teased in the trailer, with Ellie reminding him of the promise he made in the first season finale — that her immunity couldn’t have resulted in a cure.

This is the beating heart of this season. It should be because that’s how the first season ended, and that is a bit of the tragedy — that Joel finally found someone who allowed him to live fully again, to be a parent — not to replace the daughter he lost, but for Ellie to be a new daughter, to raise and to teach and to protect. But it’s only at the cost of telling her this brutal lie that he knows he has to tell her. Because if he tells her the truth, she’ll walk away. But that lie will not stand. It is an impossible thing to maintain. The question is when, why, and how does that break?

As Ellie’s friend Dina, Isabela Merced jumps off the screen, she’s so charismatic. Is it challenging at all, writing all those scenes yourself, to channel young female characters?

Not at all. I’m going to be 54 when this comes out, but in my brain, I’m still basically 15. My body’s falling apart, but I am still me. I remember what it was like to be 19 and 20. I’m not a girl, but I’m a human and as a writer, part of my job is to become other people in my head. I do it all the time. I’ve been doing it forever. Isabela, in her first scene with Ellie, she radiates. We wanted somebody that was this contrast, this sunlight, because Ellie is tough and reserved and careful, and we wanted somebody who is radiating sun. We also didn’t want somebody that was 5’9″, because Bella is pretty short. It’s one of those things where it gets a little wonky to frame [two actors of very different height], or Dina might feel maternal, like a mom.

You mentioned Bella’s size. There’s been this thing on social media where some of the game’s fans say: “Bella isn’t right for adapting The Last of Us Part II because they’re not big and strong enough to be that character after the story takes a four-year time jump.” I was thinking, watching the first episode of the new season, that somebody appearing physically vulnerable in this world is more interesting and makes you lean in more. Like if a character is in a dark room with an Infected, and they’re built like Charlize Theron in Mad Max: Fury Road, how worried are you about them, really? I think people discount how vulnerability can be additive.

Correct. I agree with you. One of the reasons why we show a fight scene early is to address what I think is a question that gets glossed over all the time by action movies and shows. How does a small person fight with a big person? It’s not going to be karate. It’s not going to be awesome punches and kicks — they’ll lose. The answer is Juujitsu. I watch a lot of jiujitsu and I’ve specifically watched sessions where a small person is taking down a big person. That’s how that would happen because nobody’s fucking around in this world.

So I understand the difficulty that some people have where they say, “She looked like she was 14 in season one. She still looks roughly the same to us, even though now she’s 19.” Ellie in the game looks much older. Some people do change quite dramatically and some people don’t. I’m not interested in the physical aspect — although I’ve been looking at Bella’s face for years while editing, and I can see that she’s certainly grown. I’m interested in the emotional maturity, and the change in personality. I’ve watched Bella grow and become independent and start to find her own two feet separate and apart from her parents, who are amazing — How do I figure out how to be my own person now and test that full independence? And I feel that in Ellie completely. So I understand where people are coming from, but when they watch this year, I think they’re going to see the difference.

Last season had that amazing standalone third episode, “Long, Long Time,” focusing on a couple characters who are not in the main story. Maybe I’m wrong, but looking at the trailer this season, and considering it’s seven episodes instead of nine, it feels you’re just focusing on the urgent story at hand.

There is an episode that’s — not a detour — but it takes a pause and reexamines things from a different perspective. It’s not because we’re interested in every season of The Last of Us having a Very Special Episode. I think next season will actually afford us more opportunity in that area. There’s one story in particular I’m just excited to dig into and tell. But this season, it didn’t make sense to just stop and go, “You know what? Let’s do a whole episode about [O’Hara’s character] Gail.” Now having said that, and having worked with Catherine O’Hara, maybe that’s the dream.

From the trailer, you have an incredible snow fort battle sequence against the Infected along the walls of Jackson, which naturally brought to mind some battles in Game of Thrones, which have been considered some of the best battles ever staged. What was your thought in terms of how you’re going to make this your own thing and also, if possible, make it even better than what we’ve seen before?

Certainly as a Thrones fanatic, I remember from watching “Hardhome” and not thinking about how complicated and impressive the action was. What I remembered was how moving and important the things that were happening inside the action were. That Wildling woman [Karsi], seeing her get turned, and seeing The Night King raise the dead and being like, “Hey, you and me, Jon Snow, we’re on a collision course, my friend, and the more you fight me, the worse it gets for you.” The desperation, the total loss.

That is really our philosophy about action. What’s the point? So in building this sequence, we were very ambitious because we just wanted to show how bad it could get. But always the question was: Why? What is this about, what does this change, and what does this mean for our people moving forward? Jackson is, as we see in episode one, is growing, it’s expanding. There is a certain cockiness. They don’t seem particularly worried about the trouble outside. They’ve gotten a little complacent. They have a New Year’s Eve dance. They’re going to therapy,. They’re refurbishing homes. They’ve got patrols down to a science. On the other hand, you’re like: Guys don’t you know you’re living in a TV show?

Neil suggested there isn’t going to be a Last of Us Part III video game. Previously, the idea was the show would never get ahead of the game. You were eyeing two seasons for Part II, maybe three. So does that mean season 3 could be the end? Or are you considering, “Well, maybe we do go past the game?”

I am not going to go past the game. I’ll just say that flat out. So if people are thinking, “Oh, these guys are planning the old cash grab thing—”

It’s not necessarily cash grab if you genuinely think you could have a better ending — especially considering that Neil was long considering doing more story with another game.

I’m basically setting a decade of my rapidly dwindling life on fire to tell this story. The show is so hard to make. It has to have an end. So I’m not going to go past. Who knows me, there might be a Dunk and Egg The Last of Us show that happens that somebody does. But for me, the only question is: Is it going to be one more season or will it require two more? If this can happen all in one more season, great. If we feel like it makes sense to break it into two, then we will do that.

Well, I can certainly imagine HBO’s preference. Speaking of Dunk and Egg, has HBO done any spin-off whispers along those lines? Could there be a Chronicles of Joel prequel or whatnot?

As a fan of The Last of Us, I’d totally watch that. That would be fascinating to see. But no. They’re very respectful. They’re, in a loving way, saying, “Keep doing this.”

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The Last of Us returns for season two on Sunday, April 13 at 9 p.m. E.T. on HBO and the Max. Read THR’s season two preview.