WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. (AP) — Five years after the end of the first season’s events, “The Last of Us” picks up in Wyoming, where Joel and Ellie — played by Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey — are settled into everyday life alongside an ensemble of returning characters and new faces protecting their fortress from the infected.
Ellie is at the center of Season 2, premiering Sunday on HBO, as she sets out on a quest for vengeance (to tell you more would be a spoiler). But Season 2’s new cast members also include some of young Hollywood’s rising stars: Isabela Merced (“Alien: Romulus”), Young Mazino (“Beef”), Danny Ramirez (“Top Gun: Maverick”) and Kaitlyn Dever (“Apple Cider Vinegar”) as the long-awaited Abby, a character introduced in “The Last of Us: Part II” video game who is set on avenging her father’s death.
Dever, who played the game with her own father, was originally in talks with series co-creators Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin to portray Ellie in the first season. But Abby, she now says, was the role she was meant to play.
“It sort of just felt like everything fell into place the way it was supposed to,” Dever says.
Ramsey and Pascal spoke with The Associated Press about the show’s hiatus, Ramsey’s increased stunt work and lessons Pascal took away from this season. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
AP: Bella, you’re stepping into more stunts, more action than we saw this past season. What was that like for you in regard to training and prep and then just mentally getting into that zone with Ellie?
RAMSEY: What I was most excited about, about going into Season 2, was getting to train and be strong. It’s nice to have a reason to exercise that isn’t just for your own personal health. I got so battered and bruised. The stunt team did everything they could to protect me, but I still somehow managed to get bruises every time. I think I commit a bit too much. It was a great time. I was absolutely exhausted the whole time but had a lot of fun doing it.
AP: Was there ever a moment or a scene where you were like, “Wow, I didn’t think I could physically do that, and I’m pretty proud of myself.”
RAMSEY: Those moments happened quite frequently, not necessarily because of the actual stunt, but because you’d pile up months of exhaustion. And then there were days where I would wake up and be like, “I don’t know how I’m gonna do today.”
PASCAL: (laughs) You couldn’t get out of bed.
RAMSEY: Yeah, there’s times — I’ve never had this experience before — where I thought my body was just going to, like, cave in. It’s this feeling of like an instability in your body. I’m like, “I don’t know what’s going to happen.” So, I think there was so many times during shooting where I would feel proud at the end of the day, especially when it was a stunt day, with all of this exhaustion. In some of the later episodes, there’s quite a lot of physical work, and I just had no idea how I’d do it. And then you just do, like you kind of just do it and then pay the price.
PASCAL: Pay the price for the rest of your life.
AP: Given that this season is all about evolution and growth, I’m curious for each of you, individually, as creatives. How do you feel from Season 1 to Season 2 that you grew in your craft, and how did that change the way that you approached Ellie and Joel?
PASCAL: It’s interesting that you say it’s all about growth, because I think it’s all about growth for some of the characters. I think other characters are quite stuck, and I think that to step into a very — what’s the word — stubborn paralysis, let’s call it, for Joel that is fueled ultimately by the desperate fear of losing Ellie. … You have to step into complete vulnerability to, I guess, tell that story. And so, that definitely felt like very scary territory for me, more than I had ever experienced in a previous job. I felt that how I felt at the time was very applicable to the playing of the scene. I was sort of injured and exhausted and kind of in a low place and thank God Joel was there to help me work that s—- out. And also, my incredible scene partner Bella and the family of “The Last of Us.”
RAMSEY: Yeah, that happens more often than you’d think. That was also the case for me. There was a lot of stuff personally that reflected stuff in the show. And it was, yeah, it’s crazy how that happens. And yeah, I mean, there was this five-year gap in the show between Season 1 (and) Season 2 that was like three years or so in real life.
PASCAL: It was big gap for us though, too, we ended in what? June 2022, and we started in the beginning of 2024. It’s like two years.
RAMSEY: In that time, I didn’t work very much. So main growth, I think, between Season 1, Season 2 was learning how not to work, because I’d been on production since I was 11 and then worked basically nonstop up until the end of Season 1. And then there was this lull, and I didn’t do very much. So, I had to learn how to, yeah, how to be a young person and not be working, which was a challenge.
AP: Given the trajectory of Joel this season and everything that he goes through, what is one lesson or one thing that you think you will take away from this character this season?
PASCAL: I feel like Joel in Season 2 is an extreme example of what can happen if you don’t face the truth. And I think that in these teasers and in the trailer, Catherine O’Hara, who’s so incredible in the first episode that you got to see is saying, “Just, just say it. Just say the thing, face it, face your fears.” And I know as I get older, I am shocked into recognizing how hard that is to do, and how dangerous it is not to do it.
AP: Bella, in the first season, you faced a lot of unwarranted, misogynistic comments from fans. Kaitlyn (Dever) is kind of going through the same thing this season. I’m curious if you guys got a chance to chat about that, or give her any advice on how to deal with it?
RAMSEY: We’ve not chatted about it particularly directly. It’s more just this mutual understanding of it and knowing very much that we have each other’s backs and that I definitely feel she doesn’t need my protection or my advice, but I feel almost protective of all of the new cast coming in and being like, “None of that matters.”
PASCAL: Or give it any airtime at all. It’s all just noise and bulls—-.
RAMSEY: It’s just noisy. And they’re still happening. But I feel it just gets less important. It’s not important to me anymore.
