The Last of Us co-creator Neil Druckmann explains why Ashley Johnson, who voiced Ellie in the video games, was nervous about appearing in the hit HBO adaptation. Based on the acclaimed PlayStation video games from Druckmann and Naughty Dog, The Last of Us follows Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) as they journey across an apocalyptic landscape twenty years after a deadly fungus ravaged the planet. Episode 8 featured the return of Joel voice actor Troy Baker in a new villainous role, and last night’s finale saw Johnson appear during a tense flashback sequence as Ellie’s mother, Anna.
Screen Rant recently attended a press conference in which Druckmann and show co-creator Craig Mazin broke down elements of The Last Of Us’ season 1 finale, with the former explaining that Johnson was initially nervous about her role. Johnson’s apprehension, he explains, was mostly due to the fact that Druckmann wasn’t the one who directed the episode. Check out Druckkmann’s full comment below:
“Ashley’s incredible and I had no doubt that she would be incredible, because I’ve worked with her for so many years. This is one of the first times she did anything Last of Us that I wasn’t directing, so before that shoot, she called me and she was all nervous, she was like, ‘I don’t know how to do this, I wish you were here.’
I think I told her, which I wasn’t lying, I feel totally confident saying this, I’m like, ‘Craig is there. Trust Craig. He’s been my co-parent now for all these months,’ and I felt comfortable leaving the set for months at a time because I saw the love he had for the material. I think that kind of gave her some ease to say, ‘Okay, someone else is watching me, someone else who really loves and cares about these characters,’ and I told her, ‘Just do what you do, which is collaborate.’
Because working with Ashley was such a collaboration that I had one understanding of who Ellie is when I was writing those scripts, and in working with her, I had a very different understanding. We were making the game, I was writing it live, there was an outline that we were adhering to, but again, after shooting those first few scenes with Ashley, she helped shape that character in so many ways.
And that’s why she metaphorically gave birth to that character, and to have her literally do it in this scene just felt incredibly poetic and beautiful, despite how sad that that scene is.”
Ellie’s Mother Makes The Last Of Us Episode 9 Even Better
After spending much of season 1 searching for the Fireflies, Ellie and Joel finally find them in The Last of Us episode 9. Joel quickly realizes, however, that making a cure from Ellie’s blood will involve killing her in the process, something that eventually leads him to go on a rampage through the hospital. Including Ellie’s mother in a flashback scene early in the episode helps to explain Ellie’s immunity but also makes The Last of Us episode 9 even more impactful in other ways too.
Marlene (Merle Dandridge) was very close to Ellie’s mother before the Cordyceps outbreak and was ultimately the one who took Ellie in after Anna was bitten. This quickly creates a strong bond between Marlene and Ellie, and it speaks to just how dire the situation on Earth has become that she is willing to kill Ellie in the hopes of pursuing a cure. Joel acts as an interesting flip side to this coin, essentially willing to doom the future of humanity in order to keep Ellie alive.
Anna’s inclusion helps to highlight the moral complexity of Marlene and Joel’s decisions, showing just how far the two will go when it comes to pursuing their respective goals. Anna not only makes Ellie’s backstory more tragic, but helps to add nuance to Marlene and Joel and their own relationships to Ramsey’s character. Part of the brilliance of The Last of Us‘ finale is that it presents a genuinely confounding moral dilemma to which there is no easy answer.
This content was originally published here.
