Based on the 1000 hit video game of the same name, The Last of Us
at HBO has big shoes to fill .
Video games have a solid fan base and audiences have
high expectations of it – it’s a fact ‘t lost on the show’s co-creators and co-writers Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin .
“You have to isolate yourself a little bit,” Mazin told The Hollywood Reporter in Los Angeles on Monday The upcoming premiere of audience reactions to the show. “The fan energy around us is huge – I’m a fan of the game too, and I know exactly how they feel. I understand their nervousness, their excitement, their fear. At some point, you have to isolate yourself A little, because you could be drowning in a million opinions.”
“I was fascinated to see this fan-based experience expanded,” the show Pedro Pascal, who plays the main character, Joel, added. “You have Game of Thrones
and then Star Wars , the entire game world was completely new to me. Being captivated by [Mazin’s] incredible work is really the best thing I could ask for.”
Reportedly higher budget than most Game of Thrones
seasons, final Survivor is also said to be the largest television production in Canadian history.
“It’s a bigger scale,” Mazin said of The Last of Us Said his Emmy Award winning show Chernobyl
was a huge success . “ Chernobyl was obviously well received, it won a lot of things. There’s no way to really coordinate again – you can’t calculate winning The way the game was played. What I was looking for was the feeling I had when I was writing Chernobyl, which was, “This is the right thing to do. “I don’t have to drag myself to the computer every day. It’s the wind in my sail.”
As for working with a Hollywood studio like HBO, Druckmann said that working with Mazin is a key component in getting the show started. “It’s very difficult to hand over creative control to someone else,” Druckmann, who created the video game, said of the adaptation. “That’s why I think my relationship with Craig is so important, because I can work on the show, but there’s only so much I can do. At some point, I have to give up more and more control. But I Building this trust and camaraderie with Craig, I was like, ‘Well, I trust you more and more, and at some point, I have to go away for a while. Please don’t mess with my kids. Come out the other side Finally, Craig was a great co-parent.” Pascal – he also appeared in Game of Thrones Season 4, as fan-favorite character Oberyn Martell, stars in Star Wars series The Mandalorian — Acting with Companions Powers Alum and Catherine called Bertie stars Bella Ramsay, who plays Ellie on the show. Set in a zombie-infested post-apocalyptic world, the series follows Joel on a mission to smuggle Ellie across America “This is incredible,” Pascal talked about working with Ramsey. “Lucky. We were all nervous. We knew the story was very dependent on the connection between these two central characters, and there was no way of really knowing how it would turn out.” While video games are notoriously challenging , none compare to The Last Survivor forms a team by himself. “My relationship with Neil Druckmann, Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsay – and everyone involved in the show – The good thing is we don’t pat each other on the back,” Mazin added. “We’re always trying to make it better: ‘How about this? How about that? Is there a way to improve this? So we never, we never rest on our laurels. We never take anything for granted. We Just working as hard as we can to make it as good as possible … when it’s over, I want people to have long discussions about it in bars and coffee shops, disagreeing and agreeing and all those things.” The Last of Us premieres Sunday on HBO. 1455393934
Amy Sussman/GA/The Hollywood Reporter via Getty Images
