We already know that The Last of Us season two takes place five years after season one. And at the end of season one, there was a huge gulfOpens in a new tab that formed between our favorite father/daughter duo, Joel and Ellie. Joel had, of course, lied to Ellie after saving her life at a great cost. And Ellie seemed to know something was wrong. As we head into The Last of Us season two, the cast and creators of the series held a press conference to dive into what we can expect from the upcoming season after such an ending. Bella Ramsey, who plays Ellie, didn’t mince words. Ramsey shared about The Last of Us season two’s Joel and Ellie, “We just had to not like each other for a bit.” Uhoh, it feels like there’s going to be some unhappiness separating the pair.
Ramsey went on to share more about The Last of Us season two’s time jump, saying, “I think that yes, obviously a lot has changed over those five years. Ellie was like 14 and is now 19. And I think in any teenage life, those are formative years. So that definitely informed it. But there are obviously deeper reasons for their little rift, and it was kind of, I didn’t enjoy the feeling of feeling estranged from Pedro within a scene. It wasn’t a nice feeling when the cameras were rolling. And so it was, yeah, it was definitely interesting.”
Meanwhile, Pedro Pascal, who plays Joel, echoed the sentiments, discussing the intensity of his character’s journey and the weight of the separation that happens between Joel and Ellie in The Last of Us season two. Speaking to Ramsey, Pascal shared, “I feel like it was a beautiful setup by Craig [Mazin] and Neil [Druckmann] that the first thing that I got to shoot was just you and me and in kind of an intimate setting. There’s incredibly painful distance between the two of them and 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.”
But there was also a lot of intensity there. Because of the quality of The Last of Us and the viscerally beautiful characters, Pascal felt that distance from the role of Joel was hard to obtain. He noted, “I was grateful to be back. And yet at the same time, this experience, more than any other I’ve had, makes it 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 I suppose, I suppose I was in an unhealthy mindset.”
It’s always harrowing when our favorite characters are at odds. But it makes it all the sweeter when they find their way back to one another. We know we’ll have to go through it with Joel and Ellie in The Last of Us season two. Hopefully, reconciliation won’t be too far off. Or our states of mind won’t be very healthy either. The Last of UsOpens in a new tab season two premieres on Sunday, April 13.
