In HBO’s The Last of Us, Pedro Pascal plays Joel, a character who the creators say they changed to translate the game and the ending to TV. The show, also starring Bella Ramsey, is being released one episode a week on HBO. The first episode is available now.
The Last of Us looks a lot like the video game that inspired it, but don’t mistake that for damning it with faint praise. The HBO series’ weathered apocalyptic look is often lifted straight from a game known for looking cinematic and full even at its most ruthless and brutal. Everything is captured with excruciating detail, including Joel, played now by Pedro Pascal. But in The Last of Us TV show, Joel isn’t quite the man he was — and that’s by design.
Some of that is just practical: As part of translating the game to TV, co-creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann had to update the ways in which Joel was interacting with his environment.
“There are certain things that we embrace about our medium that are different than the game medium. In the game, you need a healing mechanic; you get shot a lot, you have to heal. You get shot once in reality,” Mazin laughs.
Dispelling that means showing all the damage a guy like Joel had taken on, physically and emotionally, after Sarah died. His knuckles stay bloody, and his body seems to hurt. Pascal’s Joel isn’t sneaking around the same way Joel does in the game. “Joel’s walking in a crouch so much that he would have, like, these massive quads, right?” Mazin says. “55-year-olds can’t crouch for more than like three minutes! Tops! And then their back gives out.
