Pedro Pascal (Joel) explained his connection to Naughty Dog’s The Last of US games. He then talked about the adaptation and compared it to the Mandalorian series.
Pedro Pascal (Game of Thrones) is currently playing Joel on the set of The Last of Us for HBO. And between takes he found time to chat GQ evoking his knowledge of games and the approach Craig Mazin took to the series. It will be a different experience, familiar and different at the same time.
Pedro Pascal has (almost) never touched The Last of Us
And yes, even if it’s common, Pedro Pascal confirmed itHe had never finished a single TLOU title “Lack of Skills”, and preferred to watch his nephew play. A negative point? Not for him, because actually this distancing is still voluntary becausehe was also afraid of ending up “mimicking Joel too much”.
It’s sad to say though I have no skills. I tried really hard, you know. And Just a few minutes later I gave the controller back to my nephew. It takes a certain skill that I don’t have. I watched it as many times as I could that day, and then I had to leave Florida. I found Joel so impressive – I thought it was a visually stunning experience. And then I was afraid of trying to copy too much, which I think is sometimes a good thing and sometimes a mistake
. So I just wanted to create a healthy distance and have that more in the hands of Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann.
Deviate from the games while staying true
In the same interview, Pedro Pascal reiterated something familiar: The HBO series The Last of Us will not be a copy-paste beast of Naughty Dog games. The actor even went so far as to compare Craig Mazin’s approach to that of Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni for The Mandalorian.
There’s a very, very creative way of honoring what’s important and preserving what’s iconic about the gaming experiencealso contain things that you would not necessarily expect. They’re doing some really smart stuff, that’s all I can say. It’s similar to how Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni treat The Mandalorian. It’s in good hands because Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann love The Last of Us so much. It’s really made for people who love the game, and for people unfamiliar with it, there’s some very intense storytelling.
The Last of Us series won’t premiere on HBO Max until 2023.
