How ‘The Last of Us’ Found Its A-List Guest Stars

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the Scribe
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How ‘The Last of Us’ Found Its A-List Guest Stars Feb 18, 2023 9:18:06 GMT

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Post by the Scribe on Feb 18, 2023 9:18:06 GMT

How ‘The Last of Us’ Found Its A-List Guest Stars
www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/how-the-last-of-us-found-its-a-list-guest-stars/ar-AA17b8DK
Story by Sarah Shachat • Feb 6

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How ‘The Last of Us’ Found Its A-List Guest Stars
© Provided by IndieWire

Whether in its first-person action sequences, the period detail that puts the early 2000s on blast, its deeply creepy zombie makeup, or its immaculate use of Linda Ronstadt, “The Last of Us” is dominating TV lovers’ conversations. HBO’s post-pandemic apocalypse story of a smuggler named Joel (Pedro Pascal) bringing a potentially virus-immune girl named Ellie (Bella Ramsey) to people who could potentially create a cure examines the nature of relationships under the most extreme circumstances. As Joel and Ellie cross the country, they encounter other survivors as well, people who sometimes have wildly different but always intelligible responses to the end of the world. Each episode demands a roster of incredible guest actors, each conveying the sense of having lived through calamity.

Much of the show’s success is a credit to the writing, but some of it has come through the show’s approach to casting. “The Last of Us” blurs the line between guest and supporting and star roles. “A lot of the actors that we cast for the show don’t usually do one-episode guest spots,” casting director Victoria Thomas told IndieWire. “I think we all wanted gravitas and really good actors from the beginning. You know, in my first meeting with Craig, [we discussed that] we want to cast, not even good, we want to cast great actors. We were all on the same page about reaching for that.”

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Melanie Lynskey is the latest of these ringer additions to the series, introduced in Episode 4 as Kathleen, a leader in (tenuous) control of Kansas City 20 years after civilization’s collapse. While fans of “Yellowjackets” are likely thrilled that Lynskey has a post-apocalyptic war band to order around, the actress embodies Kathleen neither as the frustrated woman with a polite exterior she plays on the Showtime series nor as the kindly, wry, everywoman she’s made a career out of playing in film. Kathleen has forged her bone-deep sadness into iron authority, her voice the final word for the men she’s leading, no matter how soft and Midwestern it sounds.

“The Last of Us” - Credit: Liane Hentscher/HBO
© Provided by IndieWire
Liane Hentscher/HBO

“The Last of Us” utilizes Lynskey’s persona to great effect in Episode 4’s interrogation sequences, upending our expectations of Kathleen’s problem-solving approach. “[The role] is a chance to get a really great actor [and] to maybe get to do something that they haven’t done before,” Thomas said. “This was a chance for her to do something a little bit different.”

The chance to flex and do something a little bit different applied equally to Nick Offerman’s and Murray Bartlett’s roles in Episode 3. The story of Bill and Frank, told more or less as a tangent from the series’ ongoing plotline, is a departure from the original game, where a (somehow) even grumpier Bill butts heads with Ellie, and Frank is long dead.

If a show with a passionate fan base is going to meaningfully deviate from its source material, announcing that fact with a tender love story that is almost a feature-length, zombie apocalypse-themed response to the opening montage of “Up” is an authoritative way to do it. Offerman’s and Murray’s month-long shoot expanding and evolving those characters allowed them to stretch their dramatic muscles, while the presence, gravitas, and graying beards they brought to the roles made that evolution feel all the more intentional and meaningful.

“The Last of Us” - Credit: HBO
© Provided by IndieWire
HBO

Thomas said that for key guest roles and the recurring cast, it was important to keep one foot planted firmly in the source material and one foot in the ways the television show would expand on the world of the game. “We started from scratch. There were no [limitations] except for the characters we had to cast,” Thomas said. “[We were able to] honor the fans and honor the actors, obviously, and then also introduce new characters, new actors, and just hopefully make sure that the relationships work.”

Regardless of the size of the role, the pitch Thomas made was pretty consistent: “‘This is really special, and it’ll have an impact. And it’s Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann. And this is a cast we’ve assembled so far, and we really would love for you to be a part of it,'” Thomas said. “And you just go for the best actors you can.”

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Click here to read the full article. www.indiewire.com/2023/02/melanie-lynskey-last-of-us-guest-1234806563/

Last Edit: Feb 18, 2023 9:33:07 GMT by the Scribe

the Scribe
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How ‘The Last of Us’ Found Its A-List Guest Stars Feb 18, 2023 9:21:45 GMT

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Post by the Scribe on Feb 18, 2023 9:21:45 GMT

How ‘The Last of Us’ Picked That Heartbreaking Linda Ronstadt Song
www.indiewire.com/2023/01/last-of-us-linda-ronstadt-bill-frank-song-1234803718/

Series co-creator Craig Mazin explains how the key to unlocking the season's most emotional moment so far began with a text to a friend.

Steve Greene
Jan 30, 2023 9:00 am
@stevebruin

Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett in "The Last of Us"
Liane Hentscher/HBO

[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for “The Last of Us” Episode 3, “Long, Long Time.”]

It’s not often that a song is so crucial to a TV episode that it ends up becoming the title, too. But given how important the Linda Ronstadt song “Long, Long Time” is to the love story of Bill (Nick Offerman) and Frank (Murray Bartlett) in this week’s episode of “The Last of Us,” it’s the title that makes most sense.

An early, pivotal moment in the episode sees Frank and Bill sing the 1970 Linda Ronstadt hit while playing it on an antique piano. Frank’s clumsier rendition, paired with Bill’s soulful version, ends up being a catalyst to their relationship and sets the tone for the rest of their first day together. Craig Mazin, episode writer and series co-creator (along with original game writer Neil Druckmann), knew that he wanted to structure the episode around a musical moment, but it came with a placeholder.
www.indiewire.com/2023/01/the-last-of-us-episode-3-review-long-long-time-1234803755/

“I had the thought that this would happen, that there was a song that would be played, and that we would be surprised by who was good at it and who was bad at it,” Mazin told IndieWire. “I remember saying to Neil, ‘I’m not sure what the song is, I just know that it has to be this incredibly sad song about yearning for love, and never getting love, and just making your peace with the fact that you will always be alone. But it can’t be on the nose. And it can’t be a song that we all know.'”

Struggling to make that breakthrough and find a song that fit all that specific criteria, Mazin sought some help from a trusted source.

“I went through hours and hours and hours. And finally, I was like, ‘I know what to do. I’m going to text my friend Seth Rudetsky,’ who is a host on Sirius XM On Broadway, and has this encyclopedic knowledge of all music,” Mazin said. “I described what I needed and within 30 seconds, it was [incoming text noise] ‘Long, Long Time by Linda Ronstadt.’ I kinda remembered that song. I played it and was like, ‘Oh, my. There it is.'”

The song came from Ronstadt’s sophomore album, “Silk Purse,” and led to her first of nearly 30 eventual Grammy nominations.

Those living room performances from Offerman and Bartlett are just the beginning for their two characters, charting a love story that makes for the best “The Last of Us” episode so far. Fitting Bill and Frank’s full journey into a single hour of TV was a daunting task, but Mazin had outside help with that, too.

“The intention was to show the arc of commitment. I’m in my 26th year of marriage, and middle-age love is a thing. And it’s a different thing than love in your 20s and new love. There’s something that gets kicked off by commitment over time,” Mazin said. “It was important for me to show that the romance, however long it lasted, it didn’t last. And then it’s arguing. And then it’s bargaining. And then it’s realizing what the other person does for you. And then it’s fear, and pulling these characters through the stages of life as I’ve been experiencing them and I’ve seen my wife’s parents experience and other friends experience. The whole idea was to hit the highlights of moments in your life where love means something different. In the end, Neil said something really smart: ‘Even if a character doesn’t make it in our show, in this case, these guys had a happier ending than they did in the game.'”

the Scribe
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How ‘The Last of Us’ Found Its A-List Guest Stars Feb 18, 2023 9:31:06 GMT

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Post by the Scribe on Feb 18, 2023 9:31:06 GMT

‘The Last of Us’ Ep. 3 Review: ‘Long, Long Time’ Is a Masterful Love Story for the Ages
www.indiewire.com/2023/01/the-last-of-us-episode-3-review-long-long-time-1234803755/
Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett star in an hour of TV that instantly sets the bar for the rest of 2023.

Steve Greene
Jan 29, 2023 10:30 pm
@stevebruin

The Last of Us Episode 3 Bill
Nick Offerman in “The Last of Us”
Liane Hentscher/HBO

[Editor’s Note: The following review contains spoilers for “The Last of Us” Episode 3, “Long, Long Time.”]

One of the best things a show can do is break the illusion that everything is a foregone conclusion. Sometimes you’re fortunate enough to enjoy storytelling that makes each choice feel like just one of a wave of possibilities. Watching Episode 3 of “The Last of Us” for a second time, it’s hard not to be struck by that first meeting of Bill (Nick Offerman) and Frank (Murray Bartlett), when one single decision sets the events of the next 16 years in motion. After Frank falls in a makeshift trap Bill set up to snag would-be invaders, the gruff libertarian and self-described “survivalist” decides to let in his first houseguest since at least the end of the world. That split-second choice turns out to be the thing that changes both of their lives.

In TV time, roughly 48 minutes go by between Bill’s Outbreak Day preparation and him joining his newly-minted husband for a farewell sleep. What “Long, Long Time” is able to show in all those years and all those moments in between is a pair of lives not necessarily built on milestones or the highest highs, but a series of decisions made to face life (and death) together. It’s an episode — written by co-creator Craig Mazin and directed by Peter Hoar, recently of “It’s a Sin” fame — that shows both survival and love as a process.

For the third straight week, “The Last of Us” establishes itself as great TV by virtue of restraint. Just as efficiently as Bill sets up his tripwires and generators, Mazin and Hoar paint a picture of a man accustomed to isolation and most likely content with it. It makes Bill and Frank’s first rabbit and Beaujolais dinner such an effective first date, of sorts, primarily because it’s Offerman playing the realization that by letting Frank inside the fence, he’s effectively already let him into his life.

Bill’s perimeter succeeds because it’s perfectly kept. His and Frank’s partnership survives because it’s not. That messiness is there right from their first song, with the two of them each trying their hand at “Long, Long Time” itself. Frank takes a more frenzied, almost lounge-act approach, fumbling his way across the keys. Whatever the song awakens in Bill, he insists on playing it closer to the original Linda Ronstadt version. It’s slower, less forceful. The heart is there. In that moment, the two men are allowed to meet in the middle. Frank lets himself embrace a life with the amenities a collapsing Baltimore QZ could never dream of offering. In turn, Bill allows himself to be close to someone.

Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett in “The Last of Us”
Liane Hentscher/HBO

The song is a microcosm of what works in both Bill and Frank’s story and the show overall. The strings and harpsichord are really on that specific early-‘70s razor’s edge between treacle and genuine yearning. It ends up hitting that same sweet spot as every part of the couple’s Last Day, a sequence that never tips over into a saccharine display even though it would be so easy for it to do so. And you don’t get decades of a sturdy, lasting partnership without a subtle dose of humor and some sadness too. Gary White’s lyric “That’s what someone told me but I don’t know what it means” does as much to slip something self-effacing and self-aware into something somber, the same way Bill’s comment about Joel in his goodbye letter does the same.

Frank’s explanation that paying attention is how we show love fits right in with the overall approach of Lincoln. The first time we see the whole town empty, production designer John Paino and the series’ design team make it feel like a New England backlot, a template for a carefully controlled show with only Bill’s hand on the lever. By the time Bill and Frank are having an argument outside the house some day in 2010, the signs are showing that an entire town block might be too much for two people to maintain, appearances-wise. It’s an intimate story, set against a bigger backdrop than you might expect, presented with the care that makes the passing of those years feel earned even in such a compressed timeframe. The general state of Lincoln runs parallel to their own fragility. It’s present in the rust and the flaking paint, but also in the tiny glimpses of the giant stack of sedans doubling as extra fence security, things that demonstrate an incredible amount of work to put up but after they’re done become matter-of-fact parts of the framework of their lives.

That care also extends to Offerman and Bartlett’s performances. Bill doesn’t shed all his layers post-Frank — even at the end, he still has the faint aura of a man with a Gadsden flag tacked up in his bunker. He’s also a man who could be brought to tears and giggles at the mere taste of a strawberry, or tenderly dispense a set of pills with cute nicknames. Credit Offerman for being able to show Bill’s gentler side just as easily as he steps into the shoes of a no-nonsense grump who drops instant classics like “This is not an Arby’s” and “THE GOVERNMENT ARE ALL NAZIS!”

Meanwhile, Bartlett’s superpower is his eagerness, something that shines through in the best of his work on “Looking,” got molded to fit a more barbed purpose on “The White Lotus,” and ends up the redeeming part of “Welcome to Chippendales.” Here, Frank’s Brawny Man exterior gets paired with an enthusiasm that’s present whether there are one or three people sharing dinner. Bartlett’s delivery of Frank’s itinerary for his Last Day is steady and knowing and allows for the knowledge that a chance meeting led to a good life with a good man. What both actors, Mazin, and Hoar are able to inject into that last day, without making it explicit, is the kind of work that fills in all the 16 years’ worth of emotional gaps that we don’t get to see.

Murray Bartlett in “The Last of Us”
Liane Hentscher/HBO

“Long, Long Time” isn’t a story built solely on emotions and aesthetics, either. Bill and Frank’s relationship is one of space and movement. Part of it is the physicality of Offerman and Bartlett playing older men who move through the world slower, commenting on how much their bodies have changed. Hoar is also shrewd about how to place them in key positions from beginning to end, starting with that first date that starts off with their table at a distance and gets progressively closer as the two men themselves do. On the pair’s final morning, we’re as far away from Frank’s wheelchair as their bedroom allows, making Frank’s journey from the bed to his chair really feel like a farewell act. Bill bringing out one last bottle of the Beaujolais is the thoughtful, teary touch that ties up their story in a nice full-circle moment. It’s also highlighted by the fact that, whether by necessity or affection, the two men are so much closer now than they were on opposite sides of the table that first midday meal.

You can almost imagine Bill talking about having someone to love in the same tones that Ellie talks about getting the chance to fly in a plane: something other people got to do but would be impossible now. “Long, Long Time” consciously includes Joel and Ellie as the bookends of this story, showing that Bill and Frank had more to offer than a fridge full of battery parts and some spare flannels. Bill and Frank and Joel and Ellie have very different relationships, but Bill’s goodbye letter does underline the greater purpose that the episode serves, apart from showing glimmers of hope and peace and companionship in a lonely world.

It outlines a question that all apocalyptic stories raise: If everything is collapsing, what do you choose to reach for? Bill’s answer is find people worth protecting. It’s a hard message to hear for Joel, a man who we’ve just seen lose the most important person in his life in back-to-back weeks. His method of preservation is to avoid having to link his heart and his fortunes to people who could be gone at a moment’s notice. He doesn’t have the safety of high-tensile fencing.

Yet, in a completely different context, Joel deciding to shepherd Ellie out west is another one of those timeline-altering choices. Whether the two of them like it or not, their fates are now interwoven, too. They’re unlikely travel buddies who vow to never share any of their pasts with each other, but now have a car and a map and a destination. And if they’re gonna be stuck with a single cassette from the Chevy’s glove box, Linda’s a pretty great companion to have over the speakers.

Grade: A
“The Last of Us” airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and is available to stream on HBO Max.

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Last Edit: Feb 24, 2023 20:49:25 GMT by the Scribe

CONSERVATISM: The Enemy Within (& Other Special Topics)

How ‘The Last of Us’ Found Its A-List Guest Stars

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Post by the Scribe on Feb 18, 2023 9:21:45 GMT

Post by the Scribe on Feb 18, 2023 9:31:06 GMT

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