- All the way back in the early, early days when Neil
and I were first talking about how to adapt it,
we had a big discussion about violence.
When you're playing a video game, the NPCs,
they're a fun gameplay puzzle to solve.
How do I get through them and around them?
And violence is part of the method of that.
But in a television show, if we were
constantly mowing people down,
because there's no gameplay element
and you're just watching it, it becomes a bit numbing.
Violence stops being significant.
(characters grunting)
We talked a lot about how to make violence significant,
and one of the things that we thought early on was
that Joel has this capacity for violence in him
that maybe was always there,
but was unleashed by the apocalypse.
And when he commits this first act of violence in front
of his daughter, she is shocked and horrified,
and in tears.
Then he commits this terrible act of violence in front
of Ellie, and she is not shocked, she's activated.
There's something about the two of these people,
they share this thing, and then she saves him,
and there is a moment in the game where this happens
and one thing that we kind of expanded on for the show was
to make the guy that Ellie shoots live.
- Yeah. - To see the impact
of violence. - Like how can we be more
cruel to these characters? - Yes.
- It's okay, it's over.
We're not fighting anymore. I don't know what to do.
- To see you contemplating it.
- Right. - Because in gameplay,
you're Joel, but we can be Ellie when we want to be Ellie.
- Right. - When you're walking towards
those guys, what's going on in your head?
- Oh, it was horrendous.
The thing is though, it wasn't just terror.
There was an excitement, a dangerous like-
- There it is. - Excitement and anticipation
of like, "I'm about to do the thing,"
like, fire. - That's what's cool about
this adaptation.
You're right, in the game, you are Joel.
So when Ellie comes and saves Joel
or saves you, it's a surprise.
- Right. - You don't get to see
the buildup to that. - Right.
- You just see the aftermath.
So this is this really wonderful opportunity to jump back
and forth between these two characters
and show the trepidation, this excitement,
all those things that are happening to you.
- [Bella] I think there is an element of defeat for her.
- Right. - Like she doesn't want Joel
to have to finish it. - Right.
- Like she feels like she should do it.
- Mm. - And she wishes
that it had just worked initially, so that walking away,
the emotion- - It's a failure.
- It's a failure, the emotion is just-
- You messed it up. - Right.
- And that's the thing
that I love about these two characters is
that they're constantly trying to save each other
and they keep kind of blowing it.
- Yeah. (laughs) - You know,
because they're imperfect.
- Yeah. - You have this,
I've had this experience as a parent so many times
where my child does something that scares me
and makes me feel like I blew it and I get angry at them.
- You externalized the fear on them.
- It just turns into anger.
Like, why did you put me in this situation?
- Right. - And then, the moment after,
you get mad at yourself. - Of course.
- Why did I have that reaction?
- Which leads into one
of my favorite scenes in the entire series,
which is just the two of you
talking afterwards about what happened.
And that's when you decide, you've earned the gun.
- Right. - And the look on her,
she's crying, and then suddenly,
even as he's walking over, you start to smile.
- Really? - Because, you know, like,
"I'm getting the gun." (group laughs)
- One thing I've found just about the series overall is
that it's obviously filled with a world of violence,
but it's just the quieter moments between you two
that really stuck out to me.
And that was so important,
'cause it makes the other ones even more heightened.
And there's one scene that I think you were sort
of more disarming for the first time,
when you tell that joke.
Remember you had the joke book?
- Oh yeah. - Yes. Oh yeah.
- [Asad] And you had the scarecrow joke.
- I loved that. - And it was just
that small little lighthearted moment where you just sort
of smile for the first time.
And that relationship changes for that moment.
- [Ellie] Did you know diarrhea is hereditary?
- What? - It runs in your jeans.
(Ellie laughs)
But the thing with puns,
if you do it take after take after take,
it becomes unfunny very quickly.
- Yes. - So then what we did
was like, I pulled back inside jokes that we'd had.
- You knew exactly how to get me to laugh.
- Like the winter of death. - Yeah.
(Craig and Pedro laugh) - Remember?
- Yeah. - Here he goes,
right? - There he goes.
- There's little things you could, yeah.
It was fun.
We had a lot of fun.
- As far as our experience in finding levity and everything,
I think that it goes without saying that
there was a lot of pressure.
You guys took incredible care of us.
- Mm-hmm. - And I feel like it was
a very humane. - Yes.
- Schedule, weirdly. - Yes.
- But we put out ourselves. - But it was still lots
of opportunity for us to be scared.
- Right, but we began to recognize it
in each other. - Yeah. Yeah.
- Very quickly it was like,
"You're thinking too much about this."
- Right, right, right. - "Stop it."
- We would always be able to show up for each other.
- Yeah. - And balance out
one another's anxiety by laughter.
- Yeah, exactly. - Very contagious,
inappropriate laughter. - Shoot delaying laughter.
- Shoot delaying laughter that this one wants
to play innocent on. - Okay, okay.
- And that I was always- - We need to clear this up.
- Blamed for. - I just remember
Paul Domick, the AD, going,
"Ah, this is great.
We're gonna laugh our way into meal penalty."
(group laughs)
- You learnt very quickly that I was very easy
to make laugh. - (gasps) This is so-
- Don't look so shocked. - Biggest twist of the truth.
You learned- - Here we go.
- How easy it was
to make me laugh. - I mean, I think you twisted
that in your head. - And how easy it was
to make me corpse.
- And you know who was the guiltiest of the two of us?
Anna. - Oh, well, Anna.
- The laughter comes more from a place
of deep, deep suffering.
- Oh, sure, yes. Of course. - And anxiety,
and so then when you like,
especially so like with Anna,
Anna and I had to get really, really close up.
- Oh, I remember.
- [Pedro] Being able to really read what was in their eyes.
It would just trigger this,
for the three of us, I mean- - Right.
- You're very lucky that you killed Tess.
- We had to kill Tess just to make it
through the days without laughing.
- Listen about Tess.
- You don't bring up Tess, ever.
- [Joel] Matter of fact,
we can just keep our histories to ourselves.
- And lastly, you do what I say when I say it.
- We clear? - Yes.
- Repeat it.
- What you say goes.
- So when we were making the game, and you know,
it's three and a half years, a long time,
you start losing the forest from the trees,
and you don't know if it's good or not.
And we had, this guy didn't have anything to work on,
an animator, and we said, "Play the game."
And he gets to that, plays through the whole thing,
and he gets to that winter part where,
you know, Joel and Ellie are separated for a while
and then Ellie kills David and they reconnect
and he's blown away.
And he's like, "It works.
It worked on such an emotional level,
I've never felt this way in a game,
this kind of a connection between characters."
So I was very nervous for that sequence specifically
because I was like, "I want it to be
at least as good as the game, if not better."
So I avoided actually watching dailies for that sequence.
I don't think I ever told you that.
And somehow, the David sequence is more brutal
than the game, it's more disturbing, it's harder to watch.
Because someone that's familiar with the game,
you have some expectation
that Joel's gonna come in right there
and grab Ellie and he doesn't.
And you're like, "Okay, what's happening?"
It just kind of throws you off.
And Ellie kind of stumbles outside.
She's covered in blood.
And then you grab her and in the way you reach forward
and hug him. - Mm.
- I was just like- - Mm.
- Just tears like down my face.
I had to pause it.
I'm like, "Oh my God."
I immediately grabbed my phone, I text Craig,
and I just said, "We did it."
- The interesting thing about that scene,
just before we move on from it, is that we shot that,
the bit where we reunite,
we shot that before I killed David.
- Oh really? - I hadn't-
- Oh, I didn't know that. - Right.
- Yep. - Wow.
- I hadn't killed him, I hadn't done anything.
That was one of the first scenes
of the episode, no? - It was, yeah, so this is one
of the miseries of shooting television is
that your schedule doesn't necessarily allow you
to shoot things in a proper emotional order.
You try your best.
- I didn't know that. - But there are times
where you can't, so I remember
that what we did was we set up.
- We had the stunt guy. - Yeah. A stunt guy.
And we also had a sandbag for you to hit so that,
right, I think he tackled you.
- Yeah, he was- - Fought with you.
- Yeah. - Maybe that's why I thought
that you had, because the the setup inside was specific-
- Yes. - To get you ready
to come to. - Right.
- Yeah, but it was- - Into the building.
(Ellie gasps and cries)
It's me. It's me.
It's okay. It's okay.
- But I was nervous that it would be different.
- Do you know what? - It wouldn't be as good.
- Can I tell you who's not nervous?
Me. - Right.
- Making the show was hard
and there are these days and times
and moments where you just feel like you're, you know,
not gonna figure out how to make your way out
of the will that you're in.
And then I had these two, you know?
I could always go to these two
and they could just make me feel great.
Making a show with people you love is essential.
- Yes. - Especially if it's
a tough one, 'cause you're not gonna make it otherwise.
Thanks, mate. - Welcome, bro.
- Thanks, bruv.
- I feel so privileged.
I got to make the game
with an amazing group of game developers.
And then I got to do it again with the best people on TV.
And it's like, again, there's certain things
that are in our control
and certain things that are outside of our control.
What's within our controls is that we make something
that we're proud of.
What's outside of our control is will it find an audience.
But I really don't care. - Right.
- In that I'm so proud of this show,
like this would've been one of my favorite shows,
even if I didn't work on it
because of what everybody else brought
to the table and how awesome it is.
(gentle string music)