SPOILER ALERT:This interview contains details of Season 1, Episode 3 ofHBOsThe Last Of Us.
And thats hardly an exaggeration.
How did Mazin and video game and series co-creatorNeil Druckmanncreate such a rich episode?
Liane Hentscher/HBO
Well let them explain.
Such a lovely song that ties into the theme of the episode.
Which one of you is to blame?
Liane Hentscher/HBO
NEIL DRUCKMANN:Its neither one of us.
Craig, go ahead.
CRAIG MAZIN:Ill tell you exactly who to blame.
And also, hed just decide, OK, I think Ive been holding back long enough.
I know who you are, Bill, and heres how this is going to go.
And the song had to be about longing and this kind of endless unrequited love that lasts a lifetime.
A sense of sadness and futility that you will always be alone.
I had struggled and struggled.
And I played it, and I was like, Oh, there it is.
And that was it.
Seth Rudetsky is the man to both thank and blame for your tears.
DEADLINE: Can you talk about the casting process here?
Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett are such great choices.
But obviously, theyre no strangers in the industry.
So how did they end up on the show?
It was so good.
With Bill, that was Craigs idea to reach out to Nick Offerman.
And then imagining him doing something different than what weve usually seen him do before was really exciting.
DEADLINE: What was it like working with them on set?
Was there a lot of improvising going on?
There are some great comedic one-liners balanced in with the heartbreak.
MAZIN:Those guys were remarkably on script, which as a writer, Im appreciative of.
Its not always the case.
But they were incredibly respectful of it.
And Im not behind the camera going, Oh, you changed my words.
But they were both phenomenal.
What they did in the best possible way was perform the lines great.
Theyre both really funny, and theyre really smart actors.
They know how to sell a joke.
They know how to underplay things.
They just did so well.
So, I was thrilled to watch them do what they did.
What was going through your mind?
And why did you feel that you needed to tell the story this way?
I wouldve been like,hell no.
Its got to be like it is in the game.
And its like that for a reason.
And there was also taking advantage of a medium thats very different from games that we could change perspective.
We could actually jump around in time quite a bit.
And that afforded me the opportunity to tell this kind of story.
And again, the faith of the character is 180 degrees different from what happens in the game.
Even though were deviating so much, I felt completely comfortable saying, Absolutely, lets do this.
This is such a great idea.
DEADLINE: This episode is already being praised by critics as one of the best in television.
But when did you know that you had something substantial during the creative process?
But I felt good about scripts, cast and directors before, and then sometimes the souffle doesnt rise.
But it wasnt until I saw the directors cut that I knew.
Peter Hoar did his directors cut with our editor, Tim Good, which was quite long.
When they sent it to me, I think it was almost two hours or something like that.
And I cried so hard that at one point, I actually said out loud, Ow.
I mean, ithurt.
I cried so hard; it hurt.
It sounds like we need the painful, longer cut.
But HBO was kind enough to let us go a bit long.
And look, I never want to overstay my welcome.
I always want to leave people wanting more.
And Im like; it wasnt just an hour.
It was 1 hour and 12 minutes.
And so thats, I think, a real achievement.
[Mazin places his hand on his chest].
And I felt this joy that it emerged out of the foundation that was there in the game.
It was just kind of really cool to see that.
Was that an indication of their spirits watching over them?
What was the intentionif anyof that last frame?
MAZIN:I think you might be on to something there.
This was their home and theyre still kind of watching [over it].
The Last of Usairs every Sunday on HBO.
