5 Fascinating Behind-The-Scenes Secrets From HBO's 'The Last Of Us' Series Revealed By Neil Dru

Almost every year, hbo television station is responsible for launching a large television product that occupies our minds on weekends. This time, the television adaptation of the video game franchise The Last of Us is dominating social networks on Sundays and success is not a surprise. Being considered one of the franchises of electronic games that expanded the most for the bubble, the narrative that accompanies Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) is familiar to those who have never leaned against a console. Gameplay videos are some of the most popular on the internet, and it is no wonder a game whose focus is interpersonal relationships between the characters is so transmitted. Already in his debut, the series pilot oke records of the station and was watched by over 4.5 million simultaneous viewers. Such expectation for the debut of Thou's adaptation made it the producer's biggest debut in a decade. For the series to become a success, but it was not enough to replicate the content of the video game-to-consistent from being considered a transmedia product, the creators had to open their minds to introduce new elements and approaches that combined more with television. In an interview with BuzzFeed, Neil Luckmann, co-creator of the game and executive producer of the series, confessed some curiosities of the series production process. Check out: ATTENTION: The rest of this article may contain spoilers of the series and the games.

• The relationship of Joel and Tess
• More than 100 auditions for Ellie
• Less long scenes
• more realistic clickers
• Scientifically plausible
• Bonus: More the Last of Us?

The relationship of Joel and Tess

The game community has always noticed that there was something more in Joel and Tess's close relationship (in the series, played by Anna Torn). Even without explicit the romantic interest between the characters, the creators left some clues through acidic dialogues that understood that something could have happened in the past. In the game, when we arrived at the scene of Tess's death, we observed that the character speaks with emotion by saying goodbye to Joel and mentions what they lived together.

For BuzzFeed, Neil confirmed that he always saw the relationship of the characters as romantic, but there was no need to make it explicit in the game. For the series, he says that they chose to extend their relationship, show how they lived together and the need for comfort that one transmitted to the other if the community still had doubts about the love relationship.

More than 100 auditions for Ellie

When Bella Ramsey was announced as the chosen one to live the teenager Ellie, the actress suffered an avalanche of criticism that were especially directed to her physical appearance and the lack of similarities with the game's character. Even highlighted as a child actress since playing Lyanna Mormon in Game of Thrones, Bella has not escaped the wave of virtual hatred. The cast and the producers, however, always stressed that the 19-year-old actress was born for this role.

Luckmann, in turn, commented that he watched more than 100 auditions for Ellie before faced with Bella. We needed someone who could play 14. It is hard to find someone who may be a child and is a good actor. In addition, we needed someone who could be peculiar, who seemed to retreat, as if he had this potential for violence or cruelty Behind everything they are doing, and someone who is very intelligent beyond his age while he is young. Bella naturally had all these qualities. We just found Ellie in the real world, and we put her on the show, he said.

Less long scenes

A particular challenge that producers had to accept throughout production was the task of cutting the duration of the main scenes. Because it is a game, it was clear that some parts of gameplay were extremely longer than they should be in a television adaptation. For this, it was necessary to summarize some parts of history and reduce the amount of actions required from the protagonist. In HBO, therefore, we do not follow all the steps of Ellie and Joel and certainly do not face the same amount of monsters not to become a tedious experience, but the essence of the danger of their existence was maintained. By having more screen time to focus on interpersonal relationships, the series explored the interpersonal relationship of Ellie and Marlene, for example, who was not detailed in the game.

more realistic clickers

To ing the experience closer to reality and to make the viewer feel that a potato of cracks can come true, producers went behind prosthetic artists who worked in Game of Thrones.

It was asked that the artists, who ought beings like the white walkers to the TV, used the same techniques to transport these digitally created beings to our world. It was necessary, however, that the prosthetic could let the actor move freely, like a puppet being controlled by a parasite, Luckmann said. The executive producer commented that there was even training so that the actors learned the correct way to walk as an infected.

Scientifically plausible

According to Neil, this chance to deliver a new approach to his most successful title allowed him to evolve as a writer and detail some points that were lost in the game. One of these lost parts is related to Ellie's infection: Here, we can detail a little more about certain decisions-like Ellie is infected, and what does that mean? We did a little more research and had a scientifically more plausible response than of the game, he said. In addition to the issue involving infected ones, you can also see a greater effort to explain the start of the infection outeak in the introductory scenes of the episodes. Through the urologists, producers have decided to oaden the historical context of the series and ing a series of mycology information that contributes to making history as true as possible that it is not possible for a human to be infected with Codices.

Bonus: More the Last of Us?

Finally, Luckmann commented that there is an intention to produce The Last of Us 3, the third game of the Naughty Dog franchise. Months ago, rumors indicated that the game was already in pre-production, but the co-creator said it depends on the ability to create a new convincing story that has this universal and declaratory message about love. Reinforcing that the next game will be a multiplayer experience, Luckmann stressed that the intention is to ing new characters in a city not yet explored by previous The Last of Us games. The executive producer of the series commented that the decision to continue or is not exclusively from the same team that Sony faithfully supports initiatives. The series is aired on Sundays, 23h (asília time), the HBO closed channel or the HBO Max application.