‘The Last Of Us’ Season 2 Put Pedro Pascal In An ‘Unhealthy’ Mindset

The Last of Us is back for a second season, but while the returning cast was glad to be back, it wasn’t easy. With the story picking up five years after the end of season one, a rift between Pedro Pascal’s Joel Miller and Bella Ramsey’s Ellie was tough to film.

“On a practical level, my first day on set was a beautiful setup because the first thing that I got to shoot was just Bella and me in an intimate setting,” Pascal recalls during a press conference at the London West Hollywood. “There’s an incredibly painful distance between the two of them in the playing of the scene, but we still got to be on set and f**k around and laughing and stuff like that. That was incredibly comforting. That was like coming home. My mindset was grateful for being back, yet, at the same time, this experience, more than any other I’ve had, is hard for me to separate what the characters are going through and how it makes me feel in a way that isn’t very healthy.”

Ramsey adds, “Obviously, a lot has changed over those five years. Ellie was 14 and now is 19. Those are the formative years in any teenager’s life, so that definitely informed it. There are obviously deeper reasons for their little rift.”

“I didn’t enjoy the feeling of being estranged from Pedro within a scene. It wasn’t a nice feeling when the cameras were rolling. In real life, we still kind of like each other, just about,” they joke. “It was definitely interesting.”

The seven-episode second season of The Last of Us premieres on HBO on Sunday, April 13, 2025, and will also be available to stream on Max.

New Faces Join The World Of ‘The Last of Us’

Pascal, Ramsey, and Gabriel Luna are among the returning cast members, but the second season sees Kaitlyn Dever among the new faces joining The Last of Us. Her casting closes a circle that started when she was linked to the video game adaptation when it was being developed as a movie.

“It’s surreal because I have since become such a huge fan of the show. I loved what the two of them did in this first season,” she enthuses, referring to co-creators, writers, and directors Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann. “It was just pure magic and so wonderful. I was a fan of the game, and it was a real bonding moment for my dad and me to play it together, so to have it come back around ten-plus years later was something I would always think about. I admired this story so much, and when it came back around, it felt like, ‘Oh, things that are meant to be in your life will happen if they’re supposed to,’ and it felt right. Abby felt right. It was very cool.”

The actress continues, “It was all of the feelings. I was nervous and anxious but also very excited. The reach of The Last of Us’ world is so big, and you can definitely feel that. In wardrobe fittings, when you’re first in prep and finally getting on set, it still feels very big. I felt less nervous once I got onto set because of this wonderful group of people, and being held by Craig and Neil. It felt like I was being cared for in a way I haven’t ever experienced.”

Mazin, also known for the acclaimed and award-winning HBO show Chernobyl, shares a mutual admiration for Dever.

“Kaitlyn did things that I’m not sure she should have done, and I don’t know how she did them,” he shares. “We knew her as an actor and what she could do, but when you meet the person, you’re like, ‘Well, what can you actually do? What are you comfortable with?’ Kaitlyn would never say no, and it was amazing. When you see how physically tremendous her performance is, it’s insane. I was very grateful. We just haven’t f**ked up with casting. Sooner or later, I’d think we would, but every single one of these guys, I can’t wait for you to see what they do and how they interact with each other. It’s amazing.”

Fellow cast newbies Alien: Romulus’ Isabela Merced and Beef’s Young Mazino had their emotional reactions to joining the hit show’s second season.

“I felt like the new kid at school,” the actress explains. “Diana and I have a lot in common in the sense that I have this random confidence for no reason. I appreciate that they embraced me for who I was, and I really feel like I was seen through your eyes, Craig and Neil. It was just a really good environment to flourish in as an actor, and I think that’s why my mom will be proud of me.”

Mazino adds, “I felt incredibly fortunate. I have so much gratitude to everyone here for being so open. Joining a second season for something that was so well established the first time, and the trust that Craig and Neil had in me to deliver on this character, I do remember getting more nervous when I stepped onto set and realizing the sheer scale of the town. Seeing the huge gate that they built was when I started to feel tripped out, but the longer I was there, I realized the energy was so warm and so inviting. I feel like there was no ego on set, and that’s rare, especially the larger a set gets.”

The Parallels Between ‘The Last Of Us’ And The Real World

While it is set in a fantasy world, parallels can be drawn between the show, the game’s post-apocalyptic setting, and the real world. The cast found that as worrying as they did helpful, and it should teach us lessons.

“Storytelling is cathartic in so many ways, and it always has been,” Pascal explains. “It’s the way that human beings have given testimony to life, whether it was hand prints on the walls inside of a cave to a television show. Growing up, all of my development is based on books I’ve read, movies I’ve seen, and television that I’ve watched, so it is very much going to reflect the human experience. Under such extreme circumstances, I think there’s a healthy and sometimes sick pleasure in that catharsis and a safe space to see human relationships under crisis, in pain, and intelligently draw a political and societal allegory and base it off the world that we’re living in.”

Luna interjects, “In the first season of The Last of Us, we made a story about a pandemic, fearing that maybe there’s a fatigue, but I think the experience that everyone had gave them an entry point to what we were doing. The second game, as Neil wrote it, and the second season, as Craig wrote it, is about conflicts. Where do they start and who started it? Right now, all over the world, we’re dealing with these conflicts. People are stuck in the wheel of engines, and can it be broken? Will it be broken? That’s where we are, so catharsis is a big element of both.”