Kate Herron is a seasoned TV director who has worked on notable shows such as Sex Education and Loki. This year, she brought her talents to The Last of Us for the series’ pivotal season two, episode four. Pivotal, because it’s the first episode to fully walk away from the show’s star, Pedro Pascal. With Pascal’s Joel meeting his death, The Last of Us took a mighty risk, even if that eventuality was seeded by the video game that inspired the show. Losing Pedro in the series’ eleventh episode signaled a courage that could have been deemed foolhardy. However, in her episode, Herron shows the path forward for the show. Built around the blooming relationship between Ellie (Bella Ramsey) and Dina (Isabella Merced), Herron’s episode shows us that other actors can make their characters interesting enough to fill the hole left by Pedro.
In our conversation, Kate and I discussed this turning point in the show, the strength of the episode’s two leads, Jeffrey Wright, and the deathless A-ha tune, “Take on Me.”
The Contending: I was particularly excited to talk to you about this episode because what your episode does is show how the show can move forward without Pedro Pascal—no small task. Let’s talk about Ellie and Dina’s chemistry, because I felt that made the episode.
Kate Herron: You completely called it, that it’s very hard. Obviously, the show is so cemented in Season One about this kind of found father/child relationship. It was a bit intimidating in some ways–how do we really do this? At the same time, it wasn’t intimidating because you have Isabela and Bella, who are these amazing actors, and yes, they have this fantastic chemistry. I know I could feel that as an audience member, just seeing them in the first episode when they had their first kiss. It so reminded me of the game and how I felt in the game, and I thought, ‘We’re going to be absolutely fine.’When I met the team to talk about directing, I didn’t know what episode I was going to be given. Then I was given Episode four, and the video game fan in me was thrilled, because it had “Take on Me” and it had the subway sequence, and I was so excited to do that. But the most important thing taken away from all of those big game moments was how do we make sure that the relationship, as you said, is something that gets audiences on board? Although the first episode kicks off the story, it almost feels like a mini-pilot, in some ways, of where the story is going to go now in this new version and journey for all the characters.
The Contending: There’s a high risk in taking out your leading man, even if fans of the game were expecting it. The last show I could think of that really managed to pull off something so early on was Game of Thrones, with Sean Bean in the final episode of season one.
Kate Herron: And it’s shocking when it happens. I love Game of Thrones. Wasn’t he, at the time, one of the better-known actors? I remember when I watched it, I was—and still am—horrified when I think about what happens to that character, but obviously the other actors are brilliant and you completely stay on board with them.
The Contending: It does ask more of those who have been there or who are going to be introduced. You mentioned “Take on Me.” That is one of the greatest pop songs ever recorded. I know that people will say it’s cheesy because of the synthesizers and the eighties. The use of that, though, is so tender, and it shows how great that song is, that all of the other stuff can be taken away from it and just broken down to an acoustic guitar and Bella singing.
Kate Herron: It’s just a very human moment, isn’t it? That’s what I loved about it. Look, if you can play guitar, I’m sure lots of people would’ve done that, but if not, how do you impress the person you like? For us, in the story, it’s also so important because Joel taught Ellie how to play, and they’re both grieving this loss in their life, which is why they’re on that journey together. It’s a reminder almost of Joel, but at the same time, for Dina, it’s ‘Oh no, I really like this person.’ It was really interesting working with the actors on that scene because we did get different levels in terms of the reactions. I remember talking to Bella, and they agreed, and we said okay, let’s do one take where it’s more shy and you are not looking at Dina at all. Whereas we did other takes where they both completely maintain eye contact, and I know that for Isabela, it was very important to her. We did talk about it; she’s been falling in love with Ellie for a long time, but this is the moment where there’s no hope for me–I’m gone. And I think that was such a beautiful thing. I loved it because these characters live in a world that’s under constant threat. It was important to me to let the audience know that they could relax. I wasn’t going to scare them in this scene, and also, you have, for a brief second, these two very young people and a very familiar situation. That was important for us because where the rest of the story goes in the episode.
The Contending: Something you touched on there: both of these actors and their characters are very young, living in the post-apocalypse, which forces you to age up anyway. But also, when it comes to the romantic aspects, there’s this tenderness between them. There’s this shyness and uncertainty, even though Dina is stronger in that space.
Kate Herron: I would say with them coming together, the nicest thing for me, honestly, was that I love the “Take on Me” sequence. We have this amazing groundwork already from the earlier episodes, but because of what happens in Episode three in the tent, you think maybe Dina is confused, but it’s not reciprocated. It is just a friendship thing. And then I think what was so important for us in our episode is that the kiss had to feel earned at the end. It should still be a rug pull, obviously, but there’s an added element to that very last scene in the theater because Dina doesn’t know that Ellie can’t be infected. They do live in a world where you do have to kill people you love if that happens. It was important to us that I didn’t want to give the game away when they kiss at the end. It’s so obvious that’s going to happen, but there had to be enough breadcrumbs across the episode in the performance that it didn’t feel like it came out of nowhere. For me, the “Take on Me” sequence was integral to that because they’re not under threat, and it’s a moment where they just get to be, which is so nice. We also have the added brilliant element that Bella does play music and is a very talented musician. We filmed that scene on our first day.
The Contending: That’s amazing. So you didn’t get to direct Pedro, but you did get to direct Jeffrey Wright. That’s not bad. You frame him in a way that makes him so foreboding.
Kate Herron: I love him as an actor, so when I knew that he was going to be in my episode, I was giddy. I was so excited. It was a massive privilege to be given the trust to introduce Isaac into the television part of the story. Jeffrey played that character in the game. I’m not going to try to discover a character with an actor who has already been discovered to some extent. What I am going to do is help create a space for them to find that character in a new medium. It was fun, but fun in the sense of just getting to work with him. The scenes I worked on with him are very harrowing and have a real heaviness to them. It’s important that we get that right, because Isaac is a good example in the story of the cycles of violence that echo across the entire show for all the characters. I love the opening scene where he’s with the rookie soldier, and he’s like, you know what? Come with me, learn something, and you’re thinking, ‘Oh, what a nice guy helping him out.’ But then you see what Isaac is capable of and willing to do. Then, when we cut to the future, you see what’s happened to that rookie kid, and he’s a soldier now. He’s not the same person that he was at the start. It was always important to see, for example, in the interrogation scene, when Isaac holds power? When does he not hold power? And finding that in the blocking of the scene with both our actors, Ryan and Jeffrey. The main thing with Ryan (Masson), who plays our prisoner, is that he had fight, and we had to understand that both these sides had power against each other, which is why this war hasn’t been resolved in the story. When you have actors as good as everyone I got to work with, you’re just fine-tuning. We always ground things in truth.
The Contending: You mentioned this ongoing war. When Ellie and Dina go out to look for Abby, they also wander into someone else’s conflict. You know this is going on to some degree before they get to it, but tell me about introducing Ellie and Dina to another world–the shock that you want to see from the characters who have one mission and all of a sudden, this is part of their mission too, to get around this.
Kate Herron: You want to have that shock, but across my whole episode, I’m juggling a lot of tones. I think of it almost like a musical scale, that you can’t go from here to here, you just have to earn things gradually. You get a hint of it, obviously, by the tank, and you see the aftermath, but the thing is, we’ve already seen images like that in the show because it is, as I said, a very harrowing world that they live in. The people are just as dangerous as the infected, if not more so in some cases. You see that in Season one. The key thing here is that Joel is not there, because the reason they’re on this journey is due to Joel, but also because the audience is entering with as much knowledge as Ellie and Dina have. We had to feel this sense of dread that they’ve walked into something much bigger than they could have comprehended. Abby isn’t just Abby and her friends. Abby is part of a much bigger, very organized, and very dangerous organization. There were things, for example, at the TV station, with Craig (Mazin), and the script changed from day to night, and I loved that. In the game, it’s very good because it’s daytime, and it’s shocking.
The images you’re seeing are horrible. But the nighttime lent itself to what we were doing in terms of the storm, and with the bodies. You just had to feel that shock. I always go back to the video game, and if we are pivoting from the source material, it has to be for a good reason. Moving the scene to nighttime changed some aspects of it, but in terms of the framing, I remember in the game feeling the scale of seeing those bodies and how horrifying it was. That was something I was always trying to do: keep Ellie and Dina small in the frame, while the big scale of these hanging bodies dominated the foreground. That was key for us. It earned you the moment in the subway when it’s, ‘ Oh, don’t forget, by the way, there are infected.’ Threats are coming from every angle, but I think it was very key for us to show the menace and promise of that with Jeffrey’s character and in his scenes and what they’re capable of. Then you feel the impact of seeing Ellie and Dina’s reactions, and feeling protective of these characters because they are two characters with whom we’ve been along for the ride for a very long time.
The Contending: You mentioned the subway scene, which is one of the most frightening sequences I’ve seen all year. The multiple close calls and narrow escapes and everything feel—you’ve used this word yourself—earned. I can see how these two people are very capable of figuring things out. I would guess that, as a director, that scene had to be challenging to shoot.
Kate Herron: That was one of the first things I planned when I joined the show, because everyone was off doing Episode two. I was working with a pre-visualization artist, and I’d shortlisted it; I wanted to start building this sequence. I told Craig I wanted to add a jump scare in there. Part of that is that I just remember playing the game, and in that sequence, how the story unfolds is very different from the game; the main thing I wanted to capture was the emotion of my adrenaline being high and running for my life. That was important to capture here. As an audience, we know Ellie is immune, but it doesn’t make the infected any less threatening, and I wanted to feel the threat of that. For me, keeping that adrenaline rush of having to get through was key. I loved the idea that they’re on the train and you think they’re safe, but then they shut the door, and there’s actually a clicker right there. That’s where the jump scare idea came from. It was just about capturing pure fear, honestly. That’s what I was chasing.
The Contending: It worked, especially in a show where anyone can die at any time. There’s almost a 28 Days Later scene, if you think of that movie, where Naomie Harris had to kill her friend immediately as soon as he got bitten. And Dina, who is falling in love with Ellie, almost does the same thing. Ellie’s got just enough time to explain themself. Like you said earlier, you may have to kill someone you love. So when you were shooting that sequence, Bella’s reactions there are pretty obvious. How did you want Dina to come around to understanding?
Kate Herron: Isabela does a beautiful performance there, but you just really needed to feel, before Ellie goes to the armchair, that she doesn’t believe her. Because that’s exactly the kind of thing someone would say if they didn’t want to die. ‘Don’t kill me. I’m not really infected.’ It’s a very messed-up thing to say, but who wouldn’t say it if you were in a corner like that? The thing I loved is that in the second part of the scene, we have Dina completely in darkness. So we are just with Ellie in that moment, and we don’t know which way Dina is going to go until she says, “I’m pregnant.” It was really important to keep people on their toes, wondering what was going to happen next. That was a big lighting decision, obviously with my DP, Catherine (Goldschmidt), in terms of the tension building there.
The Contending: It’s fair to say that last season, a lot of people discovered Bella Ramsey. This season, I would say a similar thing about Isabela Merced. She lights up a screen. What was it like to see this kind of young, budding talent in front of you rise to the occasion?
Kate Herron: Oh, Isabela’s the real deal. You just put a camera on Isabela, and it’s amazing. You also have this force of talent that is Bella Ramsey as well. Having them both together was really exciting. I always wonder with an adaptation, and obviously, I was part of the adaptation this time, but I love the game. The first season was interesting, seeing where they pivoted from the game and where they expanded characters and gave us more details. I enjoyed what they did with Dina’s arc in this season. As an audience member, in Episode three, I’d be thinking, ‘What are you doing? They’re not going to be together?’ It makes it all the more satisfying in four and also impactful emotionally because you realize that she’s just scared, beyond just her sexuality, just nervous about living your truth in some way. I think that Isabela does such a beautiful job in completely delivering that on screen. And she’s very charming as well.
The Contending: Ellie knew who they were, sexually, and Dina was learning something about herself, so that’s playing out too. Which again, brings me back to the point of being young and being in a world that is not, by any means, safe. To be unsafe with your emotions is a risk, too. Then you see Dina soften, because like you said, she really does feel that way about Bella’s character. She is thinking those things.
Kate Herron: It’s a very human moment. I love genre stories where you can take away all the fantastical elements, and at the center is a very human story. It goes back to your first question in the sense that the first season is almost like this dad rediscovering his role as a dad with another child. That’s, for me at least, what that story is about. I love in this season because there’s a bigger kind of thing about the journey they’re going on in terms of Joel and in relation to the cycles of violence. I love that, amongst all that stuff, you have these two people that are realizing they care about each other, and despite living in this world that’s on fire, essentially, we want to be together. That was beautiful to see because Ellie, in the show, is very comfortably out to a certain point, but to the point that they are comfortable within themselves. It was a beautiful thing for me, and a privilege to work with both the actors on telling Dina’s story. I directed for Sex Education, and we had quite a few storylines like that. It was really interesting to see a storyline like that in a big television show like HBO, especially one set against such an apocalyptic backdrop.
The Contending: I love what you said there. I was discussing Godzilla Minus One with my father-in-law the other night, who’s a big fan of the Godzilla movies. What I love about it is that the hook is Godzilla, the monster. But what’s great about it is that if you took the monster away, you’d have a terrific human story about a kamikaze pilot who didn’t do what he was supposed to do and then finds a different sort of courage. You could tell that story without mentioning Godzilla at all. There’s a lot that makes The Last of Us special, setting it apart from many other zombie adaptations. For example, consider the episode from last year, ‘Long Long Time,’ featuring Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett.
Kate Herron: Peter Hoar’s episode. He’s on this season too. He is amazing.
The Contending: I interviewed him for that episode. The show does that. It expands into other spaces, shifting its focus and not always remaining linear. It’s an interesting choice.
Kate Herron: I love it, because the thing is, when you’re playing a video game, you do sometimes get some really cool, rich textures like that. The Last of Us has amazing storytelling within it. What I love about the video game, although I don’t want to ruin anything for people, is that I remember I found these letters in the game. You build a story together as you collect them across the game, as you find more. That’s a very clever way to tell a story in a video game. Because it’s built into your exploration of the world as you’re going around, but it was really interesting to me in the television show, how do you capture that curiosity about the world? There are basic ways you can do it. In the music shop, I wanted to shoot all the textures. I asked Craig, ‘Can I get a caterpillar for this?’ Again, to put a sense of ease and show that there was still nature thriving amongst the odds of this place.
But the thing that’s interesting to me is where you always pivot from the video game story and where you stay, and then where you do something new in terms of the television show. I enjoyed that. Like in Season one, in the game, you don’t find out much about those characters (Bartlett and Offerman). I feel like anytime you are pivoting in a television show, or whatever format you are adapting something into, you have to give people something new, but it still has to play on the level that someone that’s like my mom for example, that doesn’t know anything about the game, will understand and get something from the story. As a fan, I’m going to love it because I had so many questions about those characters or that place.
The Contending: The history of video game adaptations is littered with failure. The non-gaming audience didn’t realize that the source material was already quite deep in storytelling. That may have made it easier than adapting Mortal Kombat and turning it into something more than just kicking and punching. There’s real depth in The Last of Us game, and there’s sincerity in the adaptation. However, they still almost always go wrong. This did not. Did you have any trepidations when you heard that they were going to make a show about one of your favorite video games?
Kate Herron: Oh gosh. Look, I love Chernobyl, and I knew Craig was attached, so I thought it could not be bad because he’s doing it. Also, I knew Neil (Druckmann), who made the game, was involved. If the people who made the game are completely closed out of the conversation, and it’s a brilliant game, my first question is usually ‘why?’ Here, that wasn’t the case. It’s so clear in Season one that Craig is a genuine fan of the game like I am, and I think that it was always important to us that it worked for new audiences, but at the same time, people who love the source material would also really enjoy the show. There’s a sense of weight to it. In my episode, I had “Take on Me,” I had Jeffrey Wright, and I had the subway sequence, which is different from the game. That’s why it was essential to capture the subway sequence in a way that conveyed how the game made me feel. I’ve done a few adaptations, and when I think about adapting source material–I’m working on The Sims movie at the moment, I think, how do I best capture experience, and how did this make me feel? And I think that The Last of Us TV show Season one did that so brilliantly, and for Season two, I’m very proud of the work we got to do, and hopefully deliver that experience to audiences.
