Editor’s note: The below interview contains spoilers for The Last of Us Season 2 finale.
The Last of Us Season 2 has finally concluded, and with it comes the devastating realization that in this ongoing cycle of violence and revenge between two young women, neither is going to be able to prevent innocent people from being caught in the crossfire. When Joel (Pedro Pascal) shot up the Fireflies’ hospital in the Season 1 finale, neither he nor we knew at the time that one of the people he killed was Abby’s (Kaitlyn Dever) father — until she and her crew, consisting of former Fireflies, tracked him down to Jackson and confronted him with the truth, before killing him as a helpless Ellie (Bella Ramsey) looked on.
In the wake of Joel’s death, Ellie has sought to claim her vengeance by any means necessary by tracking Abby and her crew to Seattle, but how far is too far? After leaving Nora (Tati Gabrielle) to succumb to an excruciating fate worse than death in a spores-filled room, she’s still clearly seeing red — enough that Ellie splits up from Jesse (Young Mazino) so she can track Abby to where she thinks the other woman is hiding out. Instead, she finds Owen (Spencer Lord) and Mel (Ariela Barer), and in the chaos that ensues, Owen is shot and Mel is inadvertently grazed by a bullet. As she starts to bleed out, she reveals she’s pregnant, and Ellie has to reckon with the full horror of her actions as Mel tries to instruct Ellie to save her baby via C-section — but Ellie can’t bring herself to make a single cut before Mel dies. Even the shock of what she’s done leads to more violence, especially once Abby finds Ellie and the others in their theater hideout, leading to yet more victims in the process.
Ahead of the finale, Collider had the opportunity to speak with Barer about her time on The Last of Us Season 2, including her character’s biggest moments. Over the course of the interview, which you can read below, Barer discusses her familiarity with the game the show is based on, which helpful character notes co-creator Craig Mazin gave her to inform her performance, and why Mel’s role as a doctor conflicts with Abby’s bloody revenge mission. She also reveals the secret behind Mel’s surprising, unscripted emotion during Joel’s death, why Mel and Ellie’s finale confrontation was changed from the version in the game, why she’s excited for Mel and Abby’s contentious relationship to be expanded on in Season 3, and more.
COLLIDER: How familiar were you with the story of The Last of Us before being cast in the show? Had you played the games at all, or were you coming into it with only a little knowledge?
ARIELA BARER: Going into the audition, I had played a bit of the first game. I don’t have a PS5 or any console to play, so I played in lockdown with a friend who was really, really into it. So, I kind of knew the game through him. I played a bit, and I was so endeared by Ellie and Joel, and the story. The focus on humanity and the end times always gets me; I have a weak spot for it.
I loved the first game, but I hadn’t played the second game. But just being online, I knew of its existence, and I knew the twists, I knew the discourse. I thought it was so interesting, but I never played it myself. I’d watched the first season of the show by the time I went into the audition, and Craig (Mazin) explicitly said, “Do not play the game.” He wanted Mel specifically to be quite different than she is in the game, so he was like, “Don’t worry about it. Don’t play it.” But now the curiosity is really getting the best of me, so I’ve told him, “I’m likely going to play.” He’s aware. No trust was betrayed. We’re on good terms about this.
For the entirety of Season 2, we’re only really seeing events through Ellie’s perspective. When it comes to filling in those gaps, is that the sort of thing where you’re going to Craig and asking, “What’s helpful for me to know, backstory-wise, to establish my character?”
BARER: I was talking a lot, asking him questions. A lot of stuff for Mel is different, which is going to be explored later. But, yeah, we very much had a moment — and this is part of why I have to play the game now. We shot this scene for Episode 7 twice. We went back to it for a reshoot. The first time, it was, obviously, one of the most challenging scenes I’ve ever seen in my life, but performance-wise, they were very different.
The first one, I was very confused. I had done so much research on what was going on at this point in the game about this war, about where our characters are, and the stakes were really specific for me. Then, the second time around, Craig made some comment about what would be happening, and I was like, “I’m so sorry. What are you talking about?” I was like, “I thought it was this, this, this.” He was like, “No! Oh, no, no, no,” and he explained the timeline a little better. I’d gotten it confused. Turns out that fan Wikipedia pages are not the most reliable source of information for what is going on, and that made the performance much easier the second time around, because the stakes made so much more sense.
Ariela Barer Actually Had the Best Time Shooting ‘The Last of Us’ Most Difficult Episode
Did you get some time to develop a connection with the rest of the Fireflies crew? Knowing how the conditions were for filming Episode 2, with all that snow, I imagine that was probably part of a nice bonding experience for everybody.
BARER: Yeah. It’s so weird to say, because that episode is so dark, but it was the best time ever shooting that. Watching it, obviously, I had an emotional experience, but I was also laughing because I’d remember jokes that we would make that day. Everyone was having such a good time on set, Pedro (Pascal), specifically, and Kaitlyn (Dever) were really good at keeping things light. That really allowed for more emotional access when you do dive in, because you just feel so safe and comfortable with everyone.
As for before shooting, we actually shot Episode 2 first. We shot Episode 1 much later because of the weather. So, we dove straight into all of that. I remember day one, we were doing a hair and makeup test, and I went downstairs, and I saw Tati Gabrielle, and I just knew. No one had told me who was playing who, but I was like, “That is Nora. That’s such a beautiful woman. Look at her.” And I kind of accosted her in the lobby of this hotel at six in the morning, and she was so kind. We just talked for hours on our way up to this mountain to do our hair and makeup test, and immediately bonded. We met Spencer (Lord) there, and I immediately bonded with Spencer. Craig put together a dinner so we could all finally meet. That was with Danny (Ramirez), Isabela (Merced), Bella (Ramsey), and (director) Mark Mylod, as well. Kaitlyn couldn’t make it because she was out of town, and I think Pedro won the SAG Award that night, so he was not there either. But yeah, we just all stayed out until, like, four in the morning, just hanging out.
One thing that stands out about Mel to me initially is how she asserts herself through her medical expertise, immediately going to help Dina. Did you ever think about how her role as a doctor and that “do no harm” mentality are in conflict with Abby’s revenge mission? How do you think she’s trying to weigh all that in her head? What Joel did in the hospital was pretty personal for all of them.
BARER: Totally. This is what I talk to Craig most about is holding these difficult, conflicting truths at once for Mel. I think this mission is something she sort of vaguely agreed to when she was 19 years old, in a moment of pain and in a moment of peer pressure, also. If you look at that scene, she’s not really enthusiastically nodding a lot. She’s seeing her friends in pain and seeing all the loss she’s witnessed, and going, “Yeah, I understand how this would be the sensible next thing to do to keep order in the world.” But she grows up — it’s like, what, five years later, when we pick it up — and they’re on this mission, and she’s moved on. She’s grieved in a healthy way. She’s found a new life where she can be helpful and do her life’s mission of helping and saving people. Ultimately, she doesn’t want to do any harm. She exists in this wartime that is so complicated and difficult for her. To seek out this revenge mission is so painful, but she does still love her friends.
We’ll get to explore more of that conflict between Abby and Mel. In the show, it’s much more personal and around their morals and their conflicting ideas about the world than it is. The game, I think, was more love-triangle-based, and on the show, it’s going to be much more personal for these two women to just hate each other, and I think that’s feminism. Feminism is that women can hate each other for their personalities. (Laughs)
Ariela Barer Reveals the Secret Emotions Behind Mel’s Tears in ‘The Last of Us’ Season 2
The one moment in that scene that still stands out to me is when Abby’s beating Joel, and there’s that cut to you where you’re sitting there, crying. Craig has mentioned that that was not scripted. What’s your recollection of filming that scene, and what do you remember feeling in the moment itself?
BARER: I think that was day five of shooting that sequence. We’d been shooting it 10 hours a day for five days at that point. It was both, like I said, incredibly fun and bonding, and beautiful to be in community with the actors, and so in it with everyone, but it was also so brutal and horrific. Craig and I had talked about how Mel would have a sort of escalating negative reaction to the events unfolding in front of her, and definitely in the script, there was mention of how Mel was just constantly logging her opposition to what was happening. So, it wasn’t so much that it was not scripted at all that Mel is overwhelmed and upset by this moment, but yeah, definitely in that moment, it was just a cameras-rolling situation. This has been going on for, like, 30 minutes now, and Mel is just at her wits’ end.
Then, Craig and I talked about how Mel knows she’s pregnant at this point, but no one else knows she’s pregnant at this point, and just all of that at once, she just resigned herself to this corner of this room, and she’s completely useless and horrified. Once you sit down and let that overwhelm you, it’s very easy to just surrender to that.
Related
“There’s No Way to Complete This Narrative in a Third Season”: ‘The Last of Us’ Showrunner Reveals How Long He Thinks the Series Will Run
“There are actors that you want to take home, hug them, give them soup, and make them okay,” says Craig Mazin about Pedro Pascal.
Fast-forwarding to the finale, Ellie obviously thinks that she’s finally tracked Abby down to the aquarium, and it looks like when she comes on the scene, she’s just missed her, and finds Mel and Owen instead. What’s going through Mel’s mind when Ellie initially confronts them?
BARER: I think Mel immediately recognized her. I think there’s not a day where she doesn’t see Ellie’s face and Joel’s face. So, it’s horrifying at first. It’s the greatest startle of a person’s life. You’re so remote and underground and have never been found before, and someone has found you, and it’s this girl. I think the second she sees Ellie, it’s like, “Oh, I know exactly who you are, and I know exactly why you’re here, and I deserve it.”
You see it in that moment when Ellie confronts her with, “I can give you a choice, and you can live.” I don’t know if she even believes her, but it’s just that that is the thing that she is going to do. And at this point, Owen is very much still going to find and protect Abby, but Mel’s kind of on her own at this point. She’s been abandoned by Owen, she’s so deep into her feud with Abby, and she’s an expecting mother. She’s like, “I’m going to do whatever I can to save myself and this baby,” and she meets Ellie with compassion and understanding in that moment.
Ariela Barer Breaks Down Her Devastating ‘Last of Us’ Season 2 Finale Moment
What plays out is a pretty big change from the game, too, because in the game, Owen gets shot, and then there’s a struggle between Mel and Ellie, and then it results in Mel getting stabbed. In this, Mel is inadvertently caught in the crossfire. Did Craig explain the change to you in terms of why they wanted to make Mel’s death more of an accident?
BARER: It’s so funny you say that because there were two versions of the scene, and in the first one, there was more of a struggle, specifically between Owen and Ellie. I think at this point, tensions were so high that it had to be faster. When you see human bodies interacting in a space, and you see how people have certain strengths and powers and things like that, it had to just be quicker.
I also think there was no world where TV Mel attacks Ellie, especially while pregnant. Between game Mel and show Mel, she was never going to do that to her. Then, when we reshot it, it was this realization that it had to happen so much quicker for it to escalate the way that it does. It has to be base impulse and pure emotion.
The reveal of Mel being pregnant is somewhat different, too, because in the game, Ellie doesn’t realize she’s pregnant until after Mel is dead. In this, gosh, I was already emotional, and then there’s the moment where Mel is bleeding out, and she begs Ellie to cut her open to save the baby…
BARER: That was the scene that I really could not stop crying in. Craig had to be like, “You’re allowed to have tears, but stop crying. It’s just about saving this baby.” I was like, “How do you do that?”
For you, as the actor, what does a moment like that say to you in terms of the type of person Mel is, that it doesn’t matter that Ellie is this person who has clearly come to get revenge in some form? She’s still thinking of her child, at the very end.
BARER: It’s obviously extremely horrific, but I did find moments of it beautiful, that her immediate impulse is almost forgiveness and almost an apology to Ellie. There were these moments of just holding Bella’s hand where we would really connect. And I remember getting the direction at one point, something about, “Calm her. Calm. It’s going to be okay. You are the one calming her.”
We improvised a lot of different ad-lib-type lines as Mel’s consciousness starts to go. I think there were versions where we said, “I’m sorry.” I think “thank you” is in the final cut, but I’m not entirely sure. I haven’t seen it in a while. There were versions where we said, “I’m sorry,” there were versions where we said “thank you,” there were versions where Mel told her she was doing a really good job. I think it almost makes it worse for Ellie in this moment to see how someone can let go and move on in many ways, to move on from this trauma, from this event, and also just let go of life, to leave peacefully, and just hope that she left something behind that is beautiful and that can live on without her. I think it just makes it all even worse for Ellie to be like, “I could have done that.”
There’s a reset back to Seattle Day One when the episode ends, and we learn we’re going to be seeing that whole journey through Abby’s POV. People from the games know that that means we’re going to get a lot more time with these characters that we haven’t really had this season, Mel included. There are breadcrumbs laid in the finale for what Mel has been up to, obviously, with all that surgical equipment in the aquarium. What are you looking forward to most in terms of Season 3 and that expansion of Mel’s story?
BARER: I’m so excited to keep working with the WLF crew and Jeffrey Wright, who I’ve not worked with yet, but have met. He’s awesome. Genuinely, that group of people have become close friends of mine who I love. Spencer has stayed in my apartment when he visits New York. Tati’s my neighbor; we stayed out all night last night. Kaitlyn and I have known each other since we were 10! I’m so excited to explore these dynamics in a much deeper way, specifically, also, of course, Abby and Mel. But even on set, Tati and I would joke about, “What’s our doctor alliance that we have here?” There are little secrets that Craig has planted that I’m very excited to watch be extended. I won’t elaborate more.
Some new characters that Mel’s going to probably get to interact with that we haven’t met yet?
BARER: Yes. Exactly.
Both seasons of The Last of Us are available to stream on HBO Max.
The Last Of Us
- Release Date
-
January 15, 2023
- Network
-
HBO
- Showrunner
-
Craig Mazin
- Directors
-
Craig Mazin, Peter Hoar, Jeremy Webb, Ali Abbasi, Mark Mylod, Stephen Williams, Jasmila Žbanić, Liza Johnson, Nina Lopez-Corrado
- Writers
-
Neil Druckmann, Craig Mazin