‘The Last of Us’ Star Tati Gabrielle Explains Joel’s Actions, Nora’s Choices, and Why Her Character Refuses To Give In to Ellie

(Editor’s note: The following contains major spoilers for Episode 5 of Season 2 of The Last of Us.)

In episode five of Season 2 of the HBO series The Last of Us, Ellie (Bella Ramsey) came face-to-face with Nora (Tati Gabrielle), the WLF member that held her down while Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) took out her revenge on Joel (Pedro Pascal). While that brought out a range of emotions and revelations, it didn’t actually get Ellie any closer in her hunt for Abby, but it did introduce the concept of the spores being airborne and impossible to avoid when it comes to being infected. Unless you’re immune like Ellie. That realization made everything fall into place for Nora, as she put together the pieces of what Joel did and Ellie’s knowledge of it, strengthening her conviction not to give up Abby.

During this one-on-one interview with Collider, Gabrielle discussed the heartbreaking reaction over the events of episode two, understanding the two sides of Nora as a fighter and a savior, grieving the future they can never have because of Joel’s actions, whether Nora’s apology to Ellie is genuine, the biggest shock over Ellie’s revelation, the only thing Nora regrets about what happened with Joel, and why everything ultimately feels so hopeless. She also talked about how cool it is to embody the character at the center of Intergalactic, Naughty Dog’s next video game release.

Tati Gabrielle Didn’t Mean to Break So Many Hearts With Episode 2 of ‘The Last of Us’

“That’s been really wild.”

Collider: What’s it like to cause so much pain for viewers of a TV show over something that you, yourself, or at least your character, didn’t actually do? How has it been to see the reaction, especially from people that didn’t know what was coming?

TATI GABRIELLE: It’s been hard. It’s just really heartbreaking. I didn’t mean to break so many hearts and cause people so much mental distress. That’s been really wild. For a long time, I always thought in the mindset of the people who have played the games that are watching it. Those people know what’s coming. But of course, there’s a whole set of audience that has never played the games, that is only watching this show and has fallen in love with Joel and has fallen in love with the relationship between Joel and Ellie. The way that Craig (Mazin) and Neil (Druckmann) have set up this story, they make you connect with these characters and feel for them and love them in such a more devout way than all the characters that we see through shows and things. You’re very much likened to their experience, so it cuts so deep and it really rips your heart out when you see Joel go and how he goes. For most heroic characters, you see them go in a heroic way. There’s no heroism in how he goes. It is just purely brutal. I’m happy that people have not come at me personally angry. It’s purely directed at these characters, so that’s good. I’m like, “It’s not my fault. I’m so sorry. I was just part of it.” It’s been a wild journey, seeing the reactions.

You’re playing someone that the audience views as one of the bad guys because she’s an outsider coming in and she’s coming in to hurt who we know as one of the heroes of the story. With Abby especially, but also with Nora, beyond the vengeance and revenge, I could really sense a grief and a pain in them that felt like it not only bonded them together but justified how they viewed their actions. How did you approach understanding her? Were you able to reconcile that for yourself?

GABRIELLE: Yeah. It’s very hard for me to get into characters if I don’t understand them. I don’t have to agree, but I need to understand. Particularly for Nora, I very much had to empathize with her, in her experience through this. For Abby, there was this strong sense of revenge, but Nora toes the line in the middle of what’s right and what’s wrong, and her sense of justice is a bit skewed. It’s loyalty to her friend. It’s loyalty to Abby’s dad, who was an important figure in Nora’s life, as a mentor. Nora is both a doctor and a soldier. She’s both a savior and a fighter. It’s not as simple as, “You took something from me, so I’m going to take something from you.” It’s, “You failed us all. You doomed the world, and therefore, you shouldn’t be here anymore because you’ve taken more than just a life. Yes, we lose a lot of lives in this world. People get taken by infected and all kinds of things all the time. But what Joel did was so much bigger than what we even deal with on a day-to-day basis. What Joel did took our future away.”

With them being as young as they are – I see them being in their late teens, maybe early twenties – when I was that age, my sense of justice was very strong. I felt like the world owed me something because I was young. What future do we have if not the youth? I think that Nora felt this sense of, “You took away whatever happiness I could have had, and that any of us could have had.” It went further than just revenge and just grieving Abby’s dad. It was grieving the future that they will no longer see and that there’s no path toward. That’s how I felt with and connected to Nora. I was like, “I’m sorry that you couldn’t see any brighter future than you have right now,” and wanted to just give her any sense of honor, credence, or justice towards that.

Tati Gabrielle Believes Nora’s Apology to Ellie Is Genuine

“Nobody should ever have to see anything like that.”

That makes the exchanges that Nora and Ellie have so interesting. Nora says to her, “I’m sorry you saw it happen. No one should ever see something like that. Sometimes at night, I still hear his screams. It was a terrible thing, the way he died.” How did you interpret that? Was she just fucking with Ellie? Do you think that Nora is actually haunted by what happened? Can both things be true?

GABRIELLE: I think that the apology is genuine, and I wanted to play it that way. Ellie is clearly younger than them, and it is true that nobody should ever have to see anything like that. I do think that it does haunt Nora at night. That moment is a representation of what Nora is experiencing. It is haunting her, and to justify it, she is also trying to tell herself that he got what he deserved. Every night, I think Nora has this cycle of replaying it in her head, watching Abby brutally beat him. But in this world, they can’t afford to let trauma take them down, so they have to make it make sense. I think she does go through this cycle every night of seeing it happen, but then being like, “No, this was meant to happen because we need to have balance. We need to have justice. If there’s no balance in this world, then what do we have? Then, we’re walking blind.” I think the only way in which she was fucking with Ellie was that she was using that moment as a deflection, but I think that moment was honest. In that way, I think that both are true.

The two of you have another really interesting moment together when Nora makes sure Ellie knows exactly what Joel did and that Abby’s father was that doctor, and Ellie tells Nora that she knew. What was it like to shoot that exchange with Bella Ramsey? How was it to share that moment when Ellie turns into this monster that she sees Abby as?

GABRIELLE: It comes as a shock to Nora, for that to be the response. She’s like, “You know? Oh, then we’re just all fucked.” That’s when Nora shuts down and is like, “No!” When Ellie says, “Where’s Abby?,” she’s like, “No, you’re coming at us for the exact thing that you despised us doing.” In that moment, Nora is like, “No, I’m not going to give up my friend. No.” It’s trying to reclaim the balance. She’s like, “No, now you have to live with this. If you want to do this to me, then do this to me. But for you to know and not have any consideration or empathy for the rest of the world for what he did, and you’re just trying to exact this plan because you’re angry, the same way Abby was angry, then we will balance the scales yet again, and I will die right here. I’m giving you nothing and hoping that you don’t get to finish whatever fucking plan that you have to go on right now.”

For Nora, she thinks that what they did made sense, and what Ellie is doing now doesn’t make sense. What Ellie is doing now is purely for revenge. For Abby, it might have been just revenge, but Nora justified it in the terms of what she says to Ellie. She’s like, “He doomed us all, so he had to be taken out. But you don’t have justice. You don’t have proper resolve. You’re just an angry kid, and that’s not fair. Why would I help you? Why would I aid that?” It was awesome, shooting with Bella in that way. Bella is naturally so sweet and so kind-hearted, so seeing that resolve in Bella’s eyes really impacted me. It help me push for Nora, needing to get through to her and thinking that she’s not understanding, but she’s just closed herself because she thinks that what she’s doing is right, That taught Nora, in this final moment, “Well, I guess we’re all here, just wiling.” That’s also what he did has done. He gave us no sense of hope. We all just think that we have to be right because we don’t have a path forward. And so the cycle goes.

Nora Is Convinced That What Happened to Joel Was Necessary and Justified

“That’s all that she will take with her.”

Nora is the one who held Ellie while Abby killed Joel and is essentially the one that also let her go. Do you think she has any regret over doing that?

GABRIELLE: I think the only thing she felt guilty about was what she said about Ellie having to be there to watch it. I don’t think that she regrets anything, or that she would go back and do it differently. I think that Nora has too much conviction to want to die like that, meaning to die with questions. Nora is the type of person who’s like, “No, you don’t always get to die with honor in this world.” If the only honor that she’s able to have is by having her actions be justified, then that’s all that she will take with her. All that was going through her mind in that moment, especially being beaten by Ellie, is that this is what’s necessary.

If you’re going to have a moment like that in a show, that’s certainly a memorable one to have.

GABRIELLE: For Nora, she’s so confused and baffled by Ellie’s answer of, “I know,” that she’s just like, “Well, fuck, we’re absolutely hopeless. You know what? I’m good with dying right here, with having this happen.” Nora is almost suicidal when she’s like, “You know what? Then, there’s no reason to be here anymore, clearly. We’re fucked, royally.”

Tati Gabrielle Is Living Out Her Video Game Dreams With Naughty Dog’s Upcoming ‘Intergalactic’

“To see some of the really cool things that they’re doing with this game blows my mind.”

How does it feel to go from playing video games and being a fan of video games to having your own video game? What does it feel like to be the embodiment and the face of a video game, and why do you think Intergalactic is the perfect one for you?

GABRIELLE: It’s wild. The little kid in me is going crazy right now. You have no idea. Ten-year-old Tati is like, “This can happen? This happened?” I think Intergalactic is perfect for me because it’s very faith-based. I’m a very spiritual person. I look at life through a very spiritual lens. I often ask myself the question, what do I have faith in? Where has my lack of faith failed myself and therefore failed those around me, and vice versa? That’s one of the biggest questions for me in my life. So, to then be able to play it in a game and give audience members or gamers that experience as well and hopefully allow them to ask themselves similar questions of, where is your faith, not in a religious sense, but in a sense of hope and to ask them, what do you believe in and do you even believe in yourself, is a very poignant journey and poignant questions that we all need to ask ourselves. With doing this game, it serves both the little kid in me of being able to do a game, but also the adult me, asking important questions that I’m still continuing to answer for myself. And I just love the sci-fi world as well. To already see some of the really cool things that they’re doing with this game blows my mind even more. I always thought that I was an alien. Until I was 12, I was very convicted in that thought. I was like, “I did not come from here.” So, to be able to live that dream out in a very different way is really cool.

The Last of Us airs on HBO and is available to stream on Max. Check out the trailer for Episode 5 of Season 2: