HBO’sThe Last of Ushas finally arrived after a lengthy production, and series starGabriel Lunais reflected on when he first joined the project. In the series, based on the hit video game of the same name, Luna plays Tommy, the brother of Pedro Pascal’s Joel Miller. Both characters were included in the original video game, as was Bella Ramsey’s Ellie, one of the series leads alongside Pascal.
In a interview (viaComicBook.com), Luna spoke about how he had some familiarity with the character after briefly playing the game several years ago. The actor went on to explain how he was informed thatThe Last of Usseries creators Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin wanted him for the role of Tommy a while later, something he couldn’t have predicted when he originally tried out the video game.
“Well, what I knew of Tommy at the onset was about 30 minutes of gameplay that I had back in 2013 when I was visiting Austin for Christmas. I was having a jam session with a bunch of my buddies and we were in between playing guitar, set it down, go sit on the couch. I rifled through all of his games and he hadThe Last of Us. I threw that in and it was surprising to me that the whole first 30 minutes of the game took place in Austin. I thought that that was really, really cool. I played it. Then, never did play it again until 10 years later when I was, I guess, back in ‘21 when we were gearing up to do the show. I was told that [Craig] Mazin and Neil [Druckmann] thought of me for the role and thought I might be good, I might fit as Pedro’s brother, and that there was some interest there.”
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Gabriel Luna Did His Homework
When he knew that he was in consideration to join HBO’s big-budget series adaptation of the popular video game, Luna immediately started his preparations to play Tommy. Ahead of meeting with the show’s creators, he revisited the game, playingThe Last of Usto take in everything he could about the character. The actor also says that playing the game as preparation for the series had only made him that much more ready.
“I bought the game and started playing immediately, because I didn’t want to take a meeting with Mazin and not know what they were talking about. […] Once I got there and talked to Neil, talked to Craig, and of course, I didn’t want to take a meeting with Neil and just not really know anything about it, which apparently wasn’t cause for concern or a reason to worry because they were telling everyone else not to play. I was happy to be on my own littleLast of Usboat for two and a half months and discovering the characters, discovering who Tommy was, realizing how many similarities there were. All it did was build my anticipation for day one, just to finally get the chance to step into those boots.”
The season premiere ofThe Last of Uscan be streamed on HBO Max. New episodes will debut on HBO and HBO Max on Sundays. The series stars Pedro Pascal, Bella Ramsey, Gabriel Luna, Anna Torv, Nico Parker, Merle Dandridge, Nick Offerman, and Melanie Lysnkey.
