‘The Last of Us’: Gabriel Luna on Tommy’s goodbye to Joel in Episode 3

This article contains spoilers for Episode 3 of Season 2 of “The Last of Us.”

“Give Sarah my love.”

Spoken in a voice inflected with exhaustion and grief, they’re the only words that Tommy, played by the actor Gabriel Luna, is able to muster to Joel (Pedro Pascal), whose lifeless body lies shrouded on a table in a makeshift morgue in Jackson.

As Tommy’s eyes well up and he runs a wet cloth against Joel’s skin, we get a close-up of Joel’s arm and the old, broken military watch on his wrist. It’s a poignant symbol that brings us back to the very beginning of “The Last of Us,” when we meet Joel, Tommy and Sarah. It was Sarah who repaired the watch as a birthday gift to her father, and her sudden death was central to Joel’s grief. And now that grief passes on to Tommy as he says goodbye to his brother.

For this scene that opens Episode 3 of the second season of HBO’s “The Last of Us,” Luna says he tapped into the grief that he’s experienced over the years after losing close family members, including his grandfather in 2013.

“I remember being the only one in that chapel, walking up to my grandfather’s coffin, and that’s what I had in my mind when I was shooting the scene … the young lady gives me the rag to wash [Joel’s] body, and she exits. Now I’m the only one in there,” he says. “But as I’m walking up to Joel’s body, that’s what I was thinking of — my grandpa and being the only one there.”

“I’ve been to a lot of funerals in my life so it felt very familiar,” he adds.

If Episode 2 was the depiction of fire and uncontrollable rage — with Tommy flaming down an unrelenting monster known as a bloater, and Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) torturing and killing Joel — Episode 3 is the opposite. It’s pensive and introspective about what was and what will be, much like Luna in this moment of his career on one of TV’s biggest shows.

After appearing in small indie films and doing stage work, Luna was cast as the lead in the El Rey series “Matador.” Though “Matador” only lasted a season, the actor went on to join ABC’s lauded Marvel series “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” as Robbie Reyes, a.k.a. Ghost Rider. In 2019, he starred in “Terminator: Dark Fate” as Rev-9, where he went head to head with the original cybernetic assassin played by Arnold Schwarzenegger. That led to a role in Netflix’s “FUBAR” with Schwarzenegger once again, and then “The Last of Us.” (Peacock’s “Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy” and Season 2 of Prime Video’s “The Terminal List” are among his upcoming projects.)

Luna and I meet to talk about his role in the postapocalyptic series at Bludso’s BBQ on La Brea Avenue, a favorite restaurant of his for a simple reason: It reminds him of home. Luna was raised in Austin, Texas, and if you’ve ever been, smoked meats are practically a food group there. It’s two days after Episode 2 has aired, and he knows the shockwave it has sent to viewers. But he’s at ease, wearing a sharp outfit of dark Japanese denim and black leather boots that complement the Texas-themed dining room. He speaks softly but passionately about his work and the show as we converse before a meal of brisket, cornbread and an assortment of sides.

Here, in a conversation edited for length and clarity, Luna discusses the aftermath of Joel’s death, how the scene where he says goodbye evolved, and why as a Latino actor it matters that he avoids stereotypical roles.

There’s been a lot of reaction to Episode 2, where we see Tommy hold the fort and Joel die. Have you been following it?

It’s been a tornado of a couple of days. I was at WrestleMania when the episode aired. I left … a little early to catch a flight, and when I landed, my phone was absolutely lighting up like a Christmas tree, just everyone calling and saying, “Oh, that was amazing. Congratulations.” When you read the script, you knew that there was potential there for it to be something extraordinary. Then when you got there on the day — we spent almost two months shooting the second episode with Mark Mylod, our amazing director of [shows like] “Succession” and “Game of Thrones.” And then, of course, Craig Mazin and Neil [Druckmann], the geniuses behind the whole thing.

You start to see it come together. We might actually be doing something that’ll go down in history, not just the big battle sequence, but also just the iconography of that Joel scene at the end. All those things together were gonna make for a seismic reaction, or at least I hoped shooting this a year ago. I’m sitting here two days after that, and it all came to pass. Everybody reacted the way we thought they might, and people are still watching it. I’m sure if I check my phone there will be another dozen texts from folks.

For me, it’s unforgettable. I still think about those moments. Craig Mazin once said, “You know, this is the one that they’re going to remember us for.” I think he was right. And if this is one of the major things I’m remembered for — I couldn’t be more proud.

Gabriel Luna in the second episode of Season 2 of HBO’s “The Last of Us.” “If this is one of the major things I’m remembered for — I couldn’t be more proud,” he says. (Liane Hentscher / HBO)

Did Craig and Neil talk to you about the divergence from the video-game storyline for your character? [In the game, Tommy is with Joel when he’s killed.]

Towards the end of the first season, I told them, “You know, it always rubbed me the wrong way that Tommy was knocked out, completely incapacitated during Joel’s murder. Is there a possibility that we shift things around?” Craig’s like, “You know what? I got an idea.”

Right before the strike in 2023, Craig sends me a big, long text, explaining how it all is going to go down, how Tommy is replaced with Dina at the scene of Joel’s murder, and is now in Jackson with his wife, Maria. The entire town is trying to survive this onslaught and originally, in the text, there’s like two or three bloaters. We shot it as if we were being attacked by two or three. We had to shave a lot of it down. I just got goosebumps reading it. My heart was beating just reading this text.

The fact that this change was made based off of input from me and talking to Craig and everybody else — maybe they had designs of doing that before, but I just love them so much for being so open to the possibilities.

I feel that closeness shows. On the press tour, you guys seem to really get along.

To love the people you work with, that’s an incredible blessing. There’s real love there, even among the people who are onscreen nemeses, mortal enemies.

Have you talked to Pedro or anyone else in the cast since?

Craig has a text thread called “The Crazy of Us,” and so we’re all just talking to each other. It’s exciting now for the second episode, but we got a lot more to come, we’re just getting started. But we thought we’d give them a nice little shock to the heart right at the beginning.

“It’s exciting now for the second episode, but we got a lot more to come, we’re just getting started,” Gabriel Luna says.

(JSquared Photography / For The Times)

In Episode 3, you’re one of the first characters we see. What was going through your mind when you were filming?

We talked about my grandfather earlier in this interview. I remember when he passed away. Peter Hoar was the director for [this episode], and he did the Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett episode [“Long, Long Time”] last season. I just breathed and let it happen.

Pedro was not actually there, it was the body double. They asked me,”Would you like to have him in full makeup?” “I would. Just to see all the damage, right?” And they put him in full makeup, his eyes swollen and bloody, so when I lift the shroud, I could see and have a physical reaction.

I will say one more thing regarding that. We had a lot of dialogue there that I’m glad they cut. Because all you really need to say is, “Give Sarah my love.”

Was that in the script?

That was in the script. There was a whole other bit in the script [about Ellie]. She’s OK, she’s hurt bad, but she’s going to be all right. And me promising to take care of her. Which didn’t need to be said because I’m the only thing she has left.

But from this point, it’s now Bella [Ramsey] and Kaitlyn’s dance. Me, in a supporting capacity, a little bit more central moving forward, but … these are the characters that start moving the story forward. It was also this interesting double meaning, as I was saying these words, it’s not only will I take care of Ellie, but we will take care of the show moving forward.

Rutina Wesley, who plays Tommy’s wife Maria, with Gabriel Luna in “The Last of Us.”

(Liane Hentscher / HBO)

This episode also shows the contrast between Tommy and Joel. You’re married, you have a kid, you’re the town leader. You’re trying to decide, do we go avenge him?

I love how much more torn Tommy has to be to make the choices he’s about to make. My responsibilities to my wife [Maria, played by Rutina Wesley], to my son, to this city, end up superseding my desire to go and help with my brother. You can see this different side of Tommy that you don’t see in the game, where he is a little bit more untethered, impulsive.

I got to have this really wonderful scene with Catherine O’Hara [who plays Gail, a psychotherapist] about what it means to inherit her [Ellie]. To have to understand what she’s going through and to love her, but also love my brother, but also, when does it stop? Could we choose right now to turn the other cheek [and] save a lot of people’s futures and a lot of people’s heartache? Sometimes you can’t. That’s the whole lesson of the story. It’s about forgiveness. But how much will you suffer along the way, until you learn that lesson?

Why do you think people connect with the series so much? There are some parallels to the real world, like the pandemic. There’s a lot of division in our country.

I think that those are great entry points for people. The diversity of the cast, not only in the show, but also in the game, gives people access points as well.

Everybody in “The Last of Us” is on the same plane because we’re all fighting this looming threat above us [and] we’re all contending with it in different ways, reaching to love and community, military force, religion — all these various ways of coping. There’s something to the diversity of it all but also to the sameness of everyone and that we’re all in this together. But also I think people like stories [that] put themselves in our boots … how would I deal with limited resources and no longer abide by the laws of man and laws of nature?

“That’s the whole lesson of the story. It’s about forgiveness,” says Gabriel Luna.

(JSquared Photography/For The Times)

As someone who is Latino, do you feel like your upbringing helped shape your career or have a hand in the roles that you’ve chosen?

The pride and the support and the love of a Mexican American family fortified me. The culture enriched my experience. On the other side of that coin, the representation within media and how they look at us was the opposite of that in a lot of ways. So it was something where I carried the culture and I carried my pride in my background … and it was that pride that won’t let me just take whatever they [the industry] wanted to give. You know, I wasn’t going to play a narcotraficante. I wasn’t going to play gangster, and even though I love our language, I wasn’t going to play characters that only have to speak Spanish because of the way we look.

I wanted to be everyone’s hero. I wanted Black, Asian, white, all of those kids to look to me and see them see themselves in me. I said no to a lot of things that were more traditional, which was what the industry was offering and it ended up being a good thing because I was available when the parts that subverted that came along, like Robbie Reyes/Ghost Rider, the “Terminator” film and this one, “The Last of Us.”

You have done quite a bit of genre work. Is it something that interested you?

I’m a child who grew up with all of that in ‘80s culture, comic books, Ninja Turtles, “Batman ‘89,” “Jurassic Park,” all that stuff … the precursors to all the Marvels and the video game adaptations.

Because of my physical ability, I’ve been able to go into these kind of roles that require a lot of action elements, which are a big staple of these genre pictures. I think that’s what I love. I’m lucky. I’m glad that I get to do these types of things that have these great followings and really passionate fans. I’ve always said it’s in good hands. I tried to ease their concerns by letting them know, maybe not directly before we ever committed to the screen, but certainly after the fact that I love this same way you do. And I love “The Last of Us.” I love the Ghost Rider. I love the 40-year history of the Terminator. I don’t want to mess it up just as much as you don’t want me to mess it up. I really hope that people can see that it is in the nurturing hands of somebody who really loves this type of storytelling.