NEIL: The high level concept was always like, can we get you to feel hate and maybe even betrayed by this character. Um, and then can we bring you back from that, that's the challenge. You know, with the first game, the mantra was always like, if you don't love Ellie, like she's part of your family, this game fails. And with this game, the mantra has always been, if people don't like Abby, people don't get Abby, this game fails. It doesn't, it won't work for them.
[ABBY: Dad?
JERRY: It’s her. Let’s go.
ABBY: That doesn’t sound good.
JERRY: No. She’s in pain.
JERRY: Oh shit. Abs…
ABBY: What?
ABBY: Oh God…
JERRY: We’ve gotta cut her loose.
JERRY: It’s okay, calm down. Don’t worry. I’m not gonna hurt you.
JERRY: I’m gonna hold her.
ABBY: Okay.
JERRY: Calm down, calm down. Calm down.
OWEN: Doc! Doc, are you around here!?
JERRY: Over here, Owen!
ABBY: Okay, done!
OWEN: Holy fuck…
OWEN: We did good back there… Doc. That girl showed up.
JERRY: What girl?
OWEN: The one Marlene keeps talking about. They found her in the tunnels. She has an old bite mark on her arm, no signs of infection.
JERRY: That can’t be.]
CHRISTIAN: Welcome back to the Official The Last of Us Podcast; I’m Christian Spicer. Last episode we covered Ellie’s three days in Seattle and her hunt for the members of the WLF. Today, we’ll be discussing the game’s other protagonist. If you don’t want to know anything about this other protagonist, if you’ve been avoiding all spoilers, stop now. Otherwise come with us as we discuss Abby, performed beautifully by the incredible Laura Bailey. So yeah, there are going to be spoilers, so if you haven’t finished the game yet, listen at your own risk.
NEIL: The earliest pitch for the game actually was you played for, with Abby for a long time. And in fact she joined Jackson. That's the earliest iteration of the game. It was going to be open-world and there would have been several hubs. Um, so the first one is like, you play as a character that joins Jackson Abby, and you don't know who she is or what her past is and she likes it, it's taken under Joel's wing. Um, and you can tell these two characters have an affinity for one another where like Joel and Ellie had a falling out and then you would keep playing and playing for hours until you reach this climactic moment where like all of a sudden the character you've been playing betrays Joel and kills them in this horrible way. And the idea was again, to play with the empathy you felt with the character and you think you understand this character and then reveal no, you don't. This character had an ulterior motive this whole time. The reason we didn't do that or one of the main reasons is that Joel dying is the inciting incident and you're trying to, in a story, you're trying to get to the inciting incident as fast as you can because that sets the whole story. So it just felt like that would have really slowed things down and you'd be like, what is happening? Where is this going? And fought a little bit against, this might sound weird, it made it too easy for us. Um, if we built too much empathy for Abby in the beginning, then we're not going on the journey. The vision of what this game is, what we set out to do, which is make you feel this intense hatred where like we want people to say, I want to torture Abby. I want this eye for an eye as far as we can get them. That's why that Joel death is as intense as it is. We want to get you all the way there and then see how much we can bring you back.
LAURA: Oh, hi. I'm Laura Bailey and I play Abby in The Last of Us Part II. I had done some, some like small parts in [The Last of Us]. Um, and then I did a little bit more, I ended up doing a bit more voice work for uh, Left Behind the DLC. And I worked with Neil on that. And, he doesn't remember this conversation. I've had this talk with him before. He doesn't remember that he told me this, but, uh, at the wrap party for Left Behind, he sat me down at a table and he was like, so are you ready to come on board for Part II? And I was like, Oh my God, yes. Are you kidding me? This game is everything. And uh, and he's like, I have this role that I think you'd be, you'd be great at. Her name's Abby. And uh, didn't tell me much more about it. And then I didn't hear anything until the auditions came up. And I went in and I auditioned for Abby even though he had told me that he thought I would be good for it. And I, I was nervous as, I mean, I was so nervous cause you know, it's with Ashley and it's with Troy and it was killing me.
CHRISTIAN: So let's zoom all the way back to you as a human being, right?
LAURA: Oh hi, I’m Laura Bailey!
CHRISTIAN: And we don't know tragedy at all as real people. So this will be fun. Um, but you as a Laura seeing, knowing this character and keeping this secret and also, Oh God, what was it? 2016, 2017 the E3 trailer that was like all you, but mum was the word about who you were, what you were--
LAURA: Right?
CHRISTIAN: What it meant. And I imagine everyone had to be asking all of those things. I'm sure I was one of those people. It's just like, who is this? What is happening?
LAURA: Who’s this buff chick?
CHRISTIAN: And I'm curious what that was like to, to be a part of this thing that you were a fan of and a big part of and to now be carrying this secret for four years. What was that experience like--
LAURA: It’s so painful.
CHRISTIAN: --and how did you kind of process it?
LAURA: It's so hard.
CHRISTIAN: Yeah this is our moment of levity!
LAURA: Yeah. Right. No, I mean if anything, it's just, it's just torturous for my, my ego. Uh, just cause you work so hard on something for so long and you just want to be able to share it. You just want to be able to, um, you know, get it out there and, and you can't. Even like, it's, although it has been really fun to see online, like everybody thinking they know who Abby is, thinking--
CHRISTIAN: Dude.
LAURA: So many people thought she was Ellie's mom. Like everybody thought she was Ellie’s mom. Yeah, so that was fun to see everybody get it wrong. You know, I would never want to play a role that just, you know, is everything that you'd expect it to be. Um, yeah, you always want to bring something more to it. And uh, I feel like if, if at the end of the game, if you're not left conflicted, um, then I didn't do, I didn't do my job.
CHRISTIAN: Yeah. I mean I still have a lot of words I could say to you right now, but yeah conflicted
LAURA: Conflicted, that's a good one.
[YARA: Mel's wrong. You’re a good person.
ABBY: You don’t know me.
YARA: I know enough.]
HALLEY: It's an incredible writing challenge to get to say, Hey, we're going to take this character and we're going to completely, you know, fuck ourselves in terms of empathy and, and uh, viewer sympathy. And then, and then climb our way back toward it. Like, that's exciting. And then to do it in ways that feel morally gray, right? Like, Abby, she's deeply flawed. She didn't get closure from, uh, killing Joel. She's on the outs with most of her pals. There have been,
there have been huge consequences, right? To this hunt, to this murder, to this lack of closure. And we wanted to honor that right there, that all of, all of this violence has consequences. So then we were doubly stacking ourselves, cause you already don't like this character and we want to be honest about the fact that like, yeah, most of her friends aren't huge fans of her either right now, and um, she's a little bit stubborn and doesn't really want to atone or, or you know, kind of, she just wants to go back to daily life.
[ABBY: Joel Miller
JOEL: Who are you?
ABBY: Guess.
JOEL: Why don’t you say whatever speech you got rehearsed, and get this over with.]
CHRISTIAN: Do you think there's anything that Joel and Tommy could have done that would have stopped Abby in that moment from killing Joel?
LAURA: No.
CHRISTIAN: Do you think the fact that Joel and Tommy saved her life kind of wrecked Abby in a way that she otherwise maybe wouldn't have been if her plan air quote went according to plan and let's say she, they infiltrated the base as she describes to Owen or they capture somebody. They find out where Joel is. She sneaks in, in the middle of the night and kills him. Does Abby have a happy ending then if it wasn't for the way she encountered Joel? Or was Abby's path always tragic and in some regards?
LAURA: Um, I think even if things had gone off without a hitch and, you know, she hadn't had a positive interaction with Joel or Tommy ever, um, I think she still would've come to the realization that she wasn't...fulfilled afterwards. I don't think any...I don't think you can feel, you know, at peace ever once you've, you've dealt with that kind of a tragedy.
[JERRY: It’s intertwined with the brain, there’s no other option.
MARLENE: There has to be some other way.
JERRY: There’s no way to remove the specimen without destroying the host.
MARLENE: The host? She’s a child, not some petri dish.
JERRY: You think I don’t-- (sighs) I’m aware of the situation.
MARLENE: And you’re okay with killing her?
JERRY: No, I’m okay with developing a vaccine that’ll help save millions of lives … (scoffs) Look. Everything that we’ve been fighting for, all the sacrifices, all of the horrific-- (sighs) all of that is justified with this one act.]
CHRISTIAN: I loved seeing Marlene again and I feel like it was so wonderful, both the performances of the characters in the game and I imagine it on set as well. But seeing Marlene become this multidimensional character in a way that maybe she wasn't in Part I and seeing her struggle and um, that moment of, of what to do. Cause I feel like that made a gray game even grayer? And seeing Marlene struggle with it. I'm curious if you could talk about the importance of going back to that hospital and going back to that moment so many times and seeing it play out and not just talking around it but letting us see it as well.
NEIL: Again, talking about story iteration, initially Abby was a survivor from this caravan of people that were traveling across the country. Like that was gonna, that was the original opening for this pitch. And this caravan comes under attack and everyone is murdered by these two marauders. And then you were playing this little girl and she goes and she hides in the snow and she watches like her family getting killed. And then you see it's Joel and Tommy. And that felt interesting, right, Joel? And Tommy had this past and here we could show it off. Um, but again, speaking to the theme of like the cycle of violence, once the idea came to be like what if it was someone related to the doctor in the first game. The doctor that everyone had finished, the first game had to kill. Everyone is finished. The first game is complicit in that act. I know the game forces you to do it to finish it, but you still went ahead and did it.
CHRISTIAN: I didn't know it forced me.
NEIL: Some people just go in guns blazing.
CHRISTIAN: I was hot, I was coming in hot.
NEIL: Um, so then to say, okay, we're going to take this character that was, I don't think we gave him a name in the first game and flesh them out and to say, okay, for this doctor that was going to operate on this girl, um, you know, doctors take this, this vow of like being ethical and, and here's someone that's going to break that to try to save millions of people and their mind, well, how do we flush them out? Again, we were trying to show the other side of the conflict. So how do we show, well, first of all, it shows his relationship with Abby. Let's show that, you know, he cares for this animal that he's been tracking. He doesn't follow the rules. All of a sudden he becomes a more fleshed out and interesting character. And then there was a little bit of a, again, I forget the exact wording as a recording from Marlene and the first game where she says
[MARLENE: I just finished arguing, more like yelling at our head surgeon. Apparently there’s no way to extricate the parasite without eliminating the host. Fancy way of saying you gotta kill the fucking kid.
And she felt like they were just like, um, out of respect. They brought it up to her, but it really, it was like a non choice. I was like, I kept thinking about that conversation. What would that conversation be like? Um, so then it felt, well, we're going back there. Let's see that conversation. Let's now's our chance to, um, get into it and show Marlene and just show that everybody's struggled with this choice. It wasn't like the doctor was like, well, fuck this 14-year-old girl. I don't, I don't care. Let's just kill her. It's like, no, he really struggled with it. And Marlene presents them with the question The hardest question is like, what
MARLENE: if this was your daughter?]
What if it was Abby?
MARLENE: What would you do?]
And he doesn't answer it. Then Abby kind of saves him from having to answer it by walking it. Um, but you see like even to the end when Abby says like, I would want you to do it if it were me. Um, he doesn't say yes or no. Um, so anyway, that's the recent to go back to that, then bring Marlene back into it.
[JERRY: Abby.
ABBY: I brought you some dinner.
JERRY: Thank you, sweetheart.
JERRY: Look, Marlene--
MARLENE: (exhales) Do it.
JERRY: ...Thank you.
MARLENE: I’m gonna go tell Joel.
JERRY: Why?
MARLENE: He traveled across the country with her. He has a right to know. Good luck with your surgery.
JERRY: (sighs)
ABBY: You’re doing the right thing.
JERRY: (scoffs) ...Yeah.
ABBY: ...If it was me, I’d want you to do the surgery.]
CHRISTIAN: And to me it just hit to like a thing that I knew happened. But seeing Marlene say she's going to go tell Joel, and it's just like you talk about, you know, knowing the story. And that's a moment where, you know, if you've played the first game, you know the story, but still seeing it, it's just such a, a moment of just, I don't know if it's sympathy or empathy exactly, but just this longing of like, yeah, that's the right thing to do. But damn. If only you knew,
NEIL: If only you were like colder, right. If only you were more sinister, you would just go put a bullet in the back of his head and you'd be done. But it's, yes, it's kind of like that idea of like no good deed goes unpunished in this world.
CHRISTIAN: And I'd love to get your take on, kind of what each faction maybe represents in the world or in the themes of the game.
HALLEY: Sure. Well, I think both are trying to do a similar thing just from different camps, right? So the Seraphites or the Scars are talking about religious extremism and how, you know, um, the backstory with the Seraphites is that they had a prophet, a woman who saved a bunch of people during the outbreak, and then, um, and had these sort of very beautiful teachings and then the, the group underneath her became more extreme, more radical, um, more violent, and kind of... Lev would say, took her teachings in a direction that she had not originally intended, right? So by the time Ellie arrives in Seattle, they are very well entrenched in this world. They believe that Seattle has been ordained to them and they represent this theme that we've got going on about the cycle of violence and this escalation. Right? So as you get to learn their conflict with the WLF, who's responsible, whose fault is whose is completely lost, um, lost to history, and it's just, well you wronged me, well you wronged me, well you wronged me. Um, and the WLF, the Wolves as well, represent the same side, but on a more like, civil-military angle, where, you know, originally they were civilians and ex-Fireflies going up against a corrupt government that was taking care of Seattle. And then, in their own way, became much more aggressive, ultimately, um, not being able to make peace with the Scars. And so really with this, we want to have this macro version of what happens when you don't stop. You know, what happens when you don't put the knife down? It's just this continued escalation toward destruction and everybody loses, right? And you can't even remember why you did it, but the, the, the ego is so driving these characters, the sense of what they're entitled to and how they've been wronged. Um, and there's really no way out of it.
CHRISTIAN: At what point do you think that in the story, and I might not quite have the right word here, but at what point do you think you earn players liking Abby?
HALLEY: I mean, I think that her, if we’re talking structurally her inciting incident is hooking up with the kids, and then her end of act one sort of heeding the call is collecting the kids and including them and, and bringing them to the aquarium for safety. So in my mind, that is her first truly selfless act in the game. And thus, the first time maybe a lot of players will feel like she deserves consideration. You know, these kids would be dead without her. Um, so there's a little bit of a life for a life there.
CHRISTIAN: I feel like it leads to such a beautifully tragic moment with Abby goes through so much to save Yara. Like it is such a big part of her three days is that visit to the hospital and to potentially ground zero, or at least Seattle ground zero. Was Yara always the focus of those hospital beats and kind of that chunk of Abby's day?
HALLEY: Yeah. Yeah. Going to the hospital was something we had really early on, um, and has stayed pretty consistent throughout. It was very much like, we need time for you to fall in love with this kid because this kid is responsible for so many of these actions inadvertently, largely, but sometimes intentionally you want to understand why he's doing it. You want to care for him. Like again, you know, so much of this game is making judgements based on just bullet points about a person and then coming to understand the larger picture. It's like, okay, this kid ran away from his, uh, extreme, uh, religious background and because he shaved his head and dragged his sister on this destructive path with him, let's, let's get an understanding of how much love and hope and, and naivete is surrounding him.
IAN: I'm Ian Alexander and I play Lev in The Last of Us Part II. You know, this has been a game that I've been working on since I was like 16 years old. So I'm, I'm 19 now it's been three years. I've grown a lot. I know my voice has changed a lot since what you probably heard in the game. And, um, I've just been so grateful to have the opportunity to grow and to like have such a raw, vulnerable, sensitive, but strong character to play. Um, it's just been, it's just been such a learning experience in such a amazing life changing experience.
CHRISTIAN: I'm curious what it was like to play that kind of balancing maybe how a real world young teenager would feel in our world versus, um, Lev growing up in the environment where he has to do the things he needs to do to survive.
IAN: Yeah. I mean, when you think about it, Lev has to grow up super, super fast because of all the trauma that he's dealing with on a day to day basis. And I mean, it's the same with like kids growing up nowadays and like war torn countries, like you just, you, you don't have time to like be a kid when you're like running from, you know, soldiers and trying to protect your own life. So, so there is like a lot of, um, like hardened warrior, warrior-like tendencies to Lev, like you said, bad-ass like he, he's like blood thirsty, you know, sometimes. But also he's still a kid. So there is that like sensitive, innocent, like naive side. I mean he asks Abby a lot of questions cause he's like very curious kid and, um, doesn't know a whole lot about the world cause he was raised pretty sheltered, aside from the fact that, you know, he knows how to kill people.
[ABBY: There are thousands of us. Do you know every Scar?
LEV: Stop calling us Scars.
ABBY: Scars built all this?
LEV: Seraphites
ABBY: Yeah, I was going to say that. It’s pretty cool
LEV: What’s cool?
ABBY: Like impressive. Awesome.
ABBY: Fuck these Scars. Seraphites. Whatever.
LEV: Yeah, fuck ’em.
ABBY: I’ve never heard a Seraphite curse before.
LEV: It was my first time.]
IAN: Um, but you know, I think that, uh, growing up in that kind of environment, I mean Lev, becomes super adaptable, super, um, agile, you know, he, he knows how to take care of himself, how to survive. Um, and I really admire that. I admire that so much in Lev and I, I think when I was 13, I was just kinda like clueless, you know, bumbling around. I don't think I can see, I can compare like my 13 year old self to Lev in any sort of way. Like I think I see more of myself now in Lev than I do, like my teenage self, just because of like how mature and like grown up he is.
CHRISTIAN: And, and I'd love to get your take on kind of what that relationship between Lev and Abby is like and kind of how that evolved over the course of the game.
IAN: Yeah. I think I'm very much in the sense that like Lev and Abby balanced each other out it's, it's kind of reminiscent of Ellie and Joel's relationship, you know of this like hardened grizzly warrior character and then like a more innocent, but still hardy, you know, still bad ass, younger character coming in and kind of changing their perspective on life and like helping them be more hopeful and optimistic. And then on the other side, it's like the older character helps younger character grow up and like, you know, protect themselves better and, you know, see the world in different perspectives. And, um, and I really love that, that growth, that, that, that character arc for both Lev and Abby where they, they overcome their prejudices against each other because you know, their whole lives they've been taught that the other person is the enemy. You know, the WLF soldiers are the enemy, the, you know, the, so they, they fight and bicker and have judgments of each other, you know, like just all these prejudices from a lifetime of hatred. And then they overcome that and become friends. And it's just the most beautiful thing of like people from two completely different walks of life who have completely different experiences can still have similarities enough to fight together and to have each other's backs.
[LEV: We did it! We killed that big demon.
ABBY: Yeah we did. Come on.]
CHRISTIAN: I'd love it if you could talk about Lev's relationship to his faith and maybe what those struggles were and how he came to make the decisions he made.
IAN: Yeah. Um, so the Seraphites are very, uh, restrictive in like the binary, you know, the women have to look a specific way. The men have to look a specific way. Everyone is expected to wear, you know, traditional dress. They have their traditions, their beliefs, and it very much is a, I wouldn't like I wouldn't go as far to say, well, I will go as far to say a religious cult. Um, and that is something that I had experience with growing up in my life, um, in a very conservative, restrictive religion. So I kind of have a similar experience where Lev has to break free of his, you know, restrictive upbringing because of his identity and who he is. He just can't bear to live, um, in a lie anymore. And so even though it puts him at the risk of death and all of his loved ones in a, in a dangerous situation, he just has to be true to himself. And so, um, he, you know, shaves off all of his hair and it actually is a, is a really, really meaningful moment, uh, in the game to me where Abby asks, you know, like, do you want to talk about it?
[LEV: Did you hear what they called me?
ABBY: Yeah.
LEV: Do you want to ask me about it?
ABBY: Do you want me to ask you about it?
LEV: No.
ABBY: Ok.]
And then they just, you know, they don't really talk about it. Um, it is something that is so deeply personal to Lev. He's probably coming to terms with, you know, a crisis of faith, which is something that I went through as well, being like, is everything that I was raised to believe wrong, like now, what does this mean? If you know, the people that I loved and cared about the most are now turned against me because of me just trying to be happy and just, you know, trying to be true to myself. Um, so I think Lev does really struggle with that internally. Um, and eventually comes to a place of realizing that he has to, you know, put himself first and his, his loved ones first. Um, and when he tries to go back for his mother, you know, it, it, it doesn't go well.
[LEV: I just tried talking to her. I thought she could understand. She, she just kept yelling.]
And I think that's kind of the breaking point for him of realizing like, Oh, I can't save everyone that I want to save. So I have to save myself, I have to save the people that are with me.
HALLEY: I think it was very interesting to have, especially with Lev and Yara, characters who grew up in a belief system and grew up in a cloistered belief system. And you know, there's a scene in the aquarium when Abby and Yara are looking for Lev- Um, where Abby is showing, or Yara lingers on a map of the west coast of the United States.
[YARA: Where is Santa Barbara?
ABBY: It’s in California.
YARA: Where is California?
ABBY: Ok so look, this is Seattle, and this is Santa Barbara.]
And Yara says, Okay, but where are we?
[YARA: And our island?]
And then Abby points again to Seattle.
[YARA: It’s so far.
ABBY: Yeah]
And it's the first time that Yara realizes how big the world is. You know, she has no concept that there are not, that there's so much out there, that, that Abby has traveled so far. Um, and there's something very interesting to that insular, isolated light. So whereas the WLF, you may not agree with their position, but you know, we still have, uh, in game dialogue where characters are vaguely talking about reading Harry Potter and, um, you know, go-- taking their kids to school. And, and it's very, they seem aware of the past. You know, Lev and Yara have no concept of the old, you know, quote unquote old world. Um, so I think that was a really lovely opportunity. Also too, um, we wanted to not point fingers at any one religion. Right? So, in talking about religious extremism, we certainly didn't want to single out... anybody. So the easiest tact I think for us was to create a religion and to create a religion that felt very much of this world, just in terms of, how religion can evolve and change as generations move through it and how the original intentions of somebody, you know, if like everybody grows and changes and sometimes it becomes corrupted.
<<AD BREAK>>
NEIL: Trying to explore the state of the world, we became intrigued with the idea of like, okay, what does ground zero look like? You know, Abby heads to that hospital basement and it's like some of the earliest infected. And we had a desire to come up with this idea of a rat King. I don't know if you're familiar with this concept of rat Kings, but like how rats and sewers can get all tangled together? And then they moved this one unit. I was like, well, how many infected can we fuse together that have been stuck there for who knows how many years and have this big kind of monster come after you. It was like a sort of a mod to horror movies and horror games like Resident Evil are great. That's our Resident Evil moment. There's going to be this, this crazy boss fight.
[SFX of RAT KING fight]
Um, but thematically, right? It's just, it's again, it's a constant reminder of the state of the world is a constant reminder. There's this pressure on these characters at every moment, every moment. Death is around the corner. Um, and how do you operate? How do you find a normal life when that's always there? And it was important for you to feel that tension every few steps of the way.
CHRISTIAN: Why then, why was it important or why did it feel important to have that moment of this closed off singular fight between Abby and this creature in terms of what that says about the experience and what you're going on as a player.
NEIL: Yeah. As, um, and kind of classical narrative structure is that, there's a character that wants something and they're going to take the path of least resistance to get it. And you want to keep putting bigger and bigger obstacles in their way to show their will, to show how badly they want it and how much they're willing to like go outside their comfort zone to get it. So if you think about, like Abby at that point, had decided that she needs to save these kids no matter what. Like this is her redemption. She has made this choice and now like Yara is on the table dying because her arm is broken and maybe Abby feels guilty that she didn't bring her here for help sooner and the clock is ticking to save this girl. Um, and at first it's like, okay, it's going to be that there's flooded streets and you've got to get past that.
[SFX of ABBY jumping]
Then you gotta do some dangerous jumps.
[ABBY: Ah fuck.]
Um, then we're gonna throw some infected your way and you're going to fight them.
[SFX of ABBY fighting]
Okay, now we're starting to get into height and Abby's fear of height. And she has to overcome that to keep going.
[LEV: Just try not to look down.]
Uh, now she has to like start lying and betraying her own group to try to get the medicine and she's going to keep going.
[ABBY: I need to grab some medical supplies. I’m doing a thing for Isaac.
WLF SOLDIER: We’re moving all these assets to Isaac. What does he need?
ABBY: Um, I can’t talk about it. It’s something away from the fog.
WLF SOLDIER: Take a look and see if anyone’s got what you need.]
And then she's in this basement where like, essentially a giant demon is coming after her and she's going to keep going when we're just showing her will and what she's willing to put on the line to save these kids.
[SFX of RAT KING]
And then things are going to get worse and worse for her to try to save them. Um, but that's where we were at that point. And again, looking at pacing wise, like it felt like it was time for something new, something fresh. Um, something that like tells you a bit more about the world and what happened. Um, so this solution kind of entered all those things and it was this nice climactic moment of having this big satisfying fight and coming out with this medicine and like thinking, Oh, I'm going to save this girl. Everything's going to be okay.
CHRISTIAN: There is the moment from Mel who has a history with Abby, a history that we don't see, um, and this moment is likely out of what she feels is happening between Abby and Owen.
And they certainly have a history, some of which we see, some of which we don't. And Mel with all seriousness and the weight of the world on her shoulders looks at Abby and says, you're a piece of shi you always have been, you always will be. And I felt like that landed to Abby. Was Abby a piece of shit?
LAURA: Yeah, I mean she didn't realize it, right? I mean her whole focus, her whole focus in life was making things right in quotes, you know, um, and for years that's all she focused on and all of her relationships suffered for it. Um, and I think the reason that that hit so hard, um, from Mel is because Abby at that point has the self-loathing. She already had the recognition that, Oh God, I am pretty fucking shitty. So to have somebody else call you out on it, especially when you've made the realization and maybe you're trying and nobody else is seeing it yet. Um, yeah.
CHRISTIAN: Cause Owen also tries to connect with her in the, the idea that you're allowed to be happy, we're allowed to be happy.
[OWEN: Come to Santa Barbara.
ABBY: I can’t.
OWEN: Why?
ABBY: You know why.
OWEN: We can figure this out.
ABBY: It’s too late.
OWEN: No no it isn’t I know. I know it’s a fucking mess. I know. But we can choose to be happy, Abby. We're allowed to be happy.]
And so I'm curious what Abby thought happiness could be in that moment when Owen tries to connect with her cause she has killed Joel. She's recognized that that's not the end all solution. Um, you know, revenge won't bring them back kind of lesson. Why can't she be happy?
LAURA: Mmm. Because she doesn't deserve it? You know, that's like, he can say you're allowed to be happy, but after the sins committed, I don't think she thinks she can, she can do that. Um, but you know, the loss of, of her dad, which, you know, in all the scenes you get with him, you understand like what a bright spot he was and how positive he was. And you know, I think her time with the fireflies really, even though she hadn't experienced life before, she still had them saying there's hope. Right. That's what they meant. There's hope that this won't last forever and there will be a peace coming. And when that's taken away, um, I think a lot, I think her hope died, you know, and I don't think she, she fully understands what even that means anymore.
ASHLEY: PTSD has sort of a through line in the game, and I feel like Abby and Ellie both suffer from it. Um, cause they both have been through these very traumatic events and... how they act out in the game, I feel like very clearly shows how trauma can tear you apart if it's untreated. And it's a very serious topic of conversation. And you know, I, I don't ever want to compare acting to people going through these actually traumatic events in life. Cause that's not fair. But I still think this was a very important story to tell and, um, also... exploring and researching and seeing how I can sort of properly convey those emotions, and, Um, you know, I, I'm, I am someone who suffers from panic attacks. And I don't have PTSD, but I definitely have had some moments in my life that, um, many people would consider traumatic. Um, but... something as a panic attack is, is no joke. And it's very awful and, and you feel like you're going to die in that moment. And um, it's, I feel like I've never really talked to, talked this out with someone that's not my therapist. So it's, it's kind of, it's, it's a tough conversation, but I feel like it's also a tough conversation because it's not something that people talk about a lot. And it's, there's still this sort of weirdness about talking about mental health and, I feel like there is this viewpoint that we have around mental health that we don't make a space to work on it because it's almost viewed poorly on if you do something. Like, no, no, no, you gotta pick yourself up by your bootstraps and you can handle this. And you know, we take medication for blood pressure. We take medication for, uh, headaches and, uh, serious problems that we have. But for some reason, dealing with mental health or any of this other stuff, it's, it's taboo to talk about. Even I still don't know how to talk about it. Clearly. I'm having, I'm struggling through this, but I don't want to have that anymore. And I think if we sort of have these issues, uh, talked about in entertainment and video games and movies, and sort of make them more present so people can see that it's out there and people deal with these things, maybe it'll be an easier conversation to talk about and we can figure out better ways to deal with them.
HALLEY: I've suffered from PTSD. Um, so there was, I was able to really bring that to Ellie, which was exciting. I, I think, uh, you don't get to see that a lot in the media. You don't get to see a lot of like, uh, women struggling with trauma, women being resilient. Right now we're seeing a lot of women who are just sort of Captain Marvel, perfect, and impervious to the hardships around them and can take a punch, and keep on kicking. But I was always inspired by Ellie that like life is really hard and life continues to knock the shit out of her, and she keeps picking herself back up and you see her even at the end of this game, she picks herself back up and she gets her backpack on a few fingers lighter. Um, and she heads out. And that was what I wanted to see. I wanted to, to see facets of resiliency in all of the characters. And so I just sort of, I don't know, I drew from life. I got checked against other people and, and also trying to figure out how did none of these characters feel black and white? How do they all feel morally gray?
CHRISTIAN: We talked to Halley about this and about PTSD and how it, it touches on that in a very real way. And I'm curious as a performer, how you kind of unlock that and then put it back again, um, kind of dealing with such a brutal world and a, you know, as character’s said in the game, they call Abby a piece of shit and how you can tap into that and then also let it go when you need to and be a decent human being.
LAURA: And then some of it sticks with you. Um, you know, but I mean, to that end, I think that's, that's exactly what they have to do in that world. Everybody has to be able to instantly put on and take off the brutal hat because you can't constantly live as a killer right? You don't, you do these heinous things and then you go and you have a drink with your buddies. I think...to Abby and anybody really that is, you know, somebody on the front lines in this kind of a situation, they have to be somebody that can turn that switch off in themselves and just move like a machine. Um, so it, it does, it, it haunts you just a little bit, coming off those kinds of days. I certainly, you know, doing scenes like finding my dad or finding Owen, those were all kind of days back to back and I was fucked for a few, a few days afterwards because you have so much emotion just pouring out of you and you have, your body doesn't realize that you're acting, you know? You create those emotions in yourself and then they're just there and uh, and you just kind of have to deal with it until they, they find a way out again.
CHRISTIAN: Related to finding a way out or finding humanity, um, and PTSD. Abby relives these moments of, um, walking into the hospital, the operating room and seeing her dad dead there. And we see that moment, um, as it happened and we see it and Abby's dreams. And then one of those moments is Abby in that hospital walking through the corridor and then seeing Yara and Lev and kind of what happens to them if she does nothing. Um, and I'm curious to get your take on Abby's decision to save them and what that means to her and what it means to her in that moment and why she decides to act versus letting that be a thing that she kind of sheds off. Um, cause it's just part of life for her.
LAURA: It's that, that's premeditated, right? That's, uh, everything else is about survival. To sit back and know that they're just gonna suffer. That's something different.
CHRISTIAN: So why this time, why then did she need to go back for them? And especially for Yara, she puts it all in the line for Yara to ultimately have her die.
LAURA: Um, you know, coming off that dream, coming off the realization of where she was at that point in her life, which is exactly where Lev and Yara are age wise, uh, coming off of having just really been a pretty shitty human, uh, after everything with that just happened with Owen. Uh, I think that that moment of going, I can't, I can't live with myself if I, if I don't go do something, you know? At least try, um, is a huge, is a huge turning point for Abby.
CHRISTIAN: Do you think she succeeds?
LAURA: Yeah...Yeah, I do.
CHRISTIAN: I hope so.
LAURA: Yeah. I think, I think she realizes that there is a cost. You know?
CHRISTIAN: Does she have hope? Does Abby have hope?
LAURA: Yes. Yes, yes. There's hope. Um...Yeah. I mean, what's crazy is what you're seeing Ellie go through is everything Abby went through. There would be a period where she wouldn't see that everything was her fault. Uh, she would think like, this is on, this is on Joel, this is on, uh, Owen for, you know, getting Mel pregnant. This is for, this is on Ellie for, you know, coming back after we let her live, how dare she. And then finally coming to the reality of this is on me. This is, this is based on my actions. I'm the one that set this in motion. Mmm. And finding a peace with that if there can be. I think Lev certainly, um, helps her see, uh, a possibility that she can forgive herself, um, and find redemption in whatever way she can. Uh, and that's, you know, one of the reasons it's so important...he's so important to her... is I can find redemption through, through keeping this kid alive.
[ABBY: Oh my god, she’s not… Come on. Those are your fucking people.
LEV: You’re my people.
ABBY: Listen to me, we’re going to have to get out of this ok. I’m going to need you to lead us to those boats. You don’t let anybody stop us, ok?
LEV: Ok. Ok. Follow me.]
<<Music Playing>>
CHRISTIAN: Next time on The Official The Last of Us Podcast...
[ASHLEY: I put down my controller and I just, I kept saying, no no no no no. I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to fight this person anymore.
NEIL: This whole, like, cycle of violence and so many left dead and maimed and traumatized, somehow, something good came out at the end.
LAURA: There is endure and survive physically, but what does that mean for your soul?]
The Official The Last of Us Podcast is produced by PlayStation and Spoke Media
It’s hosted by me, Christian Spicer and written by Brigham Mosley.
Our Sony PlayStation team includes Charlie Yedor, Cristian Cardona and Carrie Surtees.
Our Naughty Dog team includes Arne Meyer and Scott Lowe.
Our production team is Carson McCain, Kelly Kolff, Tre Jones, Reyes Mendoza and Aleisha Force.
This episode was mixed by Evan Arnett who contributed additional sound design and music.
Today’s episode included interviews with Neil Druckmann, Halley Gross, Ian Alexander, Laura Bailey, and Ashley Johnson.
Our executive producers are Alia Tavakolian and Keith Reynolds.
Thanks for listening.
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