Why Troy Baker Didn’t Play Joel or David in The Last of Us

[Applause] [Music] for me having some awareness that may be unique to my position about the potential adaptations of this into another medium first you know into a movie and then ultimately into this incredible remarkable series the thing that I wanted more than anything was for whoever was going to play Joel to just show me something new about the role was there something that I overlooked was there something that I missed was there something that I didn't know and the second that I found out that they cast Pedro I was like oh we're bulletproof now um because obviously his his pedigree as an actor is is incontrovertible but it's also the fact that he has embraced this character with such loving arms but the beauty of this you know playing this is a game one of the things that made this such a compelling and resonant story is is the fact that the gameplay in the story uh were so intertwined and they they spoke to each other as opposed to now you shoot now you watch now you shoot now you watch um but we're limited because we are telling the story of Joel from Joel's perspective or we're telling the story of Ali from Ellie's perspective and what the show allows us to do is be able to break away from those characters and spend time with a lot of the other characters that we glossed over in the game like James um and so being able to spend time with those other characters really just enriches the world and it adds layers so I've told people this is not a either or it's either play the game or watch the show it's a yes and and I'm excited for once people finish this series um to either go back through and play the game again or go back and play the game for the first time ever and participate in that conversation [Applause] I think that what happens is the same amount of um action is imbued in each episode just in different ways the the show doesn't lose any of its dynamism because there's not a gameplay mechanic that's happening it's those moments that happen in gameplay are now we can narrativize in a different way we can display in a different way perfect example is in episode two with with Tess's demise like we can change that and the presentation of that without losing any of the Integrity or the emotional impact that that scene or that episode had and in the same ways now we can explore other ways to dramatize or actionalize certain things so to me the same amount of action the same amount of drama is happening it's just being displayed in two different ways I would be happy if I had just been a clicker turns out I make a terrible clicker by the way um and those those guys that did it in the show uh absolutely crushed it so when um Neil and Craig came to me and said we we have a role for you um and it was like it's it's James and I went oh dude who's James I had to be like oh right buddy boy the guy with a hat um I was like well that's interesting and you know there was a lot of rumor and speculation that I was gonna be playing David I was like that would have just been too kitschy that would have been too on the nose um and really the thing that I love that's a departure from what Nolan did in the game by playing David David is a very charismatic very manipulative uh character and in the game it becomes necessary for Ellie and David to partner up in a way because they fight together um here they don't have to do that so we get to explore what that character looks like absent of that uh prerequisite and so we can kind of Flesh that out a little bit into other characters including James and so James to me every relationship every character in this story somehow serves as a reflection Ellie and or Joel and James does that very much because James is someone who's pragmatic he's someone that I believe was once a good guy this is someone that went fishing he was probably in law enforcement or he was somehow trained in in a capacity to be able to protect people and now those skills are being exploited and used against his better judgment and against his better self and so when Ellie shows up the threat is that she is someone who's capable of usurping the position that he wants to have with David but he will never have because David is looking for an equal David sees that and Ellie not only because she's capable and she's she's brilliant and resourceful but she's also as he says she has a violent heart and that's something that James lacks now she would return by now this isn't real that looks pretty [ __ ] real to me uh everybody was very kind they're like this today's the day and I was like you know I'm not actually dying like this is just a um but the beauty of like doing a game is that can happen uh over lunch you know like we can get that shot set up and it's like okay someone's gonna have a you know a styrofoam piece of whatever and they're gonna and you act it out it's done um for the purposes of camera that became many many many many many hours in the chair um in Prosthetics with our incredible uh visual effects team and uh special effects team sorry um fitting me for a neck that had an apparatus in here that could receive the cleaver that was going to be swung by Bella very deftly I might add she the amount of skill that it took to be able to land this was something that we did multiple times and every time Bella just like nailed it she had her remarks better than I did um but for me it was this this um opportunity to where like I love doing a death scene I love you know what does that look like and normally it's you know I gotta do it on I just gotta scream you know and I certainly have done my fair share of doing that uh with this as a death scene um it was more of a dance there were more parts to it and I'm really really proud of it I got mad at Craig because he cut it not he cut it down I was like oh there's so much more he's like it's not a story about James's death I was like I know but it was awesome so I just saved that for my reel and I'll be putting that up on my Tick Tock I'm sure about the girl we bring her back with us I don't mean to question your sense of Mercy David we can let her go I definitely think that there is a play that's happening between David and James this entire time as far as in in very uh it kind of calls back to the relationship that Jeffrey Pierce's character Perry has with Kathleen where there is a leader who has a right-hand person who is in some ways either sycophantically or sympathetically helping guide their decisions and James recognizes the evil that is inherent inside of David but it's better to be on the right hand side of the devil than on the wrong side um and so he's very careful about playing his position but he's trying to also achieve his goal which is don't let this girl in and he uses pragmatism as as his method she's just another mouth to feed because of the commitment to Excellence that was happening from both Neil and Craig and also enough can't be said about our entire crew our DPS and our directors and our grips and our Gaffers and our sound and our weapons handlers all of these people were such fans of this story and they committed their skill and their care to carefully reconstructing and retelling the story but I had no idea that the rest of the world who hadn't picked up a controller and played this game as well as those who had would receive it so warmly Craig kept saying if we get them to episode 3 we own them and to see the incredible numbers that have happened and not only just the viewership and everything but also the response to how this has become the conversation and whenever you can create a cultural event that to me is one of the Hallmarks of truly accomplishing something so it's not just the the critical Acclaim the commercial success but it's also the conversations and the art that the singer has created this the every week going through my my feed and seeing all the fan art has been incredible it makes me excited to see where this story can go in multiple Seasons if possible who knows but I think that if this story has shown us anything over the last several years is that there are more characters and more of this world to explore

Channel: IGN

Views: 404,137

Keywords: Action, Action-Adventure, HBO, On-Demand, The Last of Us, The Last of Us: The Series, PlayStation, Naughty Dog, troy baker, the last of us hbo

Id: o1o0b24V6h8

Length: 9min 1sec (541 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 07 2023