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Warning! Major spoilers ahead for The Last of Us season 2, episode 5.
The Last Of Us
star Tati Gabrielle explains the introduction of the airborne infection spores in season 2, episode 5. Serving as an adaptation of the Naughty Dog video game franchise, the hit HBO series returned for its sophomore outing in April, bringing back the clickers and bloaters while also introducing the new stalker form of Cordyceps infected. The Last of Us season 2, episode 5, introduces yet another form of the fungal infection with airborne spores, which infected have used to contaminate the basement floors of a hospital. This is ultimately what dooms Gabrielle’s Nora.
In a recent interview with Variety, Gabrielle breaks down the introduction of the spores in The Last of Us season 2, episode 5, explaining that a great deal of thought went into how they affect the body. The star reveals that she had a lot of questions for showrunner Craig Mazin about how Nora’s body being taken over by inhaled Cordyceps manifests itself, and it ended up being a challenge to bring to life as an actor. Check out Gabrielle’s comment below:
“This was something that I really nerded out about with Craig [Mazin]. Craig want it to be over the top. He wants to make the science of it as real as possible. Have you ever seen when Cordyceps take over an insect or something? I asked Craig all the questions: ‘She’s inhaling it. When you inhale something it goes straight to your brain. So that means it’s going to your nervous system first. But is she choking?’ We would have very pointed back and forth conversations, because I wanted it to feel as real as possible.
“Her nervous system is being taken over by this thing. Her lungs are being filled with a substance that our lungs are not normally filled with. It’s not suffocation. That was something that Craig said. She can breathe, technically, but it’s just not as easy. There’s more tension in your body. The little twitches are because it’s a thing of the brain: she’s trying to fight through to maintain her mind enough to get out what she has to say to Ellie. You’re going insane against your own will, and rather rapidly.
“Any means of survival is clinging on to humanity, clinging on to oneself. It was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do as an actor. It’s almost easier to die and say your final words while you’re dying. It’s much harder when you’re not actually dying at all. You’re just being consumed by something from the inside out.”
More to come…
Source: Variety
The Last Of Us
8/10
- Release Date
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January 15, 2023
- Network
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HBO
- Showrunner
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Craig Mazin
- Directors
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Craig Mazin, Peter Hoar, Jeremy Webb, Ali Abbasi, Mark Mylod, Stephen Williams, Jasmila Žbanić, Liza Johnson, Nina Lopez-Corrado
- Writers
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Neil Druckmann, Craig Mazin