Pedro Pascal may have been brutally dispatched from The Last of Us, but at least he’s, in the words of series co-creator Craig Mazin, “in literally everything else.”
“He did a thing. Everyone lost their s—, and then I had to do that same thing, because he did the thing, I loved doing the thing, I thought it was great,” Mazin told Variety during Thursday’s “A Night in the Writers’ Room” event in Los Angeles. Though Mazin and co-creator Neil Druckmann were simply following the story set forth in the video game The Last of Us is based on, fans were still shocked by the death of Pascal’s series lead Joel in the second episode of the second season.
That shock has transformed for some into anger, which has given voice to ample criticism.
“The big complaint that I’ve gotten is, ‘Why did you kill Pedro Pascal?’ And I keep explaining, we didn’t kill him! He’s a man, he’s alive. He’s fine. And he’s in literally everything else. So I don’t know what the problem is!” Mazin joked.
Fans aren’t the only ones still reeling from having to watch Joel die at the hands of Kaitlyn Dever‘s Abby. Pascal himself told Entertainment Weekly in April that he’s in “active denial” about his own character’s fate.
“I realize this more and more as I get older, I find myself slipping into denial that anything is over. I know that I’m forever bonded to so many members of the experience and just have to see them under different circumstances, but never will under the circumstances of playing Joel on The Last of Us,” Pascal said. “And, no, I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about it because it makes me sad.”
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The Chile-born actor’s sister, Lux, also said in May that she “wanted to throw the iPad” when she got to the scene depicting Joel’s death. Lux joked that it’s “not the first time he’s done it to me, it’s not the second time he’s done it to me. I think it’s the fourth time he’s done it to me. Because how many deaths has he had? Game of Thrones, Equalizer 2, The Last of Us — each is more violent than the other…. Seeing my brother die that way, I didn’t like it at all.”
Some of the “everything else” Mazin referred to include Ari Aster‘s film Eddington (releasing July 18), which Pascal was recently seen in Cannes promoting at the seaside town’s illustrious annual film festival. He can be seen Friday in theaters in Celine Song‘s Dakota Johnson and Chris Evans rom-com Materialists, and he also stars as Reed Richards in July 23 Marvel release The Fantastic Four: First Steps, a character he’ll reprise for Avengers: Doomsday.
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