How ‘The Last of Us’ Director Peter Hoar Turned Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett Into a Couple for the Ages
thewrap.comThis story about director Peter Hoar and “The Last of Us” first ran in the Drama Series issue of TheWrap’s awards magazine.For pure emotional punch this past TV season, one need look no further than “Long, Long Time,” the third episode of HBO’s “The Last of Us.” Detouring from the main journey of a lone man and the fungus-resistant young woman under his care (Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey) navigating zombie-strewn roads, the series settled down for a decades-spanning romance between two older men, Bill and Frank (played unforgettably by Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett), that resonated with its universality and refusal to reduce the duo to dreary stereotypes.
If your heart didn’t break watching these men make peace with their life decisions through the unsteady ages, you simply do not and never did have one beating in your chest.“I would have said yes to an episode full of zombies being shot in the head and probably would have been very excited,” director Peter Hoar said.
He had been a devotee of the video game on which “The Last of Us” is based but also knew a thing or two about depicting the ravages of a plague on humanity, having just done the remarkable AIDS-era miniseries “It’s a Sin” a few years back. “I was just a geek fan of the game.
I played it, loved it and was destroyed by it. And I knew HBO had a version of it. I’d never done an HBO show and was like, ‘It won’t come to me.’ But then I was asked if I would be interested, and I immediately said yes.
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