Why Joe Pantoliano Didn't Realize He Was Going To Be On The Last Of Us - SlashFilm (2025)

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Content warning:this article contains a discussion of suicide and features spoilers forseason 2, episode 6 of "The Last of Us," titled "The Price."

You'd think, by this point, that most actors would be pretty psyched to score a small yet pivotal role on the hit HBO series "The Last of Us," which itself is based on a hit series of video games by Naughty Dog that came out in 2013 and 2020. When it comes to Joe Pantoliano, though — an actor known for "Bound,""The Matrix," and "The Sopranos" — he was approached to play the important game character Eugene and just ... ended up confusing "The Last of Us" with "This Is Us." (To beso fair to Mr. Joey Pants, this is understandable.Those titles are reallysimilar.)

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"I thought it was that other show, 'This Is Us,'" Pantoliano told Variety in an interview about his "The Last of Us" episode. "Ken Olin was an exec [producer] on it. He's an old friend of mine. And I thought, 'Oh, great, I love Ken!'" Here's the thing: not only was "This Is Us"not about zombies, it concluded its run in 2022. Thankfully, Pantoliano figured it out:"Then I read the material and I'm like, this is a very challenging little part."

Pantoliano went on to say that, as someonevery new to the world of "The Last of Us,"he was deeply impressed by his short time in this post-apocalyptic world overrun with zombies infected by the cordyceps virus. "Well, you get the backstory of the world, and what led to this,"Pantoliano said of his introduction to the universe by showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann. He continued:

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"The ability to survive up to this point, and then, when you see the aftermath. I didn't get a visual on it, and then I got to the first day of work, and this beautiful forest — the way they lit it, and the machines that they used to fog it up, it felt so real. Most of the time, you're on a CGI set and you're surrounded by green screens, and it's almost like when I started out in the theater, and teachers would have you concentrate on creating the behavior. If you're in the cold, you create the cold, right? But you were in this element, so it helped the acting."

As for how much Pantoliano knew about Eugene himself, he apparently went in sort of blind. "No, but that's the classic small part,"Pantoliano said regarding the fact that Eugene is mentioned frequently throughout season 2 of the series. "The agent says, 'Listen, it's not a very big part, but they talk about you all the time.'" He went as far as to say, "I was a complete virgin to the whole thing,"referring to the production in and of itself that is special effects makeup. "The artists and crafts and the detail — it's really something. And the time that it takes to do all of that!"

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The reason I described Eugene's role on "The Last of Us" as "small but pivotal" is that the character represents a major broken promise withextremely high stakes, further cementing an ongoing divide between surrogate father and daughter, Joel Miller (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey). In season 2's penultimate episode, "The Price," we see flashbacks of several birthdays Ellie spends with Joel, including her 19th birthday — where he finally relents and agrees to bring her out on a patrol around the protected settlement of Jackson, Wyoming. That's when the two find Eugene, who we know from many previous discussions is a loving husband to Jackson's resident therapist Gail, played by Emmy winner Catherine O'Hara.

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Wealso know, from the season 2 premiere "Future Days," that Joel killed Eugene, and we now get to see exactly how that shakes out. By the time Ellie and Joel encounter Eugene, he's already sustained a bite from an infected zombie and pleads for the duo to bring him to Jackson's walls so he can say one last goodbye to Gail. Joel promises Ellie that they'll do this, tells her to go get the horses, and leads Eugene to a secluded overlook and offers to bring Eugene's last words back to Gail for him. A stricken Eugene begs for the opportunity to see his wife and hearher last words tohim before the infection truly takes hold, but Joel, out of an abundance of caution, kills the man where he stands, tells Ellie that Eugene took his own life after getting bitten, and the two bring Eugene's body back to Gail.

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Ellie, knowing that Eugenenever would have done such a thing without seeing Gail, immediately blows the whistle as soon as Joel repeats his lie, deepening the emotional chasm between the two. Eugene is a vital but minor character in the grand scheme, and according to Pantoliano, even his brief time on screen was a phenomenal challenge as a performer.

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According to Joe Pantoliano, the material he received as Eugene in "The Last of Us" was so airtight that he didn't need to sit around and craft any sort of elaborate backstory for Eugene. When interviewer Adam B. Vary asked if Pantoliano is the type of actor who indulges in backstories, Pantoliano replied brusquely, "Only when the material is weak."He continued:

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When it's all there on the page, it's almost actor-proof. You can't f*** it up because it's written so well. There's four questions you ask: Who am I? Where am I? What do I want? Where do I come from? It was all there on the page, and it felt natural. With Bella and Pedro, you get a sense that there's a relationship, that these people have known each other for a really long time and have opinions already. It's always very hard to be a guest actor on a show. I've been on both sides of that spectrum, and these performers made it so inviting. That takes away a lot of the anxiety that you don't need — although, you know, that's good anxiety to have for the character I was playing.

As for the scene where Eugene breaks down, begs, and weeps so that he might see Gail one last time, Pantoliano said they did seemingly endless takes of that sequence ... and that he brought everything he had to set. "We did that so many times,"Pantoliano recalled."Neil [Druckmann] really took me to task. He was a wonderful director, and he would just say, 'Again' and 'again' and 'again' and 'again.' God almighty, I murdered my entire family. My dogs were in that scene. My parents. People that I've lost. I just brought everybody into that scene."

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"The Last of Us" airs its season 2 finale on Sunday, May 25, on HBO and the newly rechristened HBO Max at 9 P.M.