Posted in: HBO, Max, TV | Tagged: the last of us, tlou

The Last of Us S02: Catherine O'Hara on "Odd Relationship" with Joel

The Last of Us Season 2's Catherine O'Hara offered insights into her character - including her "odd relationship" with Pedro Pascal's Joel.

With the second season of Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann's Pedro Pascal (Joel) and Bella Ramsey (Ellie)-starring The Last of Us set to hit screens in April 2025, Catherine O'Hara (SCTV, Schitt's Creek) is sharing some closely-guarded insights into her character, her relationship with Joel, and what it was like joining the HBO series. "I have an odd relationship with Pedro's character," O'Hara shared during an interview with EW about her mysterious character, who was created specifically for the show and appears to be taking on the role of therapist for Joel. "You don't quite know why she's got…well, she's got this edge to her, but it makes for some weird, good dark comedy, I think. So it's there. I never want to deny the gift of humor."

Having first heard of the franchise through her sons (one of which is a set designer now on the series) and the games, O'Hara would check out the first season. "It's so intense, and the second [season] is way more intense if you know the game," she added. Though she calls herself a "guest" in their filming world, O'Hara had nothing but praise for Pascal, Ramsey, and the production team. "I just love working with Pedro Pascal. Both of them. Bella. Wow. Was that intimating? It always is. It's not my territory… You're just like, 'Thank you for inviting me, and I'll try to be a good guest.' But they were very kind to me, and it was great," she shared.

The Last of Us: Craig Mazin, Neil Druckmann on Season 2 & Beyond

Mazin on Season 2 Needing a "Breakpoint": "The story material that we got from Part II of the game is way more than the story material that was in the first game, so part of what we had to do from the start was figure out how to tell that story across seasons. When you do that, you look for natural breakpoints, and as we laid it out, this season, the natural breakpoint felt like it came after seven episodes."

Mazin on Possibly Needing Four Seasons to Tell Their Story: "We don't think that we're going to be able to tell the story even within two seasons [2 and 3] because we're taking our time and go down interesting pathways which we did a little bit in Season 1 too. We feel like it's almost assuredly going to be the case that — as long as people keep watching and we can keep making more television — Season 3 will be significantly larger. And indeed, the story may require Season 4."

Mazin on Possibly Expanding Character Story Arcs in Season 2: "Sometimes that means we do things just like the game, sometimes we do them differently. I think it'd be fair to say that since we are taking our time to dig into the story and expand certain areas, of course, there are going to be some things that are going to be expanded, but which characters and how we'll keep that secret."

Druckmann on Having "A Goal in Mind" with Season 2: "Our process was, we sketched out multiple seasons, then we did a deep dive on Season 2. To echo what Craig is saying, there is no padding; everything that is in there is intentional. There is always a goal in mind that we're heading towards, we are never meandering the sake of meandering, it's always to say something greater for these characters and the themes."

Mazin on Season 2 Having a "Quite Big" Episode: "Season 1 really was a 10-episode length season in hours. And certainly, in Season 2, there's an episode that is going to be again closer to — I don't know if I would say feature length, but quite big. I like generally hitting about an hour, it's a great length, I love working in that format. What we don't want to do is, say, a season of seven episodes where each episode is 90 minutes; part of why we're doing seven episodes is finding that nice line."

With Season 2 set to hit HBO & Max screens in 2025, Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey will be joined this season by Gabriel Luna as Tommy, Rutina Wesley as Maria, Kaitlyn Dever as Abby, Isabela Merced as Dina, Young Mazino as Jesse, Ariela Barer as Mel, Tati Gabrielle as Nora, Spencer Lord as Owen, Jeffrey Wright as Isaac, Danny Ramirez as Manny, and Catherine O'Hara. Behind the camera, Mazin and Druckmann will be joined by Peter Hoar (S01E03: "Long, Long Time") are Mark Mylod (HBO's Succession), Nina Lopez-Corrado (HBO's Perry Mason), Stephen Williams (HBO's Watchmen) and Kate Herron (Loki).

HBO's The Last of Us is written and executive-produced by Mazin and Druckmann. The series is a co-production with Sony Pictures Television and is also executive-produced by Carolyn Strauss, Jacqueline Lesko, Cecil O'Connor, Asad Qizilbash, Carter Swan, and Evan Wells. PlayStation Productions, Word Games, The Mighty Mint, and Naughty Dog serve as the production companies.

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