‘The Last of Us’ Star Bella Ramsey Reveals ‘Hardest’ Scene to Shoot
The Last of Us might feel like it’s only just getting started, but after Sunday night’s episode, we’re nearly halfway through the season. Spoilers ahead for all aired episodes of The Last of Us Season 2.
In the span of just three episodes, series co-creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann have managed to put their characters—and audience members—through the ringer, emotionally-speaking. In “Through the Valley,” the second episode of the season, we witnessed the shockingly brutal death of main character Joel (Pedro Pascal). So in “The Path,” the season’s third episode, which aired on Sunday, the co-showrunners gave everyone a chance to breathe.
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“The Path” picks up three months from the event of the previous episode, as the Jackson settlement continues to rebuild and its residents mourn the loss of their friends, neighbors, and loved ones.
Ellie (Bella Ramsey), meanwhile, is finally at the end of what has been an extended stay in the hospital to recover from the injuries she received in attempting to save Joel’s life. While she has had some time to grieve, she has not yet had to come face-to-face with her new reality and see or feel what her home feels like without Joel being there.
In one of the episode’s most emotional few moments, Ellie returns home and, for the first time, is able to walk through the entire space and take it all in. She enters Joel’s bedroom, where she finds his watch and gun boxed up on his bed. Then she enters his closet, and sees the flannel-lined jacket that he is rarely seen not wearing. (For the record, it’s a Flint and Tinder Flannel-Lined Waxed Trucker Jacket in Field Tan, which can be purchased from Huckberry—and you can read our review of it here.)
It’s there, seeing and smelling Joel’s well-worn jacket, that Ellie finally loses her composure and allows herself to cry. As Ramsey told The Hollywood Reporter, that scene was the one they—and Mazin and Druckmann—were most worried about being able to pull off.
“That was the hardest [scene],” Ramsey told THR. “I really struggle with crying in scenes. I can get a tear out, but that’s different to crying. And even getting the tear, it doesn’t come easy for me."
"I don’t cry in front of people in my everyday life," they continued. "A very, very limited amount of people in my life will see me cry. And so having to do that on a set full of people with the monitor and then more people watching the monitors… it’s virtually impossible for me. So I was really worried about that scene, and that was the toughest one for me to shoot.”
While it might seem that the easiest way for an actor to bring the waterworks on would be to think of a sad circumstance in their own life, Ramsey said they actually did just the opposite.
“I was remembering the happiest of memories that I have with Pedro,” they said.
“The thing that is always the saddest for me is remembering the happy things,” they explained. “I was remembering us the first few times that we met and the whole of shooting Season 1 together, and the funniest moments. I was remembering all of that and through the lens of losing him—not just Joel and Ellie, but like me and Pedro—because the memories of me and Pedro and Joel and Ellie are so intertwined for me.”