Kaitlyn Dever has shared the heartbreaking personal context of her big, shocking scene in the latest episode of The Last of Us.
In a new interview, the actor revealed she shot her pivotal scene just days after the death of her mother.
Spoilers follow for The Last of Us season two, episode two – you have been warned...
The acclaimed post-apocalyptic TV show continued on Sunday night (20 April) with an episode that saw Abby (Dever) brutally murder Joel (Pedro Pascal), one of the series’ two lead characters up until this point.
While fans of the video game on which The Last of Us is based had anticipated the twist coming, the moment was nonetheless a devastating moment for viewers.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Dever spoke about the personal circumstances surrounding the shoot.
“It was just a massive scene emotionally, and with blocking, too,” the Dopesick star said. “There were so many moving parts and so many things to navigate.”
“To be as honest as possible, I will just say that my days leading up to this scene were horrible.”
The actor revealed that she filmed the scene weeks after the death of her mother, Kathy, from breast cancer.
“I lost my mom two or three weeks before I actually shot this scene [on The Last of Us],” she said. “And my mom's funeral was three days before I did my first day. So I was sort of in a fog. I was in a daze.”
Series showrunner Craig Mazin (Chernobyl) recalled: “We said, 'Take your time. Take all the time you need.’ While I care extraordinarily about the show, it's a TV show. I'm not going to disrupt someone's grieving process for their own parent, especially [with] a show that's partly about the grieving process.”
The shooting schedule was changed to accommodate Dever, with the actor recalling that she subsisted on “donut holes” and coffee.
“That’s all I was in the mood for,” she said. “Because of my life circumstances, I wasn't actually able to do my normal routine as an actor, which was really interesting because I was kind of worried about it.
“Usually if I have a monologue like that, I'm memorising it three weeks before I do it. I had a different approach, and I think that it really served the character in a lot of ways. I was able to sort of… I don't know, just really let it go and not think about it too much because the words on the page are so powerful anyway.”
The Last of Us is available to watch in the UK on Sky and NOW, with new episodes arriving every Monday.
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