*Warning – Spoilers ahead for The Last of Us episode five*
The Last of Us’s fifth episode concludes with a massive outbreak of infected in a Kansas City cul-de-sac.
Melanie Lynskey’s ruthless gang leader character, Kathleen, has Joel (Pedro Pascal), Ellie (Bella Ramsey) and their two accomplices Henry (Lamar Johnson) and Sam (Keivonn Woodard) trapped when a hole in the ground opens up, expelling hundreds of the monsters.
Among them is one more terrifying than the rest, an enormous Bloater – one of the most brutal enemies to face in the video game on which the series is based.
The Bloater is played by Adam Basil, a 6’6” British stuntman whose previous stunt double credits include the Beast in Disney’s live action Beauty and the Beast remake.
Basil told Entertainment Weekly that he’s received a surprising amount of attention since starring as the grotesque creature.
“He seems to be a bit of a sex icon,” he said of the Bloater.
“He’s captured a lot of people’s imaginations. Someone asked me if I’d come to their wedding. I’ve had people sending me love messages. He really brought out something in people that I don’t think even they knew they had. He’s the big daddy mushroom, I think there’s been a [meme].”
Basil’s costume was designed by Barrie Gower, the prosthetics guru behind Stranger Things’ Vecna and Game of Thrones’ Night King.
Gower told Variety that Basil had the perfect “build, girth and fitness” for the Bloater. He estimated that the suit, which was made out of clay, rubber and latex, weighed about 40 kilograms.
“It was important that [the Infected] moved differently than zombies,” Basil told EW. “The main thing for me was to just keep the heaviness of the character. Although the good thing about it, [the suit] was heavy.”
The show’s makers have been branded “pretentious” by viewers after cinematographer Even Bolten revealed that the word “zombie” had been “banned” from being spoken on set.
The Last of Us airs new episodes Sundays on HBO Max in the US and Mondays on Sky Atlantic in the UK.
