[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for Season 2 of The Last of Us.]

Summary

In Season 2 of the HBO series, ‘The Last of Us,’ Abby, portrayed by Kaitlyn Dever, is a new character driven by grief and out for revenge.

Dever had discussions about playing Ellie in a past adaptation that was never made, acknowledges Abby’s controversial reputation, and admires the show’s evolution.

Abby’s journey through grief impacts her character development, shaping her into a stronger and tougher individual with underlying sadness and anger.

Before jumping five years forward, the seven-episode second season of the HBO series The Last of Us introduced us to Abby (Kaitlyn Dever), and while there’s little time to get to know and understand her better so early on, her grief and pain are palpable. She’s a character that’s clearly going to leave her mark on this post-apocalyptic world and will do whatever it takes to put herself directly in the path of Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey).
During this one-on-one interview with Collider, Dever discussed her love of the game, how she’d previously had conversations about potentially playing Ellie when the project was originally in film form, how aware she is of the conversation surrounding the character, what her first day joining the series was like, that Infected fence scene in the trailer, and Abby’s journey through the five stages of grief.
Check back for more interviews with the cast and creators every day this week.
Kaitlyn Dever Feels That It’s the Very Human Characters of ‘The Last of Us’ That Make It So Special

“It’s action-packed and it’s filled with very human characters and human storylines.”

Image via HBO

Collider: You’ve circled this project for a while, having originally been considered to play Ellie. How different did it all feel then? Do you feel that it’s evolved a lot from what you first thought it might be to what it actually is now?
KAITLYN DEVER: Totally. Now the whole world knows about it. It’s gone outside the gaming community and into people’s homes, and that’s a really cool thing to see. It makes sense because it’s such a cool show, and it’s action-packed, and it’s filled with very human characters and human storylines. Neil [Druckmann] created such a beautiful game. I think the collaboration between Neil and Craig [Mazin] is really brilliant. They’ve made something really special here, so it’s not a surprise to me.
Were the things that you loved about the story in the earliest days, the things that you still love about it, or did you discover things you didn’t even realize when you stepped into playing this character?
DEVER: I can’t really remember. When I was involved in potentially playing [Ellie], I was never even officially cast as Ellie at all. I was very much just talking to Craig and having a few meetings with him about the movie that potentially was going to get made, and then that went away.

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Even just playing the game, are the things that stood out to you then still the things that you love about it now?
DEVER: Yeah. Oh, of course. I love that they used the same composer, the guy who did all the music in the video game. It really does set the tone for the show. It takes me back to playing the video game. Those intro guitar solos are very good. I love those.
Abby is one of the most controversial video game characters. I know that and I don’t personally know very much about video games in general. Was that something you were aware of? Was that something that Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann warned you about? Did you know what you were stepping into, in that regard?
DEVER: Yeah, of course. Craig and Neil really wanted to make sure that I knew that I could just focus on creating Abby and coming to it with my own ideas. They didn’t seem very concerned about any of that. And it was nice that they had a lot of confidence in me taking on this role. And so, then I had a lot of confidence in myself moving forward, in taking on this kind of role. Obviously, I know about the conversation surrounding Abby, but in order to do my job in the best way possible, I had to just be aware of it but then just not put all my focus on it. If I was too worried about what was being said about this character online, I think it would have taken away from the performance. At the end of the day, that’s the most important thing.
The Cast of ‘The Last of Us’ Embraced Kaitlyn Dever on Her First Day of Filming Season 2

“I certainly was a little nervous leading up to it.”

What was it like to join this series, come in on day one, and shoot your first scene? Did you need a moment to get out of your head with all of that, or did it feel like it was so easy to join because of these sets and because everybody knows their roles and who their characters are?
DEVER: I certainly was a little nervous leading up to it, but all of that went away immediately. And I shot some pretty intense stuff on my first day, I have to say. I was a little nervous, but because of the group of people, I just felt so welcomed. It’s hard to come into something that is so established already. Everybody knows each other, and you feel like the new kid, and you are the new kid. Sometimes that doesn’t feel so good, but here, I just felt like I was immediately everyone’s buddy and they were my buddies. It was great.

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The moment that we see in the trailer, with the Infected on one side of the fence and you on the other, what was that like to shoot? Not even just you being on the ground, but there’s so many of them there, so logistically, what was all of that like to figure out?
DEVER: I don’t know how the stunt team does it, honestly. I really don’t. They choreographed this whole massive fence thing, and I did it. I was underneath that fence. I had to really get used to the claustrophobia there for a moment because I was really crawling under that fence for a while. It was a very intense scene to shoot because there were actually just a ton of people on top of that, or actors in Infected makeup on top of me, underneath that fence.
Abby is Guided by Sadness and Rage in Season 2 of ‘The Last of Us’

“You do experience grief in all the stages, sometimes in one day.”

Image via HBO

From the moment that we meet Abby, we know that she’s in pain and she’s out for blood. At the beginning of this season, it feels like she’s definitely in that anger stage of grief. Has she been through all the other stages now, in the five years since then? Did you have to really think about how often we’d see the emotion come out and how much she’d hold it in?
DEVER: I think she is someone that holds a lot in, naturally. I think she probably is one to deal with her emotions quietly. I think that the way her sadness does come out is in a bit of harshness, I guess. She can be pretty tough sometimes. Maybe her sadness also comes out as a little bit mean too, I would say. But it’s all rooted in [the fact that] I think she’s just someone who’s really struggling and deeply, deeply sad. In the first episode, she’s trying to just get on her feet and is dealing with just the shock of grief. I think within the five years, of course, she’s gone through all the stages. But now, having experienced grief myself, in a similar way, I know that you do experience grief in all the stages, sometimes in one day, and then it repeats itself, over and over and over again. I think for sure, within those five years, that’s really shaped her as person, and it’s definitely made her stronger, it’s definitely made her tougher, it’s definitely made her maybe jaded. That’s where all the sadness and rage and anger come from.

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Custom Image By Yailin Chacon

Custom Image By Yailin Chacon

The Last Of Us

Release Date

January 15, 2023

Network

HBO

Showrunner

Craig Mazin

Directors

Craig Mazin, Peter Hoar, Jeremy Webb, Ali Abbasi, Mark Mylod, Stephen Williams, Jasmila Žbanić, Liza Johnson, Nina Lopez-Corrado

Writers

Neil Druckmann, Craig Mazin

The Last of Us airs on HBO and is available to stream on Max. Check out the Season 2 trailer: