The Last of Us rattled fans all over the world last weekend when it gruesomely killed off leading man Joel Miller (Pedro Pascal). Joel was tortured by Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) in a sequence that almost completely echoed what goes down in the video game The Last of Us II. The one big difference in HBO‘s version of events? Joel’s brother Tommy (Gabriel Luna) isn’t there. Joel and Tommy first save Abby in the game only to unwittingly find themselves in her trap. Instead, in The Last of Us show, Tommy is leading the defense of Jackson Hole, Wyoming against an army of Infected and taking on a Bloater all by himself. The Last of Us star Gabriel Luna revealed to DECIDER yesterday that he had been lobbying series creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann for this change from the games for years. That’s because he didn’t buy the video game version of his character’s blind trust in Abby. “In the game, when Joel and Tommy save Abby, Tommy very nonchalantly is like, ‘Oh, this is Joel and I’m Tommy. How are you doing?'” Luna said. “For me, for somebody who is trained in the military and who has been living in this world for twenty years, I don’t think he would be that trusting and gullible to tell a stranger our names. I always thought that kind of was a bit weird.” When DECIDER spoke with Gabriel Luna over Zoom yesterday, it was soon obviously that the actor and musician has thought a lot about Tommy Miller. He definitely sees his character’s leadership during The Last of Us Season 2 Episode 2’s battle as something that “serves the story,” setting Tommy up as Joel’s successor as a leader and father figure on the show. Tommy already sat on the Council in Jackson alongside his wife Maria (Rutina Wesley), but now he’s the one leading rebuilding efforts and responsible for keeping Ellie (Bella Ramsey) safe. During our conversation with The Last of Us star, Luna delved into the fan response to his big Bloater battle, what brought Tommy and Maria together, and why his character bids adieu to his dead brother by asking him to send his niece Sarah (Nico Parker) — who perished in the very first episode of the HBO hit — his love… DECIDER: Tommy versus the Bloater might be one of my favorite moments of the season so far. It’s one of the few moments that feels triumphant in a really positive way. I’ve seen on your Instagram, you’ve got a photo of Blemmy, the “trophy,” the guy’s head. Can you talk me through what it was like to shoot that sequence? Was there a real fire? Did you take the trophy of Blemmy home? I wanna know all the little fun details. GABRIEL LUNA: I love how that name is caught on. Even my publicists here are calling it Blemmy and some of the fans are calling it Blemmy. I was at a screening last week and they had hats made with the Bloater kind of emerging from the brim and everyone is calling the Bloater Blemmy. That name just came to me because it’s a Bloaterhead and I just really thought of Lemmy and Motorhead, so, Blemmy. It was the most incredible undertaking. It took three weeks to shoot. You know, fake snow everywhere because we’re kind of at sea level. We’re down in the fjords in Squamish, British Columbia, so there’s not much real snow to be had. So we got like fake white Cheeto dust in the air. Hundreds of stuntmen, pyro, and cameramen in race cars flame retardant suits because they’re having to push through flames. We built a really cool rickshaw rig to house the camera op as we pushed it through explosions. The head that you saw, the mount, the trophy that I took was actually a tool that the VFX team was using. Sometimes you just need a physical, realistic version of it to see how light plays at any given time. So they would just hold it up. They would just hold up the head in camera so they could see how the light falls on it. But it was amazing. I mean, it was a full sculpt of the head with hair and everything, so that was really neat. I didn’t take it home because we needed it. We need it for the future. But yeah, everything. I mean, all the flames, everything you see, the flamethrower, that was all real. My hat always tips to our stunt team, our stunt coordinator for everything they did. Because Glenn Ennis, who played the bloater, took a lot of body burns. We thought it might be a record, like a Guinness Book of World Records. If someone was there to judge or to observe and report, I think it would have been. But it was just very exciting. I mean, every single day we went, it was…it was just madness. Focused madness. Tommy is there with Joel when he dies in the game, but the show makes a big change. You’re leading up Jackson’s defense. How did you feel about that change? Did you want to be there for that moment, or do you think it serves the story and your character more to establish him as a leader in his own capacity? I think the latter, and I think that’s why I suggested this to Craig and Neil in the first season. I mean, well before we were ever thinking about Season 2, I was already thinking about that moment. How in the game, when Joel and Tommy save Abby, Tommy very nonchalantly is like, “Oh, this is Joel and I’m Tommy. How are you doing?” For me, for somebody who is trained in the military and who has been living in this world for twenty years, I don’t think he would be that trusting and gullible to tell a stranger our names. I always thought that was a bit weird. Towards the end of the season — actually 2023, right before the strike — is when Craig let me know what was really gonna happen. And he’s like, “You’re right. No, Tommy won’t be there. It’ll be Dina. And instead, you’ll be fighting off this horde of Infected in Jackson.” He said there’ll be like two or three Bloaters, which there were on the day. We actually shot versions of that scene where there was multiple Bloaters. It was a full kind of collaborative effort to restructure that and I think it serves the story in a great way. It does give Tommy the opportunity to show what they have always been preparing for. Like to show the worst case scenario back on the home front where you think you are the safest, only to find out you’re not. It’s just a really, really cool way of showing a lot of game elements. Of course, the flamethrower and other additional elements there. But also just to raise the stakes for all the characters and to put everybody at risk. Not just Tommy and Joel out in the blizzard, but you’re feeling everyone’s vulnerability. I know that you’ve talked about the “one-man wake” in Episode 3. One part of that scene that really stood out to me was what he says to Joel, which is “Give Sarah my love.” It felt like a moment that really brought us back all the way to the very start of the series. What did you make of that line, and why do you think that’s what he chooses to say? It’s the only way of making sense of the abrupt departure of somebody he loves so dearly. If you do believe in heaven or the afterlife or whatever, you know, souls rejoining the pool of creation, however you want to phrase it, I think that’s a sanctuary for him in his mind to think that’s where he is. You know, he’s longed for her for 20-something years, 25 years. He’s lived in pain and regret and guilt, but now he doesn’t have to live with any of that anymore. He can just be with his daughter. As much as it is happiness that he’s with Sarah again, it’s a lot for Tommy and to make it right in his own mind why this happened. And I think it encompasses everything you need to know about their relationship, about their family, about their love, about what they’ve both experienced, the loss that they both experienced. It’s just a really poignant kind of moment. I keep mentioning there was other dialogue in that scene, but I think it was just kind of a brilliant, very, very observant move and great edit to just make that what it’s about. Because that’s all that really needs to be said. And Tommy’s a man of few words, anyway. I feel like I tried to just do so much of it with just a lot of the facial expressions in that scene. It’s just, to go from anger to kind of acceptance and, yeah, and kind of solace. Tommy and Maria, they’ve built this strong family unit in Jackson that kind of extends and filters out to the whole community. They feel like almost like the parents of that town in a way. I’m just curious what has been like building that relationship with Rutina over the years. If you guys have talked about what their domestic life situation is like, how they met… Have you guys done more work to really kind of fill in those gaps? I think it probably mirrors our real relationship in a lot of ways. We love to laugh together. We love kind of joke and have little inside jokes. I guess, what couple doesn’t? But there was a lot fun that we had on set just kind of having our own little secrets. I think that there’s a playfulness that we had innately that I believe is the truth of Tommy and Maria’s relationship. I think she’s a serious person, which Rutina is, and I can be kind of silly sometimes. So I thinks it translates really well. I think in the story, Maria was kind of drawn to Tommy’s kind of devil-made-care, kind of fun-loving type of energy, but still seeing the strength in him and the potential in him. And I think, to Tommy, Maria was his hero. I always say, also from my own experience, it’s probably best to marry your hero. You just live in this constant state of inspiration. There’s a lot of just our own vibe there and, yeah, I think that is what the home life is. I think sometimes Maria might feel like she’s got two kids, but Tommy’s stepping up and becoming more of a leader and more mature. Just in terms of where this series is going, do you have an ideal ending for Tommy? Do you think that he could have a happily ever after in this world? Oh, yeah, I don’t know. I don’t think anybody has that. We can only be thankful for a little bit of happiness right now and just the idea that maybe we might experience that feeling again down the line somewhere. But, yeah, no one in this world is thinking happily ever after. I think we’re just thinking be appreciative of what you got right now. Before I go, I was really struck how we first meet your character this season, and he’s mentoring Ellie. Tommy and Ellie have so many great scenes together. What was it like working closer with Bella this season and do you have a favorite memory of working with them? Oh, yeah, Bella is… Speaking of heroes, like they’re my hero. I watch them work so hard, with so much endurance, on so little sleep, every single day. A lot of action, a lot of emotional depth, and really tough places to go emotionally. I’m in awe. I’m in awe every day. And we love to play music together. I bring my guitar to work and the first season there was only a handful of people that I let touch my guitar — actually, probably just them. But this year we have so many more. Young [Mazino] plays, Isabela [Merced] plays, Tati [Gabrielle], Ariela [Barer], Spencer [Lord], they all play. So there’s a lot more people allowed to play my guitar now. This interview has been formatted and edited for clarity. The Last of Us returns this Sunday at 9 PM ET on HBO and MAX.