Craig Mazin, co-creator of HBO’s The Last of Us, now streaming on OSN+, with the game’s creator Neil Druckmann, on the series’ future, the episode he is most excited for the world to see, and much more
How the heck do you adapt a video game? It’s a question that has plagued writers for three decades now, as adaptation after adaptation has been released, and with few exceptions, never quite capturing the magic of the story’s original form.
For Craig Mazin, the co-creator of The Last of Us, the answer is simple: Make it with love.
With past failures, Mazin explains, writers “didn’t necessarily come at it from this point of obsessive love, but rather more of an interesting narrative exercise. I think as long as the people making it love it, and are trusted by the people paying for it, which is the case with HBO, you have a chance,” to make something great.
Mazin is likely the best person in the world to ask for advice at this point on the subject. After all, The Last of Us is already the highest rated series of all time on IMDb (a few spots ahead of Mazin’s last show, HBO’s Chernobyl), with the first episode watched by millions across the world, getting rave reviews from both fans of the beloved game and newcomers alike.
On the heels of the the first episode of The Last of Us airing, Esquire Middle East spoke with Mazin about that warm reception, how they made it such a success, the “heartbreaking” wrap of filming, and the potential third Last of Us game that fans are clamouring for.
Read our full interview on The Last of Us below.
The Last of Us co-creator Craig Mazin speaks to Esquire Middle East
Safe to say you’re having a good week. One episode has aired and The Last of Us is already the highest rated series ever and IMDB.
CRAIG MAZIN: You know, that happened with Chernobyl also, then we kind of settled into a nice sixth or seventh place. If I can get two shows in the top 10, that’d be pretty f***ing awesome. But mostly, I’m just glad that people are watching it, you know? That’s the goal. And the reception has been incredibly gratifying, obviously.
You’ve said the show being is that it’s a love story, and that’s not a good thing. Can you walk me through that what exactly that means to you, and how that fueled the way that you wanted to change certain things or focus certain things as you got further and deeper past this first episode?
CRAIG MAZIN: I think it was just a function of how I felt when I played the game. I remember feeling both thrilled and awful. By the time I got to the end, I was torn. I was really torn. And that’s something that Neil does extraordinarily well, something Naughty Dog does really well. They don’t give you an easy rooting interest. They challenge you the whole way through.
There’s a moment on The Sopranos that I always think about, when Carmela goes to her own therapist, to tell this guy, look, it’s not going well with my husband, who is in fact, a mobster and kills people and I don’t know what to do. He’s being a dick. And, and the guy listens, patiently, and then says, ‘leave, he’s a murderer. If you stay with him, you’re complicit. You’re taking blood money. You have to leave.’ His moral clarity is so stark.
I think that’s one of those things that happens when you’re playing these games. You start to lose your own moral clarity in a really provocative way. I wanted, as we adapted this material, to return to that theme over and over and ask ourselves, what do you do? Who do you root for? Is this one right? Is this one wrong? And to always connect people’s behavior to love, because that’s what I think drives people more than anything, not greed. But love, even religion, ultimately, is connected back to love—love your tribe, love of your group. Love of the people who share your faith, love is what gets us both in and out of trouble. And that is provocative, and it’s exciting to write.
There’s obvious pros to working with the creator of something in an adaptation, but even when there’s a lot of mutual respect, sometimes you’ll see things philosophically differently. What are the ways that you two butt heads on certain ideas? And how did you work through those situations?
CRAIG MAZIN: I would just hit him as hard as I could until he agreed with me. [laughs] No, Neil and I had just about as good of a relationship as you can have between the author of source material and the primary adapter of the source material. And part of that is because he was so smart. There was so much understanding about not just how adaptation worked, but why adaptation that is too slavish to its source material falls apart, but also an adaptation that strays too far afield of the material, also it falls apart. In that latter case, what’s the point? So we had just a very good ability to focus on the story and what we thought would be best and not on ourselves.
The other thing that Neil and I shared it was something that I shared with Johan Renck, who directed Chernobyl. We have a basic rule: We will agree. We may not agree right now, no. But when this conversation is over, we will agree. And when you know you’re going to agree, that removes a lot of the fear that you have that you’re going to get bullied into something or ignored or talked over. And time after time, when we saw things from a different point of view, we found common ground. And we agreed. And sometimes that meant that I said, you know what? You’re right. And sometimes he went, you’re right. Then a lot of times, we found a different way entirely, a third way of doing things. And that was always exciting.
Obviously, there are multiple seasons planned potentially to adapt the second game. But Neil has also said that there’s more story to tell beyond the second game—signalling that a third game in The Last of Us series is still possible.
I know you guys have said that you really want to stick to adapting what already exists and not commit to an endless Walking Dead situation. But if Neil thinks that there’s more story to tell, is that a conversation you two have had? Has he told you what that more story to tell is, or you have you purposely blocked yourself out of that?
CRAIG MAZIN: He hasn’t. Who knows, but my instinct is that I don’t want to go beyond the existence of the source material, but if Neil does find his way to a third game, I don’t know that is what’s happening—don’t take this as a sign that that is even happening, because I don’t know. He’s very good about keeping all that stuff secret for me. But if he finds his way to a story for a third game, as somebody that writes and adapts for television, I want to play it first. I wouldn’t mind if he can give me an early play through, I would really love to play it, but I don’t want to get ahead of what that is.
Knowing Neil, if he does end up doing a third game, I can only imagine that it will not be what I expect or what anybody expects, which is exciting. I don’t want to get in the way of it. I just want to be back here like a fan. And should that day come, and I play that game, and I’m like, ‘I know what to do’, yeah, that will do it. Hopefully.
You’ve said that you combined the first two episodes of The Last of Us largely based on the perspective of people who have no idea what this game is, in order to make sure that it resonates for newcomers. Were there other ways that you had to rely on those perspectives and things that you had to work and change and go to make sure that it was great for the non-gaming audience?
CRAIG MAZIN: Sure. Well, just as a matter of general practice, the way Neil makes games and the way I make television are similar in the sense that we’re always looking for feedback, because of us have this bedrock belief that we’re making things for an audience, and if the audience rejects it whole cloth, then it doesn’t matter how you feel. For us making the show, we were relying all the time on Jacqueline Lesko, our Co-Executive Producer, who she’s been working with me as my producing partner for 10 years. And she’s just the best sounding board possible. [Executive Producer] Carolyn Strauss, who’s the queen of all television, and has never played a video game. She was an amazing sounding board. And then the folks at HBO. And then when they would say like, ‘wait, we’re lost, we’re confused, or does this mean’ or ‘Oh, we got it’—all of that was incredibly encouraging, constructive, or instructive. We just relied on the people around us and kept the target of make the audience feel the way we want in our sights.
Which episode are you most focused on in terms of how people react to it?
CRAIG MAZIN: Well, the easy answer is all of them. Each one of them is a baby of mine. And all of the birthing processes were difficult. I poured all of myself into all of them. I do have episodes that I’m really curious to see how they land with people. Certainly our third episode, I think, is one where I’m really interested to see how it goes. In terms of departing from the source material, it is our most significant departure. I think it’s a beautiful episode. I think it’s an important story. And I love it. And I have no idea how it’s going to land out there. I know that at least with the people that we’ve shown it to amongst ourselves at HBO, and critics, happily, have just been thrilled. And I hope that carries through to the general audience as well.
People are saying this is the greatest video game adaptation ever made, and, not to undervalue anything you’ve done to make it just that, that’s probably much easier when you have the greatest video game story ever told to base it on.
But do you feel that there’s lessons that other video game adaptations can learn from this, even if they don’t have the same storytelling caliber of source material as The Last of Us to base things on?
CRAIG MAZIN: Well, everything is different, right? Every novel is different. Every time you adapt something, it has its own fingerprint you need to unlock. But if there are general lessons to be taken from whatever success we might experience here, I think primarily it’s respecting the source material, and understanding what it was that drew fans to it, what made them love it in the first place—really understanding that is essential.
And then the next thing is to not be afraid to expand, adapt and change, as long as you’re doing it so purposefully, within your love for the game. Let your heart lead you when it comes to the adaptation, but only if your heart is with the source material, then you can adapt.
I think in a lot of circumstances, what’s happened is not all of them—by the way, there have been some very good adaptations—but for the ones that haven’t quite worked, part of the problem is business people look at statistics, sales numbers, engagement numbers, and so forth. And they go, ‘holy sh*t, we should adapt this thing.’ And they get the rights and then they immediately turn to other people to say, ‘look at this thing we got, do you want to do it?’ And they’re like, ‘yeah, I’ll do it, I’ll get paid’. But they didn’t necessarily come at it from this point of obsessive love, but rather more of an interesting narrative exercise. I think as long as the people making it love it, and are trusted by the people paying for it, which is the case with HBO, you have a chance, no matter what you’re adapting, but certainly in the case of video games.
What was the final day of filming like? How did you process this experience coming to a close?
CRAIG MAZIN: It hurt. We had been on this journey together. Most movies will shoot between 30 and 70 days. Chernobyl was 100 days. We shot this for 200 days. And when you shoot that long, and you go through that many experiences and that many challenges and triumphs, you really do begin to feel connected to everyone around you as family. They are helping you. They’re saving you. They’re protecting you. And they’re also all pulling in the same direction to bring this thing to life. And in particular, I just had a very profound emotional connection to Pedro Pascal and to Bella Ramsey. It’s hard to describe, but you know, even when things were crazy, and it was 20 degrees below zero, and I would just say to them, ‘if the three of us are OK, then we’re all ok. Then this is good. We’ll be okay. We’re ready.’
It was heartbreaking. You know, Bella and I kept saying in the last couple of weeks leading up to the final day, that we were in such deep denial. We knew the end is coming, but were just not allowing ourselves to feel it. And then we hit that last day, and it was—oh, it’s still hurts. And, you know, as much as people might think that we want to get back to things because we like making money or we like having jobs, I think, if I just liked making money or having a job, I’d be in finance. This is the arts. And as cliche as it is, your theater troupe is your family and you fall in love with them, and you stay in love with them. And I hope that I get to do more of The Last of Us just as much to be able to spend more time with them as also to bring that story to life.
Well, after the reception so far, I think your chances are alright.
I think we’re we’re in a good spot.
Inshallah, as we say over here.
Inshallah!