‘The Last of Us’ Guest Star Joe Pantoliano on Filming That Heartbreaking Final Scene and Forgetting Pedro Pascal

"The Last of Us" guest star Joe Pantoliano discusses the death of his character, Eugene, and what happened when he saw Pedro Pascal for the first time on set.

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SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers from Season 2, Episode 6 of “The Last of Us,” now streaming on Max.

When Joe Pantoliano first heard from his agents that he’d been approached for a role on Season 2 of “The Last of Us,” he was unfamiliar with the HBO series, let alone the video games on which it’s based. In fact, at first, he thought the offer was for a different series entirely.

“I thought it was that other show, ‘This Is Us,’” Pantoliano says. “Ken Olin was an exec [producer] on it. He’s an old friend of mine. And I thought, ‘Oh, great, I love Ken!’” Given that “This Is Us” ended its run in 2022, Pantoliano quickly realized his mistake. “Then I read the material and I’m like, this is a very challenging little part.”

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Pantoliano knows from challenging little parts. The veteran character actor, who won an Emmy for his role on HBO’s “The Sopranos,” has starred in more than 140 film and TV projects since the 1970s (from “M*A*S*H” to “The Goonies” to “The Matrix” to the “Bad Boys” franchise), almost always in supporting roles that are high on impact and short on screen time. That certainly is the case for his role in Episode 6 of “The Last of Us.” Pantoliano plays Eugene, who’s first mentioned in the Season 2 premiere during a therapy session Joel (Pedro Pascal) has with Eugene’s wife, Gail (Catherine O’Hara), during which we learn Joel had to kill Eugene.

In Episode 6 — which covers the deteriorating relationship between Joel and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) in the five years between the events of Season 1 and Season 2 — we see what actually happened. While Joel takes Ellie out on her first patrol, they come across Eugene, who’s just been bitten by an infected and will succumb to the cordyceps fungus in not much more than an hour. The protocols established by the council in Jackson, Wyoming dictate that Eugene has to be killed on the spot, but he begs Joel and Ellie to take him to the outer walls so he can have a last moment with Gail. Joel rebuffs Eugene’s pleas, but Ellie convinces Joel to break the rules to bring him back. Before she leaves to retrieve their horses, she makes Joel promise not to harm Eugene — a promise Joel has no intention of keeping.

Instead, he leads Eugene to a quiet spot by a mountain lake, and tells Eugene he’ll pass along any last words Eugene has for Gail before killing him.

“Last words for her?!” Eugene screams. “No, no, no. I need her last words! For me!”

In an interview with Variety about the episode, Pantoliano — known to fans, friends and colleagues alike as Joey Pants — reveals that Pascal wasn’t on set when he said those lines. He also talks about building a full character with just a few scenes, why he hasn’t watched any of “The Last of Us” yet — and what happened when Pascal saw him for the first time.

Well, you get the backstory of the world, and what led to this. The ability to survive up to this point, and then, when you see the aftermath. I didn’t get a visual on it, and then I got to the first day of work, and this beautiful forest — the way they lit it, and the machines that they used to fog it up, it felt so real. Most of the time, you’re on a CGI set and you’re surrounded by green screens, and it’s almost like when I started out in the theater, and teachers would have you concentrate on creating the behavior. If you’re in the cold, you create the cold, right? But you were in this element, so it helped the acting.

No. They were supposed to send the episode last night, and apparently they did. The answer is, I have the episode, but I don’t know how to play it, and then I’ve got to get an app. And then I got the app, and I wanted to put it on my big screen, but I can only play it on this [holds up his phone], and I don’t want to watch it on this. [Throws phone down.] Technology is not friendly to senior citizens.

No, but that’s the classic small part. The agent says, “Listen, it’s not a very big part, but they talk about you all the time.” So I was a complete virgin to the whole thing. I mean, the special effects makeup team, that’s a production in and of itself. The artists and crafts and the detail — it’s really something. And the time that it takes to do all of that! 

Well, firstly, about five years ago, I was the victim of a two car collision on my corner. Car was T-boned and hit me, and I had a concussion — hospital. So there are parts of my experience that have been erased.

So, Bella was in “Game of Thrones,” right? I haven’t seen that. I don’t have HBO. Even when I was on “The Sopranos,” I didn’t have HBO. Pedro, I’ve seen and admired his work — like, this is a good actor. So Craig and Neil brought me onto the set. Saw Bella — “Hi.” And then I saw Pedro, and I was about say, “Hi, nice to meet you,” and all of a sudden he starts going, “Joey Pants! Joey Pants!” And he starts hugging me and kissing me, and “How are you, how’ve you been?!” And I’m like, Oh my God! 

Because even if I didn’t get hit on my head, you see and meet so many people, and you forget, did we work together? Or didn’t we work together? So, he could read [that]. He’s like, “You don’t fucking remember me?! I’ve been to your house, for Christ’s sake! I’ve been to your apartment in Hoboken!” Then he said, “Sam Weisman? The play reading?” Now that Pedro was 21 years old. Skinny kid. I remember him, but 25 years later, there was this whole other person. He pulled up a picture, later in the day. He said, “Look, I have a picture of when we did the reading. Here’s a picture of you and me.” And I was like, Holy Christ, yeah, I remember that guy. So it was fantastic to reacquaint myself with him. We went out to dinner, and it was just like no time had diminished, you know, except now he’s a big movie star. I’m the kind of “celebrity” where I walk by you, and it takes 10 steps for you to put it together, and you turn around say, “Wasn’t that…” Pedro, they could scout him 10 feet before he passes.

I know it was explained to me, but I don’t remember. I concentrated more on what I need. You know, “Yes, I’ve been bit and, yes, I have to be destroyed, but I have requests that are not unreasonable.” So that’s what I concentrated on, convincing them to grant my last request.

Only when the material is weak. When it’s all there on the page, it’s almost actor-proof. You can’t fuck it up because it’s written so well. There’s four questions you ask: Who am I? Where am I? What do I want? Where do I come from? It was all there on the page, and it felt natural. With Bella and Pedro, you get a sense that there’s a relationship, that these people have known each other for a really long time and have opinions already. It’s always very hard to be a guest actor on a show. I’ve been on both sides of that spectrum, and these performers made it so inviting. That takes away a lot of the anxiety that you don’t need — although, you know, that’s good anxiety to have for the character I was playing.

A lot of the work I did was to feed my children and pay the rent. So a lot of it was underdeveloped, unwritten garbage that was paying a decent wage for me to get to the next job. So it became part of my MO to breathe life into these one-dimensional characters. But that wasn’t the case on this, you know, it was just so [pause] emotionally challenging.

We did that so many times. Neil really took me to task. He was a wonderful director and he would just say, “Again” and “again” and “again” and “again.” God almighty, I murdered my entire family. My dogs were in that scene. My parents. People that I’ve lost. I just brought everybody into that scene.

They did find the spot. But on the day, there were these bugs that hatched. We had to do that walk-and-talk first at a different area, and then it was like a half a mile walk uphill, and everybody’s walking down: “We can’t shoot, there are bugs.” They all had the bee collector covering on, and I said, “What? Like, bees?” They said, “No, little, tiny bugs. They don’t bite. There’s just thousands of them.” So they determined that we couldn’t shoot it, and we’d have to come back, and they were going to do it CGI. But then I got sick. I came home, and I got the flu part B. The Part B is really bad, so I couldn’t fly back to shoot it. When we did that last scene, they’d already shot Pedro’s stuff, and so I did it with a photo double. I was so bummed that I couldn’t complete it with him. Now that’s acting! 

This interview has been edited and condensed.

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