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Mar 6, 2023 · Interview. Troy Baker doesn’t really think The Last of Us has villains. Even now, The Last of Us’ Troy Baker is still learning new things about the franchise’s characters, like...
- Charles Pulliam-Moore
Mar 5, 2023 · Troy Baker, who originated the role of Joel in the ‘Last of Us’ video games, discusses his guest appearance as James in episode 8, ‘When We Are in Need’, why Pedro Pascal’s version of ...
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By Matt Kim
Updated: Mar 8, 2023 11:20 pm
Posted: Mar 8, 2023 11:11 pm
Spoilers for The Last of Us HBO Episode 8 - When We Are In Need. Read our review of the episode here.
Troy Baker loves The Last of Us, and being such a vital part of the series there was no way he’d pass up getting involved with the hit HBO live-action adaptation. “I would be happy if I’d just been a clicker,” Baker tells IGN in a post-episode interview.
Well, Baker isn’t a Clicker in The Last of Us HBO series, he plays James, a member of David’s survivors in the penultimate episode of The Last of Us season one. “Neil and Craig came to me and said, "We have a role for you." And Neil was like, "It's James,"’ says Baker on how he first got involved with the HBO series.
One of those characters is Baker’s James who isn’t just “buddy boy,” but a wary survivor who might not be okay with what he’s doing. Throughout the episode, there are points where James seems clearly at odds with David, whether it’s about the way they’re surviving (spoilers: cannibalism) or the way David seems more obsessed with capturing Ellie than getting revenge for the murder of one of their own.
Baker says this is similar to another pair of characters who are newly introduced into The Last of Us universe, Perry and Kathleen from the Kansas City Quarantine Zone. “It calls back to the relationship that Jeffrey Pierce's character, Perry, has with Kathleen, where there is a leader who has a right-hand person who is in some ways either sycophantically or sympathetically helping guide their decisions,” Baker says.
“James recognizes the evil that is inherent inside of David, but it's better to be on the right-hand side of the devil than on the wrong side. And so, he's very careful about playing his position, but he's trying to also achieve his goal, which is, ‘Don't let this girl in.’ And he uses pragmatism as his method. She's just another mouth to feed.”
It was announced early on that Baker and his video game co-star Ashley Johnson, who voices Ellie in the games, were going to be part of the series, kicking off speculation on what roles they’d get. One early suggestion was that Baker would play David, but Baker said that decision would be too obvious.
“There was a lot of rumor and speculation that I was going to be playing David. I was like, ‘That would've just been too kitschy. That would've been too on the nose.” Furthermore, the decision to cast Scott Shepard is another example of something Baker loves about the show. It’s different.
“The thing that I love, that's a departure from what Nolan did in the game by playing David, is that, again, this is a different representation of a character that people might be familiar with.”
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Mar 6, 2023 · Mar 5, 2023 7:00pm PT. ‘The Last of Us’: Original Joel Actor Troy Baker Talks Playing a Cannibal in the Show and Passing the Baton to Pedro Pascal. By Katcy Stephan. Liane...
- Joel and Ellie (Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey) Past work: Pascal: “The Mandalorian,” “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent,” “Narcos,” “Game of Thrones.”
- Tommy (Gabriel Luna) Past work: “Terminator: Dark Fate,” “Hala,” “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” Had you played the game before you signed on? I played “Part I” and “Part II” in preparation for this role.
- Tess (Anna Torv) Past work: “The Newsreader,” “Mindhunter,” “Secret City,” “Fringe” Had you played the game before you signed on? I remember it being a really big deal when it came out, particularly because of the story and the characters.
- Marlene (Merle Dandridge) Past work: “Station 19,” “Truth Be Told,” “Greenleaf,” “The Last of Us” Since you’re recreating the character that you played in the game, how much of that did you want to inform what you did on the show?
Mar 7, 2023 · By Blair Marnell March 7, 2023. Astute viewers of HBO’s The Last of Us episode 8 may have noticed that Troy Baker had a small role this week as James. Baker isn’t quite as well-known in...
Mar 6, 2023 · TVLine spoke with Baker — who also hosts HBO’s official post-episode podcast — about taking on a new character in the Last of Us verse, and we picked his brain about both the game and...
