The Last of Us actor Troy Baker is as engrossed in the show right now as anyone can be. Baker played Joel Miller in The Last of Us and The Last of Us Part II. Additionally, Baker plays a minor role in the HBO series The Last of Us. But in an interview with ComicBook.com and ET's The Last of Pods program, Baker revealed a flashback scene he filmed as Joel but that wasn't included in the games:
"I think it's a wonderful exercise for an actor to come in with a backstory," Baker started to unfold. "If it's not there on the page, then make something up, if it's necessary... There was a shoot that we did nobody knows about, I'm going to get in trouble for saying this, in between Part One and Part Two, where we were just kind of testing out some new tech, and so just Neil and I went down to a different stage than we shot on down in San Diego, and he was like, 'I want to do a couple of scenes from this, because I don't really have anything written so far, but I have an idea of the scene for this. Are you comfortable just kind of running a scene by yourself?'
So there's a scene that we just kind of made up on the fly about Joel going into a bar. And so there are all of these backstory moments that we get to find out what happened; where's Sarah's mom? What happened to that relationship? What is the schism between he and Tommy?"
In The Last of Us games, the player is simply not given access to a large portion of Joel's backstory. Joel is an old, cautious guy whose former life has long since departed when the game first starts. He has finished any opening up he may have done with those surrounded by the time the second game begins, and he is now in a more sad and pensive mood. Since players only need to inhabit and play as Joel, who has the motivation to protect Ellie, everything works out for the games (or vice versa).
Of course, The Last of Us on HBO has a different storyline (as is often pointed out). Viewers believe there are numerous problems with personalities, backstories, and myths that need to be resolved. The Last of Us' HBO creative team is aware of this (Craig Mazin, Neil Druckmann). The program is effectively using its opportunity to elaborate on content that the games didn't need to, as Baker pointed out. that we would now be able to go further into the backstories of the people we're viewing
Do you want to find out more about Joel? We're all excited for the Bloater, which has been hinted at in every clip, I know! Let's hear from you in the remarks.