Speaking with Esquire, Luna explained how he was thinking of people he’d lost in real life when considering how Tommy will react to Joel’s death in The Last of Us season 2. The actor said he thought about his cousin Adrien, who died of cancer, while teasing a transitional scene that involves Tommy. He also indicates episode 3 will be “tragic” once he’s learned of his brother’s death. Check out what Luna had to say below:
I’ve been to a lot of funerals in my life. I try to frame it as: Their cage has opened. Now they’re free. Their spirit can go back to the pool of creation, and rejoin The One. There’s a lot of hope in the idea of death for me. One of my mottoes is “Memento Mori,” so that I could live well and fully but always remember death so that you can appreciate life on a daily basis.
In this case, I was just trying to recall moments when you lose people abruptly. I drew a lot on my cousin Adrian. He was 44 years old and I lost him to liver cancer—just drawing on those emotions and memories. There’s this scene that follows the events of the second episode. I won’t get into it too heavily, but there’s a transition that happens, a passing of the torch so to speak. It felt not only was it happening in the story but in our work and in our production. It’s exciting moving forward. It’s a terribly tragic episode. But now the world expands.
What Luna’s Statement Means For Tommy After Joel’s Death
The Tragic Circumstances Will Be Anything But Easy
Tommy was always close with Joel, the pair having done many immoral things in order to survive before their life at Jackson. In the five years since season 1, however, it seems the pair have settled down and put their past sins behind them. With the cast of The Last of Us missing its core hero, his brother obviously isn’t going to take what happened to him that easy. Luna remains secretive about what it means for his character and whether he’ll be just as angry as Ellie, who vowed to kill Abby and her friends for what they did.
Given the life experiences Luna is pulling from when thinking of Joel’s death, it seems like he might have a different reaction to what’s transpired than Ellie did. While he’s unlikely to be accepting of what transpired, he might not be as keen on revenge, especially when he still has a family in Jackson to take care of. However, he’s also not going to be taking what happened without mourning over his brother, since his death is likely to have long-standing consequences that are felt even when The Last of Us season 3 arrives.
