It was intended to be a standalone episode that injected love and hope into an otherwise bleak and dark series, but it became one of the most talked-about and praised episodes of HBO’s The Last of Us.
In the third episode of season 1, ‘Long, Long Time’, viewers are treated to flashbacks across 20 years of one of the supporting characters, Bill (Nick Offerman), as he survives in the post-apocalyptic world and meets his eventual partner, Frank, played by Australian star Murray Bartlett.
Despite the Perth-born, Sydney-raised actor only featuring in the one episode of the two-season series (Season 3 is currently in production), the episode captivated the world, with Offerman going on to win the Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series that year, while Bartlett was nominated for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series.
Speaking to Variety Australia in a new interview, Bartlett said he knew even on set that they were on to something special.
“Yes. We did know that with that,” he said.
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“You never know how it’s gonna turn out, but we knew that it was up to us whether we messed it up or not, because it was a beautiful, beautiful script. It was a very memorable experience, in that every department in that production, like, you’d go into wardrobe and they’d be like, ‘Oh, this is such a beautiful story.’ Everybody felt, kind of, reverent towards it, and we just knew that it’s such a beautiful script and such a beautiful story.”
As Bartlett explained, that’s not always the case.
“But you can have that feeling, and then it just doesn’t turn out that way. And vice versa — you can be doing something, and you’re like, ‘Well this is shit.’ And then somehow it all comes together, and it’s great. Or maybe it’s like, they’ve done a really great edit, and it works. That’s one of the things that’s like the dangling carrot that keeps you going. You’re like, can it work?
“But yeah, there are times, I guess, when it does work out, like with ‘The Last of Us’, where we felt that it was super special, and then it resonated with people in a way that was really, really, really special. It was an amazing experience to feel that response come back after we’d poured our hearts into it. It was very, very satisfying.”
As for some of the blowback the episode got, as it centred on two men in love, Bartlett laughed off the criticism: “Nick had some great, witty things to say about that, which are worth looking up.”
Bartlett’s new show, Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed, is out on Apple TV now.
