My first thought while watching episode 3 of The Last of Us, was ‘Oh my God, the casting is perfect, Nick Offerman was born to play Bill. So it came as quite a shock to me, and I imagine many others, when we found out that the actor best known for his role as Ron Swanson wasn’t co-creator Craig Mazin’s first choice for one of the The last of us’ innovative queer characters . And while the actor they originally had in mind would have been great, the showrunner explained why Offerman was such an amazing choice and how driven the actors and creatives were to tell a true love story with Bill and Frank.
Speaking of episode 3, one of the biggest changes made to the game and as they cast Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett, Craig Mazin pointed out that the Parks and Amusement to discard The deputy was not what they initially had in mind for Bill, they said Podcast The Last of Us :
Initially, the role of Bill was to be played by Con O’Neill, who played Bryukhanov in Chernobyl. And he couldn’t, ultimately he couldn’t because he was in Our Flag Means Death, which is another show on HBO, which is very funny if you haven’t seen it. So we couldn’t do it with Con. And that’s where the idea for Nick came from.
It makes perfect sense that Mazin thought of O’Neill first, considering they worked together on his last show. Chernobyl. However, due to scheduling conflicts because the actor was busy playing Israel, Blackbeard’s right-hand man, in Our flag means death he couldn’t do it.
While I’m sure O’Neill would have been great as Bill, I think Nick Offerman was the perfect person to bring this beautiful love story to life. However, the casting of the comedic actor has come with a lot of consideration, as he is a straight man who would play a gay man. Mazin spoke about the importance of representation in entertainment and how it influenced the launch of his bill, saying:
But for Nick and I, who are both straight, it was important to say, “Look, we can do this job.” We can tell these stories with these characters. The key is that you have to do your homework and you have to talk to people who have stepped into the shoes of these characters and more importantly you have to give them space to tell you where you got it right and where you are going to. it’s wrong, and you have to listen.
Mazin went on to explain that many middle-aged gay men worked on this production, including Murray Bartlett, who played Frank. He also explained that having all these men on set to drive the story was extremely helpful in helping the show tell an authentic love story.
And in this episode we were very lucky because Murray [Bartlett] He’s a married middle-aged gay Peter Hoar, the director who did a great job as a married middle-aged gay. Tim Good, the publisher, is a middle-aged married man. Our production manager, Cecil O’Connor, is a middle-aged gay man. And it turns out that middle age is more important than homosexuality in this story, because it was important to me to tell a story about what older, more committed love feels like, because it reflects my own experience.
Of course, the job they did with Episode 3 was well done, as it received a ton of praise and many, many viewers were blown away and utterly speechless. The story of Frank and Bill, which is actually different Game
All in all, it seems like every decision has been made for Episode 3, from the casting of Offerman and the Murrays to change the history of Bill and Frank resulted in a wonderful, beautiful and moving episode of television, which I think audiences will continue to regard as the TV show 2023 to continue.
Watch The last of us’ third episode and the great performances of Offerman and Murray, you can with a Maximum HBO subscription . You can also watch new episodes of the video game adaptation every Sunday at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and HBO Max.
Source: Cinemablend
