It took more than a village to create The Last of Us season two – there was a whole world of people behind the scenes to make sure the latest outing was perfect.
From knowing who would be right for the creation, through to the bigger plans for the series as a whole – including knowing how far to take it.
Speaking ahead of the series launch, executive producer Carolyn Strauss discusses why she switched up an executive job for a creative path, the collaborative team’s efforts to bring the show to life, and what makes The Last of Us so unique.
You first collaborated with Craig Mazin on Chernobyl. What was special about that collaboration that inspired you to keep working together?
The first thing I learned about Craig is I loved his sense of humour and intelligence and his story sense. He’s a brilliant structuralist. I thought his notes were so insightful and
impressive. He pitched me his idea for Chernobyl. I thought it was really impressive in its reach and ambition, but also in its grasp.
There are plenty of times when people have reaches and ambitions, but they can’t execute them. But Craig’s intellect and imagination could execute his vision. I feel like my whole career has been about understanding the right coattails to grab onto. So I thought, ‘I’m going to grab onto this guy’s coattails.’
How does making The Last of Us compare to your experience working as a producer on Game of Thrones starting in 2011?
The Sopranos for me was the first time I felt like a showrunner really brought a cinematic vision to television. I think David and Dan with Game of Thrones doubled down on that.
Game of Thrones was so unique in the bigness of its vision and it brought an epic-movie and cinematic tone to television — from the massive battle scenes to all the genre elements that over the seasons really grew in scale. They’d ask every season, ‘How can we be better this year? How can we be bigger this year?’ And HBO was willing to support it financially and spiritually.
As with Game of Thrones, The Last of Us can’t just be bigger and bigger— it has to be merited, and it has to be earned. If both shows were just visual effects and big battles no one would care, you know? It’s about matching that with the artistry of the storytelling, character development and the audience’s investment in the story, character and relationships; the intersection of all those things is what it takes to make it work.
There is also a lot of engagement for female viewers in both shows that really upends a lot of tropes within genre storytelling.
That’s really it for me too. I’m not a genre person. What’s really interesting is, considering how much genre stuff I’ve worked on, I don’t love genre stuff. (Laughs) But both shows really do give as much weight to the female characters as to the male characters, and that’s really appealing to me.
How are the series’ respective IPs unique in terms of the nuances of the adaptation process?
Where they’re similar is that they both have ardent fan bases that have really strong opinions about the original material that they invested in. And as somebody who neither read the George R. R. Martin books until it was introduced to me for the show, or played this game, you know, I didn’t come to it with that.
I think the Game of Thrones guys and Craig both had to evolve their source material, while at the same time not alienate those fanbases. That’s a pretty fine tightrope to walk. I think the story and characters in The Last of Us presented a unique opportunity for adaptation that made it even more amenable to that process.
You’re known for giving great notes to creatives. What kind of feedback do you find yourself giving Craig?
Craig gives himself more notes than anybody else gives him! The thing about Craig that’s so phenomenal: his level of detail is so meticulous. His scripts are cinematically written. And that level of detail follows him throughout every part of the process— writing, production and post.
He’s always seeing things at a level much deeper than I’m seeing them. I’m often like, ‘Wow, I never thought of that.’ So the notes I give him are the same I’d give to anyone, like ‘I’m confused by this’ or ‘What if this happened? Or ‘This doesn’t make sense to me.’
You’re a rare example of someone who had a very high-level TV executive job and transitioned to producing full-time. How does that background impact the way you approach your job?
I think you can’t help but apply the sum of your knowledge to whatever you’re doing, whether consciously or unconsciously, right? And there was a lot of vertical integration when I was an executive, but things are different. And so I think that that knowledge of mine is becoming sort of less and less useful in a way (Laughs)
When I was an executive, there was much more of an ability for an executive to say, ‘I have no idea, let’s give it a whirl.’ There isn’t that ability as much today; things are so expensive now. But I think one of the things that purely creative people don’t have is an ingrained sense of what’s going on the other side; what’s going through the mind of executives and all the different things that executives are balancing.
I see HBO as our partners in the show and not adversaries. We’re in constant conversation with [EVP of HBO Programming] Francesca [Orsi] and also with [HBO CEO] Casey [Bloys] now and again. This is all such a massive undertaking, we have to link arms and do it together.
As Craig and Neil plot the future of The Last of Us, what do you think is the secret to ending a show at the perfect time?
I think it really is a collaboration between the network and the creatives. There has to be respect for the creative vision of the showrunner: ‘We’re done.’ The structure of a story can only hold so much.
You want to leave the party when it’s still in full-swing and I think that’s the case here too because Craig is so structurally attuned to his stories and has thought so much about the arc of the show over its seasons. Knowing when to end something and how to land that plane is paramount.