‘The Last of Us' star Young Mazino on Jesse, the show's ‘gentle monster'
This story contains spoilers for Episode 5 of 'The Last of Us' Season 2.
Jesse is angry. He also has impeccable timing.
Just as Ellie (Bella Ramsey) and Dina (Isabela Merced) find themselves cornered by numerous infected inside an abandoned warehouse in the latest episode of 'The Last of Us,' their reliable friend Jesse arrives in the nick of time to save them.
But mutant fungal zombies are not the only roaming threat in the world in HBO's postapocalyptic thriller, and the trio immediately find themselves trying to evade attacks from the local militia as well as a mysterious cult.
Over a couple of video calls — including one in which he was surrounded by what looked like the lush natural world of the show — actor Young Mazino discussed his character Jesse's rescue mission to Seattle as well as how 'The Last of Us' has further propelled his rising profile in Hollywood. As for what happens in Episode 5, Mazino sums up the usually laid-back Jesse's feelings as Ellie and Dina pepper him with questions about his unexpected arrival: 'He's pissed.'
'He's really pissed off that they're there to begin with,' Mazino says in a video call. 'He knows the stakes. He knows how serious it can get. There's a lot of s— on his mind but … for him, it's about getting everyone to safety, surviving and then the emotions come later. Then we can hash it out.'
A patrol coordinator in their Jackson, Wyo., settlement, Jesse has an on again, off again relationship with Dina — 'a situationship,' as Mazino calls it. After the horde of infected attacked Jackson, he became a member of the council that leads the community.
Mazino describes Jesse as 'a pretty happy-go-lucky guy' in the earlier episodes of the season, as well as 'a bit of a Boy Scout.' But as audiences see in Episode 5, he's also a capable fighter proficient in firearms and equipped with key survival skills. Mazino says co-star Gabriel Luna (who plays Tommy) joked that Jesse is a 'gentle monster.'
'I couldn't agree more,' says Mazino. 'For these people to survive up to that point, you do have to have a bit of that savagery and be able to turn that on. It's just a matter of being able to switch it back off.'
Much like Jesse, Mazino exudes a quiet, gentle spirit through the screen of a video call. He references the stories of Anton Chekhov, the artistic philosophy of Pablo Picasso and anime like 'Jujutsu Kaisen.' ('If 'Vinland Saga' existed in this world, Jesse would really f— with that manga' because of its themes, Mazino says.) He's as game to discuss a dream blunt rotation among the Jackson community members as he is to contemplate the Asian diaspora in a postapocalyptic world.
'He's so chill and mellow,' Ramsey says of her castmate. 'I got to know him quite well and he's so perceptive and so thoughtful about everything. I feel really lucky to have gotten to know him more than just the chill, mellow guy that everyone sees on the surface.'
The respect is mutual. Mazino calls Ramsey 'an extraordinary individual' whose work ethic is No. 1 on the call sheet. One vivid memory: standing underneath some PVC pipes with Ramsey on set and enjoying a moment in artificial rain together.
'I was soggy and wet every day for hours on end,' Mazino says of filming the show's Seattle-set episodes. 'And as soon as you're about to dry, they wet you down again. What helps is having someone like Bella Ramsey, who maintains this levity. So despite being wet and soggy and miserable all day, being miserable with someone that's just as miserable and wet as you really helps.'
'The Last of Us' marks Mazino's highest-profile project yet. After years of trying to make it as an actor, Mazino got his breakout role in the 2023 limited series 'Beef,' where he portrays a slacker who falls for his older brother's road-rage nemesis. His performance earned him an Emmy nomination.
His familiarity with 'The Last of Us' initially stemmed from watching YouTube videos of the game's story scenes. But before meeting showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann for the project, Mazino bought a used PlayStation 4 to play through the key moments of Jesse's story.
'When I told Craig I played through the game hoping he would be pleasantly surprised, he was like, 'I wish you actually didn't play the game at all,'' Mazino says.
Preparation for the role included going 'crazy at the gym for a few months,' Mazino says. He also received weapons training and learned to ride a horse.
'I've been on many sets in the last 10 years and I'm aware of how rare this kind of opportunity is,' Mazino says. 'My expectation for writing and storytelling became very high after 'Beef,' and I wasn't sure if I'd be able to find something to match that. But 'The Last of Us' came my way and I love getting to explore different facets of myself through character.'
Jesse has a soft spot for Ellie, whom he initially meets as a prickly outsider cut from similar cloth, Mazino says. Both are loners who'd rather avoid the spotlight — particularly at parties. But Jesse also recognizes Ellie's inner fire and potential.
'Jesse finds Ellie so interesting and amusing and endearing,' Mazino says. 'To be this small, petite girl and have so much vitriol and fire and angst. I think Jesse wants to help Ellie harness all that intense energy that she has and put it to good use.'
The pair also share an attraction to Dina, who is a bit more social and warm and seemingly carefree. And though Jesse did not seem to mind Ellie and Dina sharing a drunken kiss at a party in an earlier episode, the couple's relationship has since grown more romantic and intimate.
Mazino believes Jesse has been fully aware that Ellie and Dina have been dancing around their feelings for each other.
'I think Jesse's the type of person that understands that love is love, and it's not something you can cage or latch on to,' Mazino says. 'I think the healthy form of love is to allow it to flourish. .… Love is a spectrum … and maybe he recognizes that Dina is not somebody he may necessarily want to be exclusively with forever together. But there is love.'
Mazino insists that Jesse cares less about Ellie and Dina's developing romance than he does the fact that Dina has followed her lover into a war zone.
'Love eludes common sense and rationality a lot so he's just trying to be the level-headed one through and through,' says Mazino.
Jesse clearly opposes the Ellie revenge tour that has brought them to Seattle, and Mazino says their differing philosophies stem from Jesse's appreciation for the community of Jackson. Because he was able to find a home in Jackson, Jesse's response to loss is to grab onto what remains.
'I think he serves as a perfect reflector off of [Ellie for] how one copes with death and murder and violence,' Mazino says. 'Some people, all they see is red and they want the revenge. But the other side of that choice is savoring what's remaining and what's precious to you.'
Ellie, he adds, is 'all about revenge, revenge, revenge for someone she lost. But Jesse wants the opposite of that. He wants to maintain what they still have, knowing how fleeting it is to be alive in this world.'
While the world of 'The Last of Us' is bleak, Mazino and his castmates found ways between takes to escape the heaviness. One form of relief: a shared love of music. Mazino, Luna, Merced and Ramsey all play guitar.
'We all brought a guitar without even telling each other,' Mazino says. 'There was always a guitar on set or we would steal one from the set and get in trouble. We'd have jam sessions. Somebody would be playing some tune or a song, and if we knew it, we join in [or] we'd learn it.'
Mazino says that they all had eclectic tastes and traded songs 'like Pokémon.' (Mazino's contributions included Daniel Caesar, Frank Ocean and 'some R&B stuff.')
'It's so difficult to maintain a heavy energy for 12 to 16 hours a day,' he says. 'It really helps to have people that are able to laugh and crack jokes and be light and to play music … so a guitar is a lifesaver on a set like that.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Washington Post
44 minutes ago
- Washington Post
The Billy Joel movie premiere was sad, sweet and yet incomplete
NEW YORK — A documentary about the life and career of Billy Joel, premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival at the legendary Beacon Theatre — it's hard to get more New York than that. Yet what was long planned as a night of career celebration took on unexpected poignance after Joel, 76, revealed two weeks ago that he has been diagnosed with a brain disorder — and canceled all of his concerts scheduled over the next 13 months. He also had to miss the opening night of the festival, which kicked off its 24th year Wednesday with a screening of Part 1 of 'Billy Joel: And So It Goes,' a sprawling film airing on HBO in July. Festival co-founders Robert De Niro and Jane Rosenthal made a brief appearance praising the singer-songwriter for five decades of capturing the rhythm and spirit of the city. De Niro dubbed the Long Island native as the 'poet laureate of New York.' 'Billy wanted to be with us tonight. But as you may have heard, he is dealing with a health issue and had to postpone his performances, including this one tonight. We know you join us in wishing him a speedy recovery,' Rosenthal said. A few moments later, directors Susan Lacy and Jessica Levin read a message from Joel that he wanted to convey to the audience in his classic wry manner: 'Getting old sucks, but it's still preferable to getting cremated.' 'He will be back,' Lacy said, to loud applause from the crowd. In an increasingly fractured culture, Joel's music and lyrics unite the generations, the filmmakers said, with a relatability that made him one of the top-selling musical acts in history. Just ask his ex-wife. 'Bill can take a kernel of something that happened and create a story that is universal, and he would get to the DNA of the human experience,' Elizabeth Weber, who was also the star's manager back in the day, says in the film. Nearly 55 years after his debut album, Joel was still filling stadiums — before the tour cancellation, he was scheduled to play another 17 shows in the United States and Britain, alongside a rotating crew of partner acts: Rod Stewart, Stevie Nicks and Sting. And for a decade, fans packed his monthly concerts at Madison Square Garden, until the unique residency ended this past summer. He never had to change up the act much. The familiarity of the repertoire — 'Piano Man,' 'New York State of Mind,' 'Uptown Girl' — was the big draw for attendees who hollered along to every word. 'There's a handful of folks that can both play and compose and write the lyrics to these songs that, I'm sorry, as soon as you hear a couple of phrases, you're singing the whole damn thing,' Tom Hanks, one of the executive producers of the documentary, told the AP at the screening. The rigorous tour schedule took its toll. Joel's recent diagnosis, normal pressure hydrocephalus, was 'exacerbated by recent concert performances, leading to problems with hearing, vision and balance,' his team said in a statement. During his last show in February, he took a startling fall. Joel is a more complicated celebrity than fans might expect from his songbook of karaoke staples. Levin told the audience that when she met him, she proudly told him how much she loved his lesser-known 'Streetlife Serenade' record from 1974, confident that he would clock her as a true fan. Instead, he said, 'That's probably my least favorite album.' 'His response was my first clue that there was a lot more to Billy Joel,' Levin said. Lacy, who said she had a 'cursory knowledge' of him before the film, found Joel to be a complex and layered figure. Part 1 — which ran about 2½ hours, with interviews with Joel's family, friends, band members and fellow stars, including Bruce Springsteen and Garth Brooks — chronicles his struggle to break through as a solo artist, his move to California and then back to his beloved New York. When he experienced life-changing fame with the 1977 smash album 'The Stranger,' he found himself mocked for being too popular, an uncool 'balladeer' in an era of anti-authoritarian punk rock. The criticism stung Joel, who saw himself as a scrappy kid from Hicksville, Long Island, scratching his way out of a tough childhood. He always felt like he was struggling, he says in the film, even while enjoying astonishing success. 'I learned life is a fight,' he says. The Beacon audience cheered every New York reference in the documentary — such as the introductions of Joel's Long Island-bred backup musicians — as well as moments when the hometown hero triumphed over the music-label suits. Like the time he declined to work with a Beatles producer because it would have meant replacing his band. Or when then-manager Weber insisted that unenthused record executives release 'Just the Way You Are' as a single. It went on to win record and song of the year at the 1979 Grammy Awards. Joel famously endured some dark moments — depression, rehab, divorce — and his loved ones describe them unflinchingly. While in the late-1960s duo Attila with his close friend Jon Small, Joel had an affair with the drummer's wife. That was Weber. When the love triangle self-destructed, the piano player was so consumed by guilt and heartbreak that he tried to end his life. After a stint in a psychiatric facility, he recovered by channeling his emotion into songs — and reconnected with Weber, who helped guide him to superstardom. Small, who has moved past the affair debacle, joins their mutual ex-wife as one of the primary talking heads interviewed in the film. Part 1 ends with Weber and Joel's own explosive breakup in the early 1980s, after he started drinking heavily and using drugs to cope with the pressures of fame. But Joel has always been candid about his mistakes and trying to learn from them — another reason fans have remained so devoted for so long, and why it's difficult to imagine him out of the spotlight. The film opens with Joel talking about his early days working on an oyster boat, when he would gaze with envy at an enormous beachfront mansion. Years later, he bought that very house, though it was still undergoing construction. 'It's not finished yet,' Joel said. 'But neither am I.'
%3Amax_bytes(150000)%3Astrip_icc()%2FTAL-header-sophie-turner-SOPHIETURNERCCI0625-4a4db456f0da49318e92f4e7b7d9b11a.jpg&w=3840&q=100)
Travel + Leisure
an hour ago
- Travel + Leisure
Exclusive: Sophie Turner on Her Travel Style: ‘I Look Like Hannibal Lecter on the Plane'
Sophie Turner's breakout role as Sansa Stark on the hit fantasy series Game of Thrones made the British actress a household name. And while the HBO show is still binge-worthy years after its finale, Turner is watching something a little lighter when she's in flight. 'If I'm not sleeping, any Real Housewives —I'm binging the whole way. You have to watch it!' she said, listing the Salt Lake City franchise as her favorite, though she's also partial to Potomac and Beverly Hills. Turner sat down with Travel + Leisure to talk about her other travel essentials (beyond the Real Housewives ), her jet lag hacks, and her favorite filming location. Though the Emmy-winning Game of Thrones ended in 2019 after eight globe-trotting seasons, Turner's love of shooting in beautiful, far-flung locations has endured. She has gone on to star in many films, including "X-Men: Dark Phoenix" (2019) and "The Dreadful" (2024), requiring her to travel all over the world. For Turner, one location still stands out: Iceland (one of many notable Game of Thrones filming locations). 'I just found Iceland absolutely astonishingly beautiful, like the landscape with northern lights. It's also that I shot there in the summer when there's something like 22 hours of light, and it was a very bizarre experience. It was just beautiful.' As for other dream filming locations, she would love to work on something in Norway. 'I've never been to Norway, and I would just love to go there. I just think it looks beautiful.' The Oxararfoss Trail and Almannagjá gorge in Iceland, which was used as a shooting location in season 4 of Game of Thrones. mariiakamenska/Getty Images Window or aisle? Window! Even though I go to sleep immediately, I need something to rest my head on, if it's not a recliner. Go-to plane uniform? It doesn't matter, just comfy. Hoodie and sweatpants. There is a brand that I've been wearing recently called Akimbo Club. What's an item you can't travel without? Compression socks. Even when you're not pregnant, they really do help. Oh, sometimes I bring face masks, like chin masks and lip masks. I look like Hannibal Lecter on the plane, but whatever. Ideal co-star to travel with? That would probably be the entire X-Men cast [which includes James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, and Nicholas Hoult]. We just had the best time flying all over the world on press tours. We had too much fun. Trip you want to take? I've been so lucky to travel to so many places, but I haven't ever gone to New Zealand, and I would love to go there. So, how does she survive an intense travel schedule often packed with long flights? Her moisturizer ("my Weleda Skin Food") and a dip in the closest body of water, she told T+L. 'Whether it's a bath, a pool, an ice bath, whatever it may be. I think it just calms my system down. It also really helps me with jet lag as well. I'm a Pisces, so I just need to be in water. It's like a rejuvenation. It feeds my soul.' For hotel pools, she recommends the Corinthia Hotel in London, but she also loves swimming out in the open, like when she went to Egypt last year and hopped into her new favorite body of water. 'We were on the River Nile, and we all jumped off the boat [into the river], and I think that was probably my favorite.' Another travel must for Turner? Immediately ordering room service when she checks into her hotel room. 'Listen, my go-to order will always be spaghetti with butter and cheese. Kids food, man, it's the best!' the mother of two said with a laugh. Though she orders off the children's menu, she does the very adult thing of immediately unpacking after her room service meal—both routines help with a sense of normalcy. Her final travel staple? A Hugo spritz. 'It absolutely is the spirit of travel,' Turner said. She is such a fan of the cocktail that she has partnered with St-Germain for the second year in a row on a new campaign called 'Sip Into Something Fresher.' 'I can have it anywhere, any time of day. It could be morning, evening, whatever. There's no bounds on where I drink it,' she said, noting she would love airlines to start making this drink part of their cocktail programs. Sophie with a St-Germain Hugo Spritz for their Sip Into Something Fresher campaign. The campaign touts the St-Germain Hugo spritz as the official cocktail of summer, and the brand will have activations in St. Tropez and Cannes. The South of France holds a special place in Turner's heart. 'I've spent a lot of time there. Actually, I got married there [to ex-husband Joe Jonas]. I've got a lot of great memories there, and I really love it. I love the landscape, I love the people, I love the food, I love the drink. I just think it's such a romantic, beautiful, idyllic place.'
an hour ago
Billy Joel shares 1st message to fans since brain disorder diagnosis
Billy Joel is sharing a message with fans for the first time since revealing he was diagnosed with a rare brain condition called normal pressure hydrocephalus. Susan Lacy and Jessica Levin, the directors of Joel's new documentary, "Billy Joel: And So It Goes," passed along the 76-year-old's message at the film's world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City on Wednesday. "Getting old sucks, but it's still preferable to getting cremated," Joel's note to fans stated. Lacy added that Joel is determined to return and "will be back." The "Piano Man" singer-songwriter announced in late May that he would be canceling his scheduled concerts under doctor's orders as a result of his diagnosis. "This condition has been exacerbated by recent concert performances, leading to problems with hearing, vision, and balance," his team said in a statement on Joel's Instagram page at the time. "Under his doctor's instructions, Billy is undergoing specific physical therapy and has been advised to refrain from performing during this recovery period." Normal pressure hydrocephalus is one of two types of hydrocephalus, an "abnormal buildup of cerebrospinal fluid deep within the brain," according to the U.S. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Cerebrospinal fluid is the fluid that lives in the ventricles, or cavities, of the brain that helps cushion the brain and the spinal cord. When the flow of CSF is somehow blocked and fluid builds up in the ventricles, it causes normal pressure hydrocephalus, according to the agency. The extra fluid in the brain can cause pressure and lead to brain damage, as well as issues with walking, bladder control and thinking and reasoning. The May announcement followed an earlier postponement of Joel's tour in March, which had initially been scheduled to resume in July. At the time, Joel said in a statement on social media that he had a medical condition and he was recovering from surgery, would undergo physical therapy and was expected to make a full recovery. "While I regret postponing any shows, my health must come first," he said then. "I look forward to getting back on stage and sharing the joy of live music with our amazing fans. Thank you for your understanding." The "Billy Joel: And So It Goes" documentary features never-before-seen footage of some of Joel's performances and offers fans a glimpse into the legendary artist's private life through home videos and more. The documentary will air later this summer on HBO and will be available to stream on Max.
