Happy Sad Confused - Craig Mazin

Episode Date: June 19, 2023

(recorded prior to the strike) THE LAST OF US showrunner Craig Mazin joins Josh for a deep dive into the remarkable first season of the show and gives a tease of what's to come. #happysadconfused #joshhorowitz #craigmazin #thelastofus SUPPORT THE SHOW BY SUPPORTING OUR SPONSORS! HelloFresh -- Go to HelloFresh.com/HSC16 for 16 free meals plus free shipping! To watch episodes of Happy Sad Confused, subscribe to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Josh's youtube channel here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! Check out the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Happy Sad Confused patreon here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! We've got discount codes to live events, merch, early access, exclusive episodes of GAME NIGHT, video versions of the podcast, and more! For all of your media headlines remember to subscribe to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Wakeup newsletter here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I feel like you missed a calling as a lawyer. You had excellent, you got me close on a bunch of these things. You really did. I mean, you really had, you got me leaning all over the place. And I'm, I'll tell you where I'm taking a victory lap by not giving out too many headlines. That's because you're good at this. Prepare your ears, humans. Happy, sad, confused begins now.

Today on Happy, Sad, Confused, it's a last of us, spoiler, spectacular, with writer and showrunner Craig Mason. Hey guys, I'm Josh Horowitz, and welcome to another edition of Happy, Say I Confused. Now, usually I would launch right into the conversation with Craig, but I want to give one very tiny preamble, just for context. We taped this conversation a while back prior to the writer's strike. There's nothing dated in here, but I just want, you know, people are very sensitive to folks doing press and stuff like that right now. in the wake of the strike. This, to be very clear, done way prior to the strike even happening.

But, you know, the time is now. Emmy season is afoot. And we are talking about The Last of Us because, damn it, it deserves it. I was obsessed with this show. You were obsessed with this show. And you're about to watch and listen to a deep dive, really fantastic chat with a super talented writer of Hangover films to Chernobyl to, yes, The Last of Us. Some sneak peeks at future seasons of The Last of Us.

You guys are going to love this one. So remember to do all the things. Like and subscribe. Spread the good word of Happy, Say I Confused. And I'm going to toss to myself introducing Mr. Craig Mason. Hey, guys. Welcome to another edition of Happy Say I Confused. I'm Josh Harrow.

It's a man. We've got a great one for you guys today. Like many of you, I fell very hard for The Last of Us series. Well, we've got the man with all the answers. Craig Mazen, writer, showrunner, executive producer, keeper of all the secrets. And Craig has agreed to spill it all today. Thank you for that in advance, Craig. Absolutely.

I will tell you everything. I promise to answer every question. I just don't care. It's over. It doesn't matter. Nothing matters. Nothing matters. Nothing matters.

Guys, remember to hit the like and subscribe. subscribe student missed conversations like this one with the one and only Mr. Craig Mason. Craig, an official welcome to Happy Second Fused. I've long been a fan of your work and congratulations on this amazing achievement. The last of us is something to, I hope you're taking a little bit of a victory lap in between work. I don't know about you, but I do not take victory laps. I don't even take victory crawls. I mostly feel some relief, whatever the, you know, lack of humiliation.

I experience whatever that emotion is. Right. But this one was actually quite overwhelming, to be honest. I was not prepared for how it all went down. How much of this looks so far? We'll try to get into some of the background resume too in the course of this conversation. But this comes off of Chernobyl, which obviously is this. phenomenal success for you. And correct me if I'm wrong, it's the first show you actually show

ran. And that's a major shift. And that of itself was a major shift for you off of a career that was mostly built on comedy, big screen comedy. How much of this opportunity was kind of like cashing into chips? Like I have the success of Chernobyl and I have an opportunity now to really take a big swing with something like The Last of Us. Well, I, I, I, think that's probably right in the sense that um casey bloys who runs hbo had said to me look we want to do what you want to do what do you want to do it has to be like want you have to be in love you have to be levitating that excited about it and and and then this happened i mean the last of us became available as a possibility and uh i

I levitated. And, you know, I think this one was maybe less about cashingy chips. Look, it came to them with something that was based on a very popular source material. And it was a genre show that theoretically a lot of people would want to watch. I mean, the chips were probably more on Chernobyl. No, that's true. That's a big swing. Like, wait, people are actually going to watch a show called Chernobyl.

Right. Nobody thought anyone was going to watch that. That was very much a public service event. And it turned out to be something that people watched. And we were all grateful for that. This was always meant to be a little bit more of a mass audience show. But I don't think anybody expected the audience to be quite as mass as it was. So talk to me about, okay, the initial conversations, as you say, this is something with a huge fan base, something that I gather you were already very familiar with as a gamer.

Did you know your way in immediately? Did you, like, how long do you spend before kind of crafting your take, your pitch? And what is kind of the elevator pitch on your take on The Last of Us? Well, the pitch was really mostly me walking HBO through the basic story that was there. There are all of these embellishments, detours, differentiations that occur. when you're adapting. And we certainly, you know, engaged in lots of those. There are lots of things in the show that weren't in the game. There are lots of things in the show that were, but aren't quite that way. But mostly, I think the pitch was, look, here's the basic story of Joel and

this is why it matters. This is why it's important. And this is why tens of millions of people feel so strongly about it, so strongly that they tattoo it on their bodies. And that was enough for HBO to say, okay, we're very interested now, give us the full run of it. And so Neil and I just talked for weeks about how we wanted to tell this story where the, I mean, the first question is, what are the episodes? Where do they start? Where do they finish? That's kind of the first thing we do. And then we talk about the different things that could be inside of it to, you know, help bring it to life. And all of that went into a very large document. I think it was like 163 pages or something like that,

but just spelled out the whole damn thing. And then we wrote the first script. And that was enough. That was enough to get it going. And from there, we just kept going. Were you surprised, look, obviously, you mentioned Neil Druckman, who's obviously a hugely important collaborator on this.

In terms of Neil's openness to, look, it's a very faithful adaptation, but as you say, there are also the necessary changes that you make. Was Neil open about that from the beginning, like open to your ideas on how to make this work for television? Yeah, I mean, we were both, I think, a little nervous. Yeah. Because I look after a career of being a little bit of a midwife or perhaps a second-class citizen in certain cases and features

where it didn't really matter how good of a screenwriter you are, somebody else is going to then, you know, make decisions. in doing with A2. I had had this taste of authority on Chernobyl that was exhilarating, not because I'm an authoritarian, bar from it. But I was able to interpret my own work for the first time. And it felt great. I was able to protect it the way I wanted to,

and I was able to make sure that the little things that were important didn't get lost. So in talking with Neil early on, And I think we were both nervous. He was nervous that, you know, somebody else was going to be reinterpreting and reimagining this thing that meant so much to him. And that was really, you know, his magnum opus. And I was nervous that there was going to be a source material author kind of there. And I think what we both found very early on to our commingled joy, we were okay, we were good collaborators, we were good partners.

You know, he was completely open to not only the specifics of adaptation, but the philosophy of adaptation, which is you have to change it, right? It's just simply a different medium. You want to take advantage of the things that we can do. You can't do in gaming. And similarly, I was just, you know, I think he was, particularly pleased that I was so devoted to the game and I understood it so thoroughly and had, I think, matching instincts with him about where we ought to be pretty close

and where it would actually be better for us to deviate, but all in service of the spirit of that story and those characters. So it was a great partnership. It continues to be a great partnership. So speaking of the things you can and can't do in a game versus television, like so much of the game's success and I think why people really connect with it is it you are as a gamer often complicit with questionable moral choices

of these characters in a game you're in their shoes, you're feeling what they're feeling how do you accomplish that in television in a film in a narrative? I will say perhaps someone controversially that it is

easier to do in television because you would think that being the person that presses the button will make you feel more and morally complicit. But there is an interesting thing that happens there. It's like you are aware that you are doing it, but you're not really doing it because you don't have a choice. And so the complicity is a little bit artificial and almost because it's so overt it has a slight I think it may it doesn't surprise you as the way it does when you're watching so the thing I always think about is this wonderful episode of The Sopranos where Carmela goes to see her own therapist to complain about her life and her monster husband and her therapist says get out

Get out and get as far away from him as you can because every day you live with him and take his money and live in that world that he provides, you are profiting off of other people's blood. And I remember, that's a paraphrase, that's not exactly. I'm sure it was much better the way he said. But that was my paraphrasing. But why I remember as a viewer going, oh, shit, I've been doing that too. I love Tony I get excited when it wins why

why am I so invested in the success of this bad person it was the same thing that happened with Breaking Bad in fact I remember you know talking with Vince Gilligan who's you know if you write television then I assure you Vince Gilligan is your hero and

saying how it was it was so disheartening to see and how much anger people sent towards Anna Gun who was so brilliant as Skylar because she was the person saying the thing that basically was supposed to end the show which is stop being a terrible person and we want the show to keep going

so we as viewers we begin to root for people and I would argue that that complicity is a choice that is something that we do that we don't have to do. So when you do get to those moments where these characters that you root for

do things that are objectively bad, whether it's Ellie or Joel or anyone, Kathleen, anyone in the story. I mean, Henry, you know, says to Joel, I'm the bad guy. And he's right. He did a bad guy thing. That's what he says.

But we root for him anyway. And to me, that's where we actually, I think, more complicity uh and whatever you would call it uh what's the word um i don't know more complicity right um than in video games and so again by that logic like joles and needless to say spoiler work for all of this conversation but by the end of the season joles kind of rampage yeah there's no by then there's less of concern because by then we have kind of bought in we've we've gone on the journey with him

and we are supporting him by loving the character and wanting him to succeed? Well, we root for violent people to do violent things when we approve of their goals. And I think

a lot of people, and this is a great debate that has been going on since the game came out, and it's why it's such a terrific ending. A lot of people feel strongly that Joel does what they would do, that if it were their child in that position, they would do the same thing. And a lot of parents in particular feel that way, which is understandable because when you

have a child, the profundity of the irrationality of your connection to them cannot be overstated. So, yes, he gets to this place and does something that is. pretty shocking and terrifying to some extent. And I suspect most people were saying, good. And what Neil has always been great at is forcing people to confront that feeling and then interrogate it and question it until they don't feel quite so clean about it. And that's something that we endeavor to do as well. That's funny.

I was just talking to somebody else. about, it reminds me about a classic moment in film of the end of Unforgiven, the William Money sequence where he goes off like a badass and you kind of like feel a catharsis like seeing Clint do what Clint does best. And yet if you take a second to think about it, this is horrible. What you're saying. I mean, we talked about Unforgiven all the time. It's something that Neil thought about when he was making a game. It's something we were thinking about when we did this. So David Webb People's. about this script that I think did this brilliant thing of taking a man that was the devil by reputation, but in front of us was just broken down old guy who couldn't even get on a horse well, he couldn't feed his pigs. He was tired, he was old, and when it came time for him to fight back, he got his ass kicked so hard that he almost died. And then it was the loss of a friend, this thing that snaps in him that releases the devil just when you want the devil to be released.

And that's something that we can't help but feel excited about because all of us, I think, have this love and fear relationship with father. whoever father is actual father father figure some guy in the sky what we want is for that father to punish the people we do not like and when they punish them they punish them with severity and they are unstoppable and we get very excited about this but we're also terrified of them because of the things they can do to us so most of western religion seems to be based on being ultimately terrified of and loving for this father figure who is endlessly merciful but also will put you in a lake of fire forever or who occasionally just drowns everyone or just gently eliminates babies to make a point

and we are the it's not like those stories made us like this we are like this and thus we made these stories. We all have this, this desire for my dad to beat up your dad. And Pedro Pascal is quite the father figure in that regard. And Joel is not only a father, but he's a broken father who is seeking to figure out why he's there as entire purpose, as it turns out, is to be the father that protects his child. And the failure of his life is now about to be redeemed. through violence. You can see why I wanted to write this story for television. That's some rich, rich material, yes, to say the least.

So, okay, you mentioned Pedro. I want to talk about the cast a little bit. The nature of the business is we often hear about other actors in the mix. And, well, if no one's going to quarrel with Pedro, he's amazing. But how different is this show with Matthew McConae with Mahershiel Ali? Did you have significant conversations with those guys? I actually never talked to Maharshala. I did talk to Matthew.

I can't say that it was like a series more of like a, hey, here's something to talk about. Initially, you know, Pedro was on our list from the start. We were told that he was unavailable. And then as we were kind of floundering about a little bit, I got a call from his agent who said, you know, he actually might be available. And I was like, I don't know. And I sent a script off. And normally when you send scripts to actors like this,

you're lucky if you get a reading within a month. Right. And he was in England at the time working on a movie. So I thought, between the movie and the time chain, this will be forever. And I sent it on a Friday. Saturday morning,

I get a call. He loves it. He wants to get on a Zoom. Well, okay. I mean, that was a pretty good sign. That's a pretty good sign. And then we got on to Zoom and had what I think maybe the most wonderful Zoom I've ever had. I mean, just love at first sight.

And he was so immediately insightful about it. And every time I, look, I'm an honest person. I was like, listen, it's going to be Calgary for like a year. And he's like, hello, Calgary. Okay. And it's going to be some cold and it's going to be fit. No, great. Love it. Okay. I didn't just, he was so taken with the scripts and, you know, it's one of those things where, I don't know, yeah, I'm sure there's an alternate universe where it's a different. And look, Matthew McCona is an amazing actor. I'm sure it would have been great, but it would have been different. And I like the one that we made. So what can I say? I think it worked out. I think so. Matthew's doing okay too. Everyone's happy. I'm thrilled to tell you guys about our sponsor this week on HappySah

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A couple months ago she was fantastic. I'm such a fan of hers. And what Bella does with this role is extraordinary. And I'm curious, when you cast Bella, were you casting for both season one and potentially season two Ellie? Or were you? Yeah. You knew this was the person

that would have to embody both sides. You're equally thinking of that they can go through that change. Because we had the benefit of both storylines, whereas when Neil made the first game, he didn't. And so we were aware that at least

where, you know, how her character's evolution goes. There were certain things we were looking for. It wasn't It wasn't anything prescriptive, but Neil and I felt that we needed to find an actor who was, first of all, a convincing 14-year-old and who was funny and who was smart and who was a pain in the ass and who was also somebody that you would want to kill everyone to keep alive and also someone who was a little scary. who had the potential to be very dangerous. And that, all of that is a lot. And that is probably why we saw over 100 auditions. But when Bellas came through, it was just, it was done.

It was just, it was done. I didn't know, you know, it's funny. When I saw her audition, I was like, oh, it's Lady Mormont. I didn't even know Lady Mormont's name. I just, she was just Lady Mormon to me, you know? And I love Lady Mormon. I was a huge Lady Mormon fan. and I'm constantly making Bella do the scene with me.

The first Lady Mormont seems the greatest, although occasionally at the other one where she's like, you refuse the cult. So I was like, okay, Lady Mormon, cool, I'll watch. And then I was watching him like, we're done. We got it. That's it. We got it.

And then the gift beyond that, two gifts beyond that. One was that her chemistry with Pedro was immediate and, beautiful, and you couldn't ask for more of a connection between two actors. And also, she is maybe the best person ever. She is wise and kind and smart and thoughtful and caring. All of her negativity is pointing inward, which is exactly like how my negativity works, which means we can help. People. Yeah, exactly.

She's never, it's never your fault. And so we help each other. Yeah. She is vulnerable. But as an actor, she is also, she is approaching infallible as far as I'm concerned. Yeah. I'm sure you're salivating like I am at just seeing what she can do with the Ellie we find in season two. Because that's.

I think she could do anything. And we will write things for her to do. So a couple of the fan theories, the questions out there, what do we make of the flower theory? That's spread like that spot on. And I, you know what? Thumbs up to the internet. I mean, they got it sooner than I thought they would.

They got it before the reveal. For the record, according to this, I think emerged on Reddit, that the show's virus actually spread through. flour. Which is a fact. I mean, within the show, that's canon for our show, that there are these massive flour mills in Indonesia that do distribute flour all around. Now, we made it a little, we stretched a little bit in the sense that the flower

then was like sent everywhere and then put it into everything. And that at least a portion of that stuff is not baked enough. to kill some of the cordyceps that it infected it. And that once it got into some people and they started biting, the fungus spreads. Because I was interested in how it began. You know, I was talking to Neil about, you know, the specifics and that was something that, you know,

in the middle ages, there was this disease called ergotism, which was basically from the ergot fungus that would grow in flower, typically on wheat and rye and and ergot is the both the forerunner of lSD that's the compounds in ergot are where ultimately lsd is like a synthetic ergot compound so it seemed like a good idea it made sense it made sense that because why did it happen all at once you know i like the idea that it was sort of like this wave of products sort of land on shelves around this time people eat it. Some of them eat enough of it to have it make its way in. And then that's when it all goes

down. It's just sort of, that's the scary part of epidemiology. So yes, that was true. And people got it. They got it from the fact that there weren't, there wasn't pancake mix in the morning, that Joel didn't bring a cake home, that Nana is eating biscuits. Joel is on Atkins. They picked it up all for, I didn't think they were going to be. That must be so thrilling for you. as a writer. That's kind of like, you feel like, oh,

I'm being really subtle. I'm like, these are breadcrums and that they are just so into it in it that they see it all. It was like Frank says later, paying attention to things is how we show love.

I was like, okay, this is love. If you are paying that close to attention, and it was also fun to then have other people yelling at those people, like, you're an idiot or whatever.

And then, and then actually, episode three, Joel just spells it all out. You know, well, even in the beginning of episode two, Ibaratna sort of, you know, there it is.

It's like it was a flower factory. Right. Okay. So have we already seen Abby? Has Abby, was Abby the one running away from the hospital when Joel was shooting? I can confirm that she was not. That was just one of the fireflies that happened to have a ponytail. Other people have ponytails.

So that was not Abby. You mentioned early on in our conversation that, like, you kind of had, whether a specific list or in your own head, just like, these are scenes, these are moments that you feel, I, I'm going to need to be pretty slavish too in the game. And these are places where we can diverge. Did anything swap in the, in the course of the writer's room of putting it together that you were surprised that like, oh, this initially was absolutely going to be slavish and became the other or vice versa? I mean, it's not really much of a writer's room. It's just me and Neil talking. in that's the rancher of us talking and then I'm over here going clack, clack, clack and he's over there going but no

we just kind of knew. I think every now and again I was weirdly I was probably the one that was a little bit more like hey I just feel like as a fan I don't want to fuck with this part I don't know if I'm allowed to use bad language on this podcast. You're fine.

So but most of the I think we were just in full agreement, like, look, there are things we know we're going to do. You know, it was important to me to have Sarah give Joel the watch on sitting there on that couch. It was important to me to see how she dies in his arms and for her death to be the way it was in the game. It was important for me to see little things like Ellie crossing in front of Joel and saying your watch is broken all the way to important things. like when she confronts him in that bedroom in Jackson and tells him, you know, I'm not, I'm not her, you know, giraffes. These things are important.

If I were a fan, I feel like basically I did what I would have wanted. Right. Then I messed around with stuff that I would be okay with messing around. That's basically how it worked out. And I think Neil and I agreed on those points every step of the way. So major spoiler alert going into season two, game two, we're facing a lot of major events, but none more so than the death of Joel, of course. Does that fit under the category of slavish interpretation, or is that feel like something that you can diverge from? I mean, I can't tell you anything about that season.

Girl dies? Okay. I'm not saying a goddamn thing. people will have to wonder and you know what good because here's the thing first of all i anytime you're making anytime you're adapting something where there's source material there's certainly an expectation that the adaptation will hit the main source material points and that is mostly what happens but the way they happen i think is what matters how they happen when they happen the way they happen those are the things that matter um it's why

I started Chernobyl with Chernobyl exploding. I'm not going to make you wait and wonder if it's going to explode. So look, when it comes to the fate of characters, no matter who they are, all I can say is we will do what we want to do in a way that is best for the show that we're making. And we will always be thinking about, I think, the two perspectives that we have, which is Neil's perspective as a creator and my perspective as a fan. and yeah has that decision whatever it is in terms of how to treat that event however you're going to do it has that been in kind of in stone for a while like can because i would imagine cynically speaking a power that be might say you're biggest star you can't kill Pedro in episode three of season two like can are there influences at play or do you have creative do you feel like you have full

creative freedom to do what it serves this story best yeah again i'm not going to even say i don't want to okay i question your premise okay here's the thing honestly i i yeah i'll answer this question we know exactly what we're doing i'll say that we know exactly what we're going to do but i question your premise because everyone presumes that we're going to do things and and they shouldn't um that's not So this is a, I can neither confirm nor deny anything that you're saying. I respect that. It's all good. Because that, because the articles that will be written should, the headline should be,

showrunner can neither confirm nor deny. What a juicy headline you're giving me. Exactly. No, I get it. I get it. I get it totally. I've been in this game a while. I know.

You're too smart for me. What, where are you, though, in the process of writing? Are you, have you broken story? Have you started writing scripts? Are you? We know what we're doing. We have the next season laid out and we are writing scripts. And, you know, while we're writing scripts, we're also beginning quite a bit in parallel.

You know, one of the things we, these shows are enormous to produce. I call them aircraft carriers. They're just massive. So what we do, even as, you know, I'm sitting here working on writing episode. the web episode I'm writing on, I won't even say which one. We still at the same time need to deal with a lot of just practicals. So we've already started the scouting process, we already start talking about how to build certain locations and where

and how we're going to achieve these things. Casting that process is beginning. And so we have to do a lot in parallel. But this time, you know, most. of what this year is for me, even as we do all these other things to ramp up towards shooting is writing. Everything that we do reverts back to the script. The script is the thing that we all consult everybody, every day, every day, whether it's

in prep or shooting or even post. In post, we're constantly looking back at the script. Hey, remember what it was supposed to be? Why don't we do that? And the nature of the scale is like once you're in production, you don't want to be catching up on scripts and like you want them as close to. Yeah. I mean, so during season one, what I was doing is I was writing,

I was still writing while we were shooting. I was writing because we were shooting over the course of basically a calendar year. I'm trying to avoid that this time because that was not good for my mental health. and I am one of those weirdos that just, I like to write it. I don't, I don't have a room. Just telling me like, what if you had a room? And I'm like, I just like, ready. So trying to get as much done ahead of time would be ideal.

But one of the things about the way that I write is I really try, I don't give, people a script that needs a lot of work. I don't give them sort of a, oh, here's the thing that's grist for the mill. I give them something we can shoot. And then from there, refinements can be made. But I really work hard to make it what I want it to be. You mentioned that you started, at least preliminarily, looking at casting. Has Abby been cast? Because there are already rumors out there, as you well know, about Shannon Barry, about Katie O'Brien. Is there any truth to those? No. No, no one has been cast. Okay. Have people hit you up for cameos as clickers, like a stormtroopers, like Daniel Craig

as a storm trooper kind of a deal? Well, we did have a great one in season one. Melanie Linsky's husband, Jason Ritter, who's just like the most lovely guy in the world and is such a super fan and he was like, can I please just be an infected? And I'm like, yeah, you want to, sorry, you want to work all night for like two weeks in a row running and being in a makeup chair for four hours before you do it? Yes. And he did. Awesome. We are, we're always open. B. B. Waller Bridge. That's the one that he and I keep talking about. she said she said she would she would do it i think cp as a clicker would be amazing i don't know if she's going to be willing to sit in the chair quite that long that is a intensive process

well still one of the most glorious i volunteer my services one of the most glorious days in my life i was a i was a zombie killed by bill murray at the end of zombie land too so i have experience i can do this yeah no i mean if you want to sit there i think by the way do you have Canadian citizenship, that would really help. I'll work on that when we get back to you. Are you as much a fan of the second game as the first? What do you love about the second game? Well, I am, and I think the beauty of the second game is that it takes the question of the first

game and pushes it even further, where you don't have to wonder. if someone's doing the right thing because you are asked to split your loyalties. You know, we don't like to do this. No one likes to do this. We like to be either Christian or Muslim, either Democrat or Republican, either a Yankee fan or a Red Sox fan. This is what we like. It's hard for us to organize our lives if we can't pick sides. And then what we're doing here is saying we need you to not pick sides.

In fact, we're going to force you to not pick sides. What that game did in that regard was stunning, I thought, and important. It's important. So I love the concept of that. I really do. And there's a lot that I think that story proposes about the nature of justice that I would like to explore even more. And empathy. So I thought the game was...

was quite beautiful and um and very adaptable and when i say adaptable i think sometimes people think that means just you just slide it over and you're done adaptable doesn't mean that it means actually the opposite it means there's room yeah places to to expand to go deeper to amend to imagine um and i'm so excited for those um and the you know i've said this before the the the second game story is not containable in one season. So I would break that out and continue from there will be part of the interesting puzzle. But, you know, I'm, I couldn't be more excited

to just live in that world more and to, again, follow along what I think is this really beautiful underpinning of narrative. and you know it is a controversial story for a lot of people and all the good ones are it feels like thanks to this adaptation and several others in recent years that we finally shed the old axiom of game adaptations just not working in TV and film and that's it feels like game IP is the new superhero IP we're finding I'm curious are you in Knights of the Old guy? Are you a Star Wars guy? That's, that's one that's always been talked about. What do you think?

I played a coder, as I called it. Yeah, sure. The, it's an important, well, to be fair, and I was like to point this out, there have been good adaptations of video games. There are, every time someone says this, arcane fans lose their shit, and rightfully so. Arcane's great. I agree. Castlevania fans, as do Pikachu, Detective Pikachu fans. But in terms of, like, a live action television series. Yeah, I'm a live action kind of adaptation. We're definitely up there.

And I got to tell you, I'm a little nervous because we were working with, I think, what is in my opinion the best story told. in video games, and I think for others, certainly people would have to admit it's at least in the top ten. There are a lot of video games that are great because of the gameplay and not necessarily, I think, ready for adaptation or ready for an adaptation that's going to work. So we, look, best possible outcomes that we're in for a lot of awesome adaptations, Worst possible outcome is there's going to be a wave of bad adaptations. Look, it's really, especially in games where there's not,

either there's so much convoluted plot you get buried under it, or the main character is a faceless, voiceless, voiceless cipher, or there's a lack of a relationship in the story that is important, or the gameplay itself is based on high fantasy or high science fiction to the point where it's becomes a little bit disconnected right from reality and and and comments about the human condition these are the things that if I were advising other people I would be saying these are the things you have to be thinking about and that doesn't mean that you can't make great high fantasy adaptations you can. Some of the best adaptations are high fantasy. And same for science fiction. But the adaptation

process is tricky. And I think it's very tricky for video games. The one thing I think we have definitely shaken, I hope, is the scourge of video games being adapted by people that don't give a shit about the video game. I think that's over. And if it's not, then I don't know what's going on. Because if there's one thing I hope people can take away from what Neil and I did with The Last of Us is that you need to obsessively love the source material. You can't just go, oh, it's an IP, I hate IP. IP is a term that only lawyer should use. I don't know why.

No, you're right. You're right. Content and IP, two of our favorite, right? You make great content, Craig. Yeah. A beloved story with beloved characters. That's what's important. So if people can love these things into existence, then I think there's every chance for

success. You've done very well for HBO. HBO's done very well for you. It occurs to me there's some interesting, not going to call it IP, there's some interesting properties, some stories, some worlds. Okay, are you going to throw your hat in the mix for Harry Potter? What's up? Any interest?

No interest. Listen, Harry Potter, I love those movies. I read, I love the books. I love the movies. I, you know, I stay out of the debate about the politics. I have, you know, a very, without saying which family member I have a very, very close family member who is trans and I, you know, so I don't, I don't go too far down the line there. But when it comes to that particular endeavor, I just, I would never throw my hat in the ring because I'm doing the last of us. That's what I'm doing.

And I think maybe also I might be too old. I mean, I'm 52 years old. If somebody starts doing a seven-season... Yeah, that's the next decade of your life, yeah. Decade. Oh, no, no, not decade. See, this is the challenge with that shows that these shows... The kids are going to age.

They're going to, yeah. So how do you keep Harry being 29 in that last episode? That's an interesting challenge. Because it's the... What has happened to... People wonder, like, what's going on television? Like, why does it take so damn long? Why does it take two years to give us...

eight episodes, when it used to take 10 months to give us 22 episodes. And the answer is visual effects, that the more we use visual effects to flesh out worlds and make them spectacular, the longer takes. There is a profound shortage of visual effects artists. The visual effects companies are overworked, overburdened. There is a company out there. that keeps making a lot of stuff. I won't mention their name,

but they've been using a lot of visual effects. And that has just, the pipeline has been clogged to the point where everything just takes so much longer to do. So, yeah, I would think you would need to be a young woman or a young man to take on. That said, I, listen, I, like I said, I love those movies and I love those books. When those books would come out, I would read them on, in the day. Like, they would arrive on my doorstep from Amazon because Amazon would have a deal where they would, like, get it to you on the same day. It was in the bookshop.

And then I would just take it and go in my room and just say, nobody talked to me today. I'm reading this Harry Potter than I would read it in a day. And finally, I take it. I know the answer because, again, your slate is pretty full with Last of Us for the time being. But your old buddy James Gunn, again, in the family, does. is going back to collaborating with James on a superhero film in that universe intrigue you on any

level. Have you guys talked? No. And no. No and no. No. I'm not I made a movie that was sort of making fun of superheroes and I made another movie that was sort of making fun of superheroes. I mean, lovingly fun. I mean, because they, I think it, I used to

really enjoy those movies. I just think there's so many of them. And also the God's honest truth I don't have the I don't have the

the crete because look I read a lot of comic books when I was a kid and I played the Marvel RPG even as a kid

but I don't have the kind of cred of like look I am a fully absorbed guy who understands the myriad soap operatic connections between all the DC characters or between all the Marvel characters. And you have to just bring this enormous love to that or you're not going to make it.

What I do have, for instance, is a love for The Last of Us. So I can pour myself heart and soul into that and I have cred. Nobody can question my devotion or knowledge about that. It's the same thing with Chernobyl. You know, like my feeling was I'm not, if I write this, I need to end up being. one of the world's foremost experts on Chernobyl. No joke. I mean, like, I literally have to get to that point.

So, no, I'm not, there's, no, I don't. Also, I'm kind of, I'm out of the movie business, basically. You know, I will work with certain directors when they call because I love them and because they are so brilliant, you know, so like a thinny Villeneuve calls. I'm like, absolutely, I'll, yeah, I'm there for. for three, four weeks or a month or something like that to work on what you're working on. But mostly I want to make my own things

and I want to be in charge of my own things and that's what HBO allows me to do. Did you just tell me you did a polish on tune part two? Is that what you're telling me? I am a participating writer in Dune Part 2. Oh, I didn't realize that. Okay. I'm not a, I will be in the, I came long after.

Again, sort of like you come in, you do a little bit so now they have you used to be that you couldn't even say that but now they have this additional literary material thing at the end so yes i am additional literary literary literary material how excited should i be i'm already very very excited anytime didn't he makes a movie you should be excited as far as of course yeah he's the man is the he is as he is as as kind as he is brilliant he is a he's a rare one he's just remarkable I've really enjoyed this, man. And we only dove into this singular piece of work.

And there's such another amazing, you know, career of work I'd love to talk to you about at some point. I'm also, by the way, a big fan of the podcast, a script notes people should check out. And yeah, good luck, man. I mean, look, you really, it was a, look, yes, you had the wind at your back with a lot of fans of this one. But at the same time, you well know the expectations going in. And you should take a victory lap or crawl or walk or something because, season one's amazing, and I can't wait to see what you have in store for season two. I appreciate it, and I feel like you missed a calling as a lawyer.

You had excellent, you got me close on a bunch of these things. You really did. I mean, you really had, you got me leaning all over the place, and I'm, I'll tell you where I'm taking a victory lap by not giving out too many headlines. That's because you're good at this. Look, I'm excited that next season's eight episodes, right? You said, you mentioned that. Is that what you said?

is not. Oh, it's not eight. So we know it's not eight. Seven or nine. That was just an example. That was just an example. Okay. Craig Mazen, thanks again for being on the pod.

That's my, that's the biggest. It's not exactly eight. Okay, not exactly eight. There's our scintillating headline of the day. Thanks again, man. Really appreciate it. Appreciate it. And so ends another edition of happy, sad, confused.

Remember to review, rate, and subscribe to this show on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm a big podcast person. I'm Daisy Ridley, and I definitely wasn't pressure to do this by Josh. I'm Amy Nicholson, the film critic for the LA Times. And I'm Paul Shear, an actor, writer, and director. You might know me from the League, Veep, or my non-eligible for Academy Award role in Twisters. We love movies, and we come at them from different perspectives. Yeah, Like, Amy thinks that, you know, Joe Pesci was miscast in Goodfellas, and I don't. He's too old.

Let's not forget that Paul thinks that Dude, too, is overrated. It is. Anyway, despite this, we come together to host Unspooled, a podcast where you talk about good movies, critical hits. Fan favorites, must-season, and case you miss them. We're talking Parasite the Home Alone. From Greece to the Dark Night. We've done deep dives on popcorn flicks. We've talked about why Independence Day deserves a second look.

And we've talked about horror movies, some that you've never even never even. heard of a conja and Hess. So if you love movies like we do, come along on our cinematic adventure. Listen to Unspooled wherever you get your podcast. And don't forget to hit the follow button.