Bella Ramsey, star of The Last of Us, recently compared the zombies in the forthcoming HBO adaptation to those in Game of Thrones. Ramsey made her tv acting debut in the fifth season of HBO’s immensely popular fantasy drama Game of Thrones as the young Lyanna Mormont. She will next be seen as 14-year-old orphan Ellie in The Last of Us, an upcoming zombie horror series based on the award-winning 2013 PlayStation 3 video game with the same name.
Ramsey compared the zombies in The Last of Us to those in Game of Thrones while chatting with IGN. Described Lyanna’s final scene by a giant wight while seated next to co-star Pedro Pascal, who also appeared in Game of Thrones, Ramsey discussed the differences between the two productions. The Last of Us mainly utilized practical effects, as opposed to the VFX-heavy fantasy series where she worked with a green screen. The following is what Ramsey said:
Ramsey: “Yes. I never really had to do much with the White Walkers.”
Pascal: “Did you get killed by a White Walker?”
Ramsey: “I got killed by a White Walker giant, but I killed him at the same time, so…”
Pascal: “That’s right.”
Ramsey: “But that was all green screen for me. On Game of Thrones, I was in a massive 20-foot claw of green. Whereas The Last of Us it was very immersive and –“
Pascal: “We were getting chased by real actors.”
Ramsey: “Yes! Terrifying actors who worked with a movement coach to get the motion and the ticks down. Yeah, it was very scary.”
Comparing Game Of Thrones’ Zombies To Those In The Last Of Us
Traditional zombies are not used in The Last of Us. Instead, the franchise developed a fictitious brain infection that governs living humans by drawing inspiration from the Cordyceps fungi found in nature. In the world of The Last of Us, humans turn when bitten by an infected person or when they breathe in spores. However, the HBO adaptation has completely eliminated the use of spores and altered how humans become infected. The Last of Us’ infected are thus like the zombies in 28 Days Later; sick people who have completely lost control over their bodies and are under the control of the virus that has diseased them.
The Last of Us’s virus has fungal roots, so those who contract it start to sprout growths from their bodies, starting with their brains. As the fungus spreads throughout the body, different behaviors are caused by the various stages of infection. The most recognizable infection stage is called a “Clicker,” in which the host is rendered blind by the fungus and must navigate by making clicking noises as echolocation. However, the showrunner of the series, Craig Mazin, recently disclosed that a new kind of infection stage was created especially for the show. Recent The Last of Us trailers had also teased the come back of Runners and Bloaters as well.
On the other hand, The Game of Thrones takes a much more conventional approach to zombies than The Last of Us. The dead are transformed into zombies known as wights by an ancient race of ice creatures called White Walkers using magic. Some wights have skeletal-looking bodies and their decomposing bodies have a classic George A. Romero zombie aesthetic. The HBO series’s The Last of Us premiere is next week, so viewers won’t have to wait too long to see how the infected from the video game are brought to life in the series.
Source: IGN