Interview: Kaitlyn Dever Goes Deep about ‘The Last of Us,’ Grief and Abby’s Unfulfilled Catharsis
The Last of Us has become an incisive exploration into grief, the second season doubling down in the darkness that propels the plot.
Joel is dead at the hands of Abby, played by Kaitlyn Dever, and now Ellie is looking for her. There isn’t a lot of time spent with Abby in the season – in fact, there’s much more time spent seeking her out. She’s killed Joel and gone back with her friends to where she came from, but Ellie isn’t willing to let this slide. She’s hunting her down in Seattle, where she finally comes upon her again at the end of the season, where audiences have been left on a cliffhanger yet again with the series. The season ends by setting up the next, where we will follow Abby in the days leading up to her confrontation with Ellie, seemingly rounding out the story and Abby’s connection to grief and darkness. Dever will be the lead of next season, so her minimal presence in season two will change to center stage for the next.
I spoke to Dever about joining the cast, her knowledge going into the show, Abby’s grief, and the voice work she did while working on the show.
Tyler Doster: What was your knowledge base of The Last of Us when you joined?
Kaitlyn Dever: I would not call myself a total gamer, but definitely played the games with my game. He’s a big gamer. I would say that we, together, played the first game twice all the way through. And then I also remember my involvement many, many years ago when they were potentially going to turn The Last of Us into a movie. I was maybe going to play Ellie but none of that was ever official. And it was going to be a movie and then it just sort of floated away. But The Last of Us game was something that my dad and I played together.
So it was not long after my dad had mentioned that a couple times, I got a call from my agent being like, “Hey, Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann are in the process of making their second season and they want to meet with you for the role of Abby.” And my dad was so excited about it, but I would say that it was his energy that really spearheaded this whole thing, about just how excited he was, I guess, got me a little bit more excited about it.
Again, I wasn’t super aware of Abby or who she was in the game. I ended up, before my meeting, I just ended up playing the beginning of the first game and how you are introduced to Abby, I think with the killing of Joel, and then you start playing as her. And I remember thinking, “Oh, wow.” I kind of thought it was Ellie at first when you started playing as Abby. So I thought, “How interesting, these two characters really do mirror each other in a lot of ways.”
And yeah, I had my first meeting with the two of them. Obviously, I met Neil years prior, so it was more of a catch-up, and I hadn’t seen him since I was probably 17 years old when we were talking about The Last of Us originally.
So it was just a lovely catch-up, and also I couldn’t believe that they were asking me to come sit down and talk about Abby. I was like, “Wait, wait, seriously? You guys want me to play Abby?” I thought it was… I didn’t know what the meeting was really going to be. And they were like, “No, we want you.” It was very matter-of-fact, like, “We want you to play her.”
And then it was just I got so excited about just the idea of bringing her to life because they were so open with some of these things. You think when there’s another form of the story that exists in the world, you’d think that, “Oh, you have to stick to that pretty intensely.” And it was very clear to me from that meeting that they were so open to exploring with all of the characters in the show, and they didn’t want to make me feel tied down to anything, and obviously use what Laura Bailey did with Abby in the game as inspiration, but I ultimately felt like, “Oh, I’m going to have a lot of freedom here to still build a character from the ground up and to come at it with a new set of eyes.”
And I think that that was really exciting to me because, I mean, she’s such a complex and sad and broken person, that I wanted to dive deeper into more of what we see in the game and dive deeper in the show.
TD: Speaking of that openness, did that openness you felt from everyone around you help get into the mind of someone so complicated? Of course, Abby, from playing the games and just from watching the show, how little she’s seen, there is still a glimpse into how desolate she feels inside. Did that make that easier for you going into that?
KD: I think it certainly did. I think I had a lot of stuff going on in my personal life too that this show and this group of people literally made me feel so carried and so welcomed and so supported. I was obviously also coming into… It’s a little scary and daunting when you’re the newbie in a show that’s already had their first season and everyone’s friends with everyone. You’re kind of literally showing up to a brand-new school and you don’t have any friends. And that’s a scary feeling. And then to have to act in front of all of those new friends is a daunting thing.
But they made me feel so welcomed and so supported that going to those places for this character was not as daunting as I thought it was going to be. And it did help my performance, I think, significantly because of how, you touched on this, but just the things that Abby has seen in her life, the things that she has had to endure and go through are so dark and sad, and she is so, so, so sad and so broken that I just had to feel like I was in a safe space to be able to explore that sadness. And I did. I really felt so much freedom to just do whatever I needed to do and feel whatever I needed to feel.
And I thought that that was really, really important because when we first meet Abby in the game form of this story, we’re given no context. And she just sort of shows up, kills Joel, and then we’re just angry at her and we don’t know why she did what she did or where she comes from. And now we’re playing as her in the game and it’s all very confusing. But with the show, I think what the show allowed us to do, or I guess the format of the show, was giving a little lead-up to her character, and I think that that helped the audience understand who she is a little bit, and that she’s not all that different from a lot of the other characters in this story too, and just how much she internalizes and how much pain she’s had to deal with for five years, and how many years she’s been calculating this plan, and exactly what she was going to do.
And I think that makes for a very, very, very powerful and strong woman emotionally. And she’s a real inspiration to me, and to get to play her was really just an honor. I feel so lucky to get to play Abby.
TD: Do you think there’s a catharsis in context here in just understanding her a little bit more and having a more well-rounded view of her?
KD: Yeah, I think so. I think, again, I’ve never, I always… Literally each interview, I’m like, “How do I talk about grief and death in a way that’s not overwhelming for the other person?” But I do think it is something that we should all be talking about. But when you go through something like that, you do just understand it in a way that you never would’ve without having gone through it. Life, this whole part of life cracks open in a way you’ve never seen before. And even that small part, I relate to. And I think that that is exactly the thing that Abby is going through, just like your whole world shifting immediately and how you pick up the pieces.
And I think that all she wants to do, I think all she wants is for her dad to be back in her life, and that can’t happen. And the only way, I think, she can feel better about him not being in her life is to do what she did, which is kill the person that murdered him. But I really wanted to make sure that there was a sliver of that at the very end because I don’t know if we necessarily see this when it happens in the game, but just that she plans this. She’s been planning it for five years straight, and she finally gets to do it, and that moment comes, and then it happens. And then I think that she thinks she’s going to feel differently and she doesn’t.
And I think that that is so powerful too and how you can just… I just wanted to be able to see that behind her eyes and to see that, “Oh, that didn’t make me feel better at all, and now what do I do with this regret and this guilt?” And again, “I’m still broken. I’m still a broken person. That didn’t fix me.”
TD: Almost a hint of desperation of, “What do I do now?”
KD: Yeah. Yeah, and that’s one of the big themes of the show, I think, is just desperation and the fight for life and fight for who you love.
But man, she’s such a powerful person and there’s so much that she internalizes and there’s so much she’s gone through and so much she’s seen that there’s just so much to play with and work with as an actor that I really do feel like it’s definitely hard to get jobs in general, and I feel so grateful to even get to do a job like this that is so fulfilling as an actor. It really is. It’s so wonderful.
TD: Was there any preparation that went into how you spoke as Abby, the voice specifically? It’s obviously your voice, but there’s a hardness to it. Every word that comes out of her mouth is acidic.
KD: Oh, I like that!
I think that as the pieces start to come together… Yes, to answer your question, yes, there was some thought behind that and just how she sounds and her voice. As the character starts to come together and you’re going into fittings and you’re going into hair and makeup tests, you start to see, oh, we’re adding a bit of age to my skin, that I am just constantly out in the sun, and my clothes are weathered and everything feels a bit weathered. And I wanted to let that bleed into my voice and how I sound. And I think that’s, again, someone who’s just fighting for their life pretty much all the time, that’s going to make a difference on how they speak.
So I’m glad that you noticed it. And also, yeah, I just wanted to also sound different. I didn’t want to sound like me for this role. I really wanted to try to transform myself as much as I possibly could, so I tapped into a darker, darker-sounding, deeper-sounding voice.
I like the word you used, acidity. Acid, I like that.
TD: Yeah, you definitely, you went down a couple octaves when you were Abby.
KD: That was the goal. That was the goal.
TD: There was a clear difference. Every time you were on screen, I was like, “That’s not how she talks.”
KD: Yeah. Well, sometimes I feel like my own voice is a little bit, it leans goofy or something. Not goofy, but it’s not Abby is what I’m saying.
TD: Knowing that you’re going to be going back and getting everything that we missed from Abby’s point of view in Seattle, did that make it less or more difficult filming in the finale when you didn’t get to really have all that context just yet? I guess we’re talking about context again.
KD: Right. That’s interesting because, yes, it was difficult when you’re moving so far ahead in time, but you haven’t filled the space in between just yet. And I think you can obviously visualize that, but that’s very different from actually doing it and shooting it. And I feel like every time I’ve shot something, you understand it at such a deeper level than thinking about it or prepping for it. Once you actually just sit down and do it or say the words out loud, it makes such a difference.
So it’s definitely helpful when you get to do that beforehand, but obviously, I think it was just a process of imagination and also knowing what will roughly happen in season three and because we have the context of the game. I could understand the journey and where she’s gone through in between, so it wasn’t that hard, but it was still, yeah, it was kind of a challenge just because we hadn’t done it yet, but I did have the game to refer to.
TD: We’ve talked a little bit about the things you knew about Abby going in and your excitement about that, but I was wondering also if there was anything that you found out about Abby while portraying her? Is there anything that surprised you that you learned about Abby just from being her?
KD: Yeah. I think honestly just the sadness. There’s a real broken and weak part of her, I think. And I didn’t realize that necessarily, even when I first played her. Again, I think when you first play her in the game, you think that she’s this very evil, destructive, rageful woman, and you kind of hate her at first. But I think as I started to play her and dive into all of these scenes and deciding what I wanted to do and understanding her at a more deeper level, totally, yeah, she’s not that really at all.
She’s just so sad. She’s so sad. And she’s trying to figure out how to keep going and how to move on, and how do you go on when everything you’ve loved your entire life is no longer there anymore, and what do you do with that?
And I think that, yeah, she’s not as… She’s not an evil person, or I guess people thought she was evil when they first meet her in the game, but I guess that’s something that I learned is that she’s much more broken than I had originally thought.
TD: Is there anything you are able to tease about season three that you know so far, or have you been told anything?
KD: You know what? I have been told about season three and that is it. I was at a Q&A recently. He was like, “Yeah, and we’re going to be doing season three and Kaitlyn will be leading season three.” And I was like, “I didn’t know we were saying that tonight. I was not a part of this.”
TD: They got your surprised face.
KD: Yeah. That shows you just how little I know going into these things. I don’t even have… With scripts, they’re very protective about the script. You really don’t get scripts even until the last, last minute.
But I’m excited. That’s all I can say. I am so excited.
Kaitlyn Dever is Emmy-nominated for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series for the episode “Through the Valley” of The Last of Us.
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