HBO’s adaptation of the beloved video game, "The Last of Us," debuts on January 15, 2023, and was officially greenlit in November 2020, during the height of COVID-19. /Film's Ben Pearson attended a roundtable interview where stars Gabriel Luna and Merle Dandridge opened up about creating the show during the pandemic.

Luna, who plays Joel’s younger brother, Tommy, recalled what shooting the series was like right in the height of COVID-19, which was always at the forefront of their minds as they tested and walked onto set everyday: "It [...] might be a little traumatizing for some of us, I think, but it'll help. I think it helps in the processing of what we all went through and that it was ever-present in our minds."

For Dandridge, who plays the enigmatic rebel leader Marlene, it was important to separate the bleak fictional dystopia of the series with the real world: "We had a hope for, or actual tangible evidence that this was going to have some kind of long-term stasis. And in the world of 'The Last of Us,' there's no hope of that. There's no knowledge of it. There is only more."