Liane Hentscher/HBO This article contains spoilers fromThe Last of Usseason 2 finale, "Convergence." It can be difficult to tell when Young Mazino is wiped. The 33-year-oldBeefstandout typically exudes laidback, no-fuss vibes, whether it's on stage in front of hundreds at Austin's SXSW or paired with his more energetic costarIsabela Mercedduring the onslaught of press interviews forThe Last of Us. But trust when Mazino says in mid May that he's "crawling on my hands and knees to the finish line." He Zooms in from New York, where he just wrapped the last leg of his promo tour for the HBO drama, in which he plays Jesse,Bella Ramsey's onscreen bestie who surprises her in Seattle while on her revenge mission. Mazino appeared the night before onThe Tonight Show, where he dazzled hostJimmy Fallonwith his guitar playing and perhapslet slip too much informationabout the state ofPedro Pascal's Joel. But, what can he say? "I'm not good with spoilers," he tellsEntertainment Weekly. As fate would have it, it's the tail end of these media rounds that are the most significant for his character, Jesse. In the season 2 finale, as it appears as though he convinced Ellie (Ramsey) to give up her suicide mission and head back home to Jackson with him, Dina (Merced), and Tommy (Gabriel Luna), Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) arrives…and she's pissed. Someone has been killing off her friends one by one, and she's shocked to learn it's the very girl she spared after brutally executing Joel in front of her. Ellie and Jesse burst through the theater doors, and bam! Before they fully see Abby holding Tommy hostage, she shoots Jesse dead in the face — the latest casualty in a long trail of dead bodies. Liane Hentscher/HBO Mazino fully accepted his character's fate before his first meeting with showrunnersCraig Mazinand Neil Druckmann. He played a speed run of PlayStation'sThe Last of Us Part II(2020) right up until Jesse's death. "Then I put the controller down and I was like, 'I'm ready,'" he says. "This is what I needed." The actor now more appreciates an earlier piece of foreshadowing. In episode 2, as Jesse and Ellie share Eugene's weed stash in the 7-Eleven, he comments on the former Firefly, "F---in' shame. Guy makes it through war, end up going out like that. Whaddya gonna do? Couldn't be saved." "It's like a weird premonition," he remarks of that moment. "Nobody's safe. It's just very cut and dry. You get shot sometimes. You don't do your CQB properly in a panic and boom! Your life is over. That's very realistic, and it happens all the time in real life." Though it happens so quickly, that fall Mazino takes is technically a stunt and required specific choreography. Jesse is dead before he hits the ground, so he had to hit the ground like a rag doll while also landing purposefully in the same spot for continuity. He wanted to do it himself, even during reshoots where he wasn't necessarily required for the shots. "That scene is so important," he says. "That's another heartstring that gets severed by Abby, and Ellie registers that. I wanted Ellie to have the best performance by being there and for her to be able to connect to that instead of the stunt doubles or a non-human figure." Liane Hentscher/HBO Still, it was taxing in ways you don't normally think about. "The first 10 times you fall, it's fine," he notes, "but by the 15th, 20th you kind of feel the compounding effects of dropping to the ground like that." It's not clear whether Mazino's Jesse will return, though gamers are expecting it.The Last of Us Part II, released on the PlayStation 4 in 2020, allowed players to experience the story first as Ellie before shifting back in time to tell the same sequence of events but from Abby's perspective. The season 2 ending's flashback indicates season 3 will be taking a similar approach, meaning many of the characters that died already will come back in various capacities. Mazino, again, references the spoiler leak on hisTonight Showinterview as to why Mazin and Druckmann haven't given him the full plan yet for season 3. "For good reason, they've been cryptic about it," he comments, "but I think at one point [Mazin] told me Jesse and Tommy, they're going to f--- s--- up, or something along the lines of that. That's all I know. We're going to f--- s--- up, apparently." In the event Jesse remains part of this continuing story, there's so much left to unpack with the character. "When you catch him in episode 5, he's already gone through some s---," Mazino continues. "There's no jokes, there's no levity, he's not happy, he's not looking at anything half full. He's in compartmentalize [mode], survive, kill anyone in the way. It's just pure objective. He's not that guy that was just poking fun at Ellie after the New Year's Eve party." Mazino recognizes the shift that occurs after the death of Joel and the infected attack on Jackson. Hewasa person who looked at the glass as half full and actively tried to help his community rebuild. Mazino references a deleted season 2 scene in which Ellie makes a joke about how Jesse became the youngest member to serve as the council. It occurs in the context of episode 3 during the training session in Ellie's garage. "She's like, 'I heard you got on the council...Why? Because you're sucking dick,' or 'You're such a suck up' or something," Mazino recalls. "He's like, 'No, because one of the council members got shot and died. So that's why I'm there.' It was so funny when we shot that." After episode 3, something changes. Jesse's loved ones, Ellie and Dina, snuck off on what is effectively a suicide mission. He's angry. He no longer understands their motives but recognizes things have gone way off script. And then when he goes after them to help, he loses his life just at the time he learns he's going to be a dad. Mazino is a bit of an existentialist. "In this world, and in life in general, people tend to have such an inflated sense of importance in the face of the universe and the void, but in reality, we're dust. We're just grains of sand in the desert," he says. "So as tragic as it is, it's such a fact of life. Not to make it banal, but, yeah, it's so sad as someone who cares for Jesse, for him to do all the right things. You follow all the rules and you do the right things and your life can end just like that. You never see the child that you birth and you never find that love again." He's also very aware of "the commotion on the internet" around this season of the series. Many fans of the games expressed criticism of how the creators adapted certain events, from the revelation of Abby as the daughter of the doctor Joel killed in season 1 to Ellie's less-intense demeanor than what's depicted in the source material. Charley Gallay/Getty; Naughty Dog Sign up forEntertainment Weekly's free daily newsletterto get breaking TV news, exclusive first looks, recaps, reviews, interviews with your favorite stars, and more. "People have their gripes or whatever, but I just implore that people watch it holistically from start to finish," Mazino remarks. "It all kind of ties in. It's intertwined. It requires some media literacy, not just cookie-cutter linear stuff, but it all sweeps into this one epic thing. The more you let it sit — I was talking to Isabela about this last night — it ages like wine right now. What you might see are crushed grapes, but you give it some time and you find that it ages well." Regardless of the criticisms, this role marks another impressive notch up on Mazino's ascending career, though he also approaches that traction as realistically as he approaches his character. He's a person who gave up his full time job to pursue acting, only for a worldwide pandemic to upend those plans. He landedBeefafter the COVID-19 lockdowns ended, but then the actor and writer strikes brought Hollywood to a standstill, pausing production ofThe Last of Us. "At this point, I'm much more wary about the ebbs and flows of the industry," he comments. "Finding work,The Last of UsorBeef, is not guaranteed. And knowing how rare an opportunity like these things are, I've learned to really practice gratitude and cherish the experiences and the commonality between both shows." Mazino still feels like that, even in the face of such a lengthy promo tour. "I truly believe that it would be so difficult to have to do a world press tour, premiere thing if it wasn't something I was proud to be a part of," he adds. Still, he's ready to enjoy some time off: "I'll find some pockets, yeah." Read the original article onEntertainment Weekly
