The Last of Us director reveals whether she played the game before adapting the show or not

Yes. Kate Herron played both The Last of Us and its sequel before she ever set foot on the HBO set. Not only did she play them, she got completely obsessed.

“I bought a PlayStation during lockdown just to play the game,” Herron told Variety. “It completely redefined for me what a game could be like.”

So when the Sex Education and Loki director heard Season 2 of the hit adaptation of The Last of Us was looking for new voices behind the camera, she was all in. Now four episodes into The Last of Us Season 2, Herron’s entry, titled Day One, might be the most emotionally charged yet. It's where Ellie and Dina’s relationship begins to crystallize, where the full brutality of the Wolves is unveiled, and where Herron’s love for the original games bleeds into every frame, from the pacing of the action to the silence between a confession and a kiss.

Herron’s gamer roots and the emotional blueprint of Day One

Kate Herron played The Last of Us like someone chasing answers. It wasn’t just about beating levels. The experience stayed with her. The games reshaped the way she understood storytelling itself.

“Even things like the people that you attack have names,” she told Variety. “It was such a clever exploration of empathy and cycles of violence. I thought the storytelling was some of the best I had experienced in any art form.”

That emotional weight followed her into every step of the process. When she landed a meeting with Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann, she didn’t take it lightly. She considered dressing as Ellie for the pitch. Instead, she brought the energy and a vinyl of the soundtrack.

“I was so nervous. I was really early, and Neil was also early, so I had this moment to talk to him before everyone else joined the call. And I remember thinking, you know what, if I don’t get this job, at least I got to talk to Neil Druckmann.”

Most of Herron’s work like Sex Education and Loki leans into character-driven drama with sharp bursts of humor. But this episode pulled her into darker terrain. Episode 4 of The Last of Us Season 2 needed someone who could let silence breathe and still make the world feel like it was closing in.

“It was fun for me as a challenge,” she said.

You can feel it in every moment. The pacing is slower, the emotions sharper. It’s not just tension. It’s personal.

Love, trauma and intimacy in Seattle

The episode gives Ellie and Dina space to breathe. For a moment. Among all the loss and tension, there’s a music shop, a song, and a flash of something almost tender. Herron knew this beat mattered.

“Who hasn’t wanted to play a song to their crush?” she said.

Ellie’s acoustic version of “Take On Me” isn’t just a nod to the game. It’s a lifeline. It reminds us that these are still two kids trying to find light in a broken world. That scene also sets the tone for what’s coming. When Dina finds out Ellie was bitten, she panics. She doesn’t know Ellie is immune. She points a gun at the person she’s falling for. The moment is terrifying and delicate, and Herron focused on that balance.

“It was really important that we were afraid for Ellie in that moment, right up until the point of the kiss.”

Then comes the confrontation, the confession, and the sex. For Herron, it wasn’t about shock or spectacle but vulnerability.

“Most of our conversations were about the emotional arc of it,” she said.

Ellie has no idea what Dina is going to do. She’s afraid. She’s exposed. But for the first time in the episode, there’s clarity. The intimacy comes from honesty, not survival.

Action scenes, subway terror and game-to-screen adaptation

Herron approached the action with a clear memory of how the game made her feel. Tense, claustrophobic, and scared. The TV station, the tunnel, the noise in the dark. She remembered all of it. But she didn’t try to replicate what was on screen in the game. She reimagined it.

“The change from day to night was in the script, but I thought it was brilliant. That’s so much scarier.”

While the game’s subway section stretches longer and happens in sunlight, the show compresses it into a grim sprint through shadow and noise. Herron was alone in the office while others were filming Episode 2, planning the scene in quiet isolation.

“I remember being terrified and tense in the TV station and the subway,” she said. “I’m really happy that we got to heighten it to that level and make it a true nightmare.”

She also didn’t shy away from the physicality. The subway car was actually moving.

“I was honestly having the time of my life, hanging onto the subway,” Herron joked. “I grew up in London, so I was like, this is just like being on the Underground, or a very badly driven bus.”

Between stunt performers crashing through windows and actors slipping through tight corridors, the result feels chaotic in the best way.

Wolves, Isaac and moral ambiguity

The Wolves arrive without warning, but they don’t come across like chaos. They bring control, strategy, and something colder than violence. Their presence shifts the tone of the episode. The world starts to feel more organized and less forgiving. And leading this machine is Isaac, played by Jeffrey Wright, who also voiced him in the game.

Herron didn’t need to break him down. She trusted the foundation already laid.

“I’m not going to tell Jeffrey extensive things about a character that he’s already played and knows so well,” she said.

Her focus was on being present in the scene and giving him space to explore different emotional layers.

“Does this feel emotionally true? Why don’t we try this?”

That was the rhythm on set. The torture scene with the Seraphite prisoner is hard to forget. A naked, bruised body. A room with no comfort. And a camera that refuses to look away. The moment was written that way from the start, but filming it required care.

“We had an intimacy coordinator that day with us to check in with everyone, especially our actor,” Herron explained. “Our actor was very comfortable, but yes, it is a very heavy scene.”

Her approach was built on compassion. Directing a character committing atrocities means being honest about what’s on screen, but never careless with the people involved.

From The Last of Us to The Sims: what Kate Herron took with her

Herron is now working on a feature adaptation of The Sims, a totally different universe, but not without lessons from The Last of Us.

“It’s tricky to know what I can say,” she admitted. “But I’m very indebted to Craig and Neil for giving me an opportunity to direct on it. Getting to do that was like a bucket list kind of moment.”

One thing she’s already using in her scripts is a narrative trick she learned directly from Craig Mazin.

“Craig writes the thoughts of the characters in the script. I love it, and I have 100% stolen that. I’m now doing it in all the scripts I write.”

It may not seem like much, but that kind of detail, thinking through the inner world of a character on the page, feels like a natural extension of everything Herron admired in the games. It’s not about spectacle. It’s about what people feel when no one’s watching.

A director who played the game and understood the heart of it

Herron didn’t approach The Last of Us from a distance. She came in with the map already burned into her memory. She knew the quiet, brutal rhythms of that world because she had lived through them with a controller in hand.

Her episode doesn’t rewrite the game but it doesn’t need to. What it does is translate its emotional truth into a new medium, with care, fire, and vulnerability. It’s not just about who dies or who survives. It’s about what stays with you after the screen fades to black.

That’s the kind of storytelling Herron believes in. And it all started with picking up a PlayStation in lockdown.