Merle Dandridge on <i>The Last of Us</i>’ Finale and Her ‘Really Emotional’ Journey as Marlene

Spoilers for The Last of Us’ season 1 finale below.

When Merle Dandridge first heard that HBO was developing a live-action series adaptation of The Last of Us, the seasoned actress, who had originated the role of resistance leader Marlene in the post-apocalyptic video game franchise, secretly hoped she would be given a seat at the table. But whereas some of her original castmates have gone on to play different roles in the show, Dandridge has become the only legacy actor from the video games to play the same role in the series, marking the culmination of a 10-year journey.

“I was actually wearing the clothing and using my own instrument instead of [relying on] these wonderful Naughty Dog animators to bring her to life,” Dandridge says of her time on the real-life set in Alberta. “Seeing the passionate creation of that world by all of these technicians and artists was really emotional and overwhelming at times.”

Tonight’s season finale of the hit HBO drama finds Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) inching closer to Saint Mary’s Hospital, the base of the rebel group known as the Fireflies. But after getting knocked out with a rifle, Joel wakes up in the hospital, where Marlene informs him that Ellie is being prepped for brain surgery to extract chemicals that could be used to create a vaccine against the Cordyceps fungal infection.

Marlene’s decision to let two Fireflies walk Joel out instead of killing him backfires when Joel kills both men (and then some) en route to rescuing Ellie, who would not have survived the operation. In the parking lot, Marlene holds Joel (and an unconscious Ellie) at gunpoint, insisting that he can’t keep her safe forever. After Marlene lowers her gun, Joel decides to shoot her in the side and places Ellie inside a car. Marlene, wounded on the ground, begs Joel to let her go. But Joel insists that she would just go after Ellie again, and he delivers the coup de grâce to the leader with a shot in the face.

Below, Dandridge opens up to ELLE.com about the experience of reprising her role in The Last of Us, how Marlene will create a source of conflict for Joel and Ellie going forward, and how she hopes her current work on Station 19 and Truth Be Told will help contribute to necessary conversations.

The Last of Us season finale begins with a flashback to the day Marlene’s best friend, Anna, gives birth to Ellie and becomes infected with the fungus. What parts of Marlene’s relationship with Anna were you most looking forward to exploring in this adaptation?

Honestly, the relationship between Marlene and Anna was fundamental to my building of the character 10 years ago, because it brings that immediate conflict and strife to her circumstances. But then the gift of being able to play that opposite Ashley [Johnson, who plays Anna in the show]—who was my Ellie in the games, and whom I have all this history with—was even more emotional. I remember sitting in video village before we shot those scenes, and I didn’t know that they were shooting the clicker attack. I think I audibly screamed when the clicker came through the door, because I don’t think I was prepared to see that kind of violence inflicted on my dear Ashley, even though it is pretend. [Laughs.]

Marlene’s love of her best friend, Anna, is so ingrained in my experience of who Marlene is, and who Ellie means to her as this last vestige of her [former] life. Ellie is that last evidence of having had a full, beautiful, loving family and friendship before all of this happened, and [Marlene] was there when this child came into the world. So it was wonderful to be able to play that out. The extra gas and juice in that [flashback] is that I had never imagined that Marlene was the person who killed her, and that just wrecked me. It made all of the other stuff so much easier [laughs], because all you have to do is think about it, and it makes your stomach turn.

Marlene can easily be seen as the antagonist because of what she does to Ellie, but at the same time, Marlene feels like she’s doing the right thing to save the remaining people who haven’t been infected yet. Having played this character in so many different iterations over the years, how have you been able to justify and understand her motivations?

Marlene is a soldier, she is a leader, and she is holding up this beacon of hope for everyone. [She’s presenting this idea] that we can have a family again, that we can have a life that is not under the thumb of a military regime. I think it’s so much more interesting that it comes at a great, great cost to her, and I think one of the reasons why people would be so moved by such a conundrum—perhaps not on this scale, or with these kinds of dire circumstances—is that people can relate to having to make hard decisions in their own life and making sacrifices to do what’s right for their family. I think even looking at and entertaining the terrible squeeze that she’s under makes it so much more human and so much more heartbreaking, [when you consider] what she has to give up for the greater good.

You’ve said in past interviews that seeing Pedro and Bella inhabit the roles of Joel and Ellie helped you see the characters in a different light. What were your biggest takeaways from working opposite them?

One of my favorite things about Pedro is his sense of play. He is so delightful and endlessly curious and very, very smart. He leaves no stone unturned. Obviously, when you get to work next to somebody like that, the game is elevated. Because of that sense of play, we were able to try [those scenes] in so many different ways, and there were a lot of levels of real ferocity and real emotion. I love this game of cat and mouse that they were playing. Every little move might be almost imperceptible, but they were constantly being strategic in every way that they were interacting, even though Joel was at his wit’s end. As he wakes up out of his concussion and he comes to the realization [of what Marlene is doing with Ellie], it just stabs you in the chest, and it’s so wonderful.

Everyone would call Bella an old soul. She’s so intuitive, she’s so thoughtful of the work, and she really cares for everyone that she’s working with. But on top of that, [with] that kind of fire and vulnerability, I just call her a comet because you want to look at her like, “Is that really happening?!” It’s as if the breath is being knocked out of you [when you realize there’s] the possibility of losing her, even for the sake of the world. You just want to protect her at all costs, so I get it, Joel, but… [Laughs.]

In the video game, Joel also shoots and kills Marlene in a hospital parking garage. But given that this show has deviated at times from its source material, were there any conversations about changing Marlene’s ending?

I think a lot of those things were talked about and entertained in an exhaustive way. But as anybody who’s played the games knows, what happens with Marlene and in that hospital is the catalyst moving forward for more storytelling. I think it was important for us to follow certain storylines, to be the springboard into that new phase of the relationship between Ellie and Joel.

In that gorgeous ending, I believe she knows he’s lying [about how Marlene and the Fireflies are no longer looking for a cure]. Ellie is looking to have purpose beyond just who she might seem to the naked eye; she wants to be of use. She might not know that it’s to her demise, but she cares for Marlene on some level, even though she may not know or understand how deeply connected they are. She cares about her, and this is the beginning of a rift between [Ellie and Joel] that carries us much farther down the line.

You play a prominent role in the first and last episodes of the season, but I have to imagine that you had an opportunity to visit the set during the rest of the shoot. What struck you the most about being able to physically immerse yourself in this expanded world? What have you made of the performances of the other actors?

I got the opportunity to read all the scripts beforehand, so I was already like, “Oh my gosh, these people are not ready.” I wasn’t ready. After I finished each script, I would put it down and I had to take a deep breath, because it was so moving. [I loved] being able to be out in the cul-de-sac that they built and see hundreds of stunt performers moving in such a way, and I got to watch Kathleen’s [Melanie Lynskey] demise. I cannot say there is a single performance in the show that doesn’t deeply move me, and that’s the confluence of really great people to work with—who are really invested in it, who are really, really talented—[and] really great words on the page.

So I did a lot of lurking on set because it was so divine and so delightful to watch it come to life. I had to be there on the giraffe day, and I happened to be there on a night shoot with the bloater. I remember [executive producer] Craig [Mazin] was like, “I gotta show you something,” and he took me by the hand and walked me through a million stations of prosthetics being put on. I walked into this room, and standing in front of me was the bloater. And of course, I took all these pictures with them, and it’s hilarious because you see this monstrous form, and then this elegant British voice is coming out of it. [Laughs.]

It’s poetic that you had a chance to close out Marlene’s journey, but there’s always a chance that you could come back in an earlier timeline.

You never know! That show is so non-linear! [Laughs.]

You’re also playing a major role opposite Octavia Spencer and Gabrielle Union in the third season of Truth Be Told, which shines a light on the issue of sex trafficking in America. How do you hope your work on that show will help start conversations about a crisis that remains largely unreported in mainstream media?

The reason why I had originally signed on to season 2 was to set up and establish my character to tell this story in season 3, and the reason why I was so excited about playing Zarina Killebrew and the circumstances around her family is multi-layered. First of all, you see a family of color who has come from being very fractured from her husband Markus’ [Mekhi Phifer] substance abuse, and from myriad other things that can break a family apart. But you see them having done the hard work to get themselves back to a place of stasis; they have relaid the foundation of their family. And even in the midst of all that hard work, this poison, like a ghost, comes in and snatches it from them.

Zarina’s daughter, Trini, is lured into this world of trafficking. There is an astonishing number—I think it’s 70,000—of Black and brown girls who have gone missing, and we don’t hear about it. Nobody talks about it. So it’s really important for us to not only tell you what is going on, but the ways that you can be looking out for it, because the more you know, the better we can be protected.

And in the course of the season, after we’ve done the painful work of trying to find our daughter, what happens when the child comes home? What is that fallout? How do you even face a reckoning around that? How do you even open the conversation when the unspeakable happens to your child and you have failed to protect them from it, and it’s out of your control? We all knew it was important for us to put this out there and to have that kind of megawatt star power attached to it, knowing that people would see it.

And on Station 19, you currently play Chief Natasha Ross of the Seattle Fire Department. She has this very clear sense of right and wrong, but she also understands the responsibility that comes with being a woman of color in an institutional position of power. Like the other characters you’ve played recently, she is actively working to create change in her own way.

I’m a big fan of everything [from Shonda Rhimes’ production company] Shondaland because of the empowered, yet vulnerable and flawed women that they put out there. It is from a perspective of letting women be all of the things, and this is no exception. Chief Ross is smart, but she’s also a smart ass, and she is still able to see her softer side. Even in the midst of implementing new policies and programs, and leading the charge in a new way that the institution probably hasn’t even considered before, she can still be a woman, and she has this long relationship with Sullivan [Boris Kodjoe].

Right now, those things seem to rub up against each other, and I think it’s really interesting to watch her navigate those things and balance them. And whether it’s to her demise or whether it’s for the betterment of the entire department, we’ll have to see. [Laughs.] But in the meantime, we are watching her be bold, and stand up for her team and for what’s right, and break open the institution in a way that it hasn’t before.

Last March, you thanked the Station 19 writers for giving you an opportunity to speak Korean and acknowledge your Asian heritage on the show. Having worked in this business for over 20 years, what does it mean to you to have reached a point in the industry where you’re finally able to bring all of yourself—both as a Black woman and as an Asian American woman—to the roles you play?

This is extremely important to me because my home culture has been steeped in the Korean tradition, and [when you] look at me, you probably wouldn’t see that at first. I grew up in Nebraska, where it was very white, very racist, very homogenous; where neither culture was really accepted, let alone to be blended and to be biracial. I think, especially now, [it’s important] to really show the complicated nature of carrying both of those things.

I think people are looking beyond just casting what they see, but actually casting who they are, and what is happening in our culture now is more interesting. I think it creates more bridges and empathy. Honestly, for the first time, I’m feeling seen on a complete and holistic level for all of the things that I am, and that is deeply gratifying. To see someone who looks like me speaking Korean on network television—for them to see that, for that to be talked about—it just opens people’s understanding, and that is the power of what we do. We have to show it. It has to be represented, and it will open our minds and our hearts, and we will see each other more clearly.

This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

Max Gao is a freelance entertainment and sports journalist based in Toronto. He has written for The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, NBC News, Sports Illustrated, The Daily Beast, Harper’s Bazaar, ELLE, Men’s Health, Teen Vogue and W Magazine. Follow him on Twitter: @MaxJGao.