99. Craig Mazin: The Definitive "The Last of Us" Interview, Sort Of

Mike Birbiglia's Working It Out

Mike Birbiglia's Working It Out podcast

Mygirlfriendsboyfriend, Interviews, Comedy Interviews, Sleepwalkwithme, Iraglass, Comedy, Thankgodforjokes, Thenewone, Mikebirbiglia, Dontthinktwice, Birbiglia

4.8 • 4K Ratings

🗓️ 15 May 2023

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When Mike became obsessed with the series “The Last of Us” on HBO he had questions. And he went straight to the source. This week Mike welcomes the writer/producer/director Craig Mazin, who co-created the" The Last of Us," starring Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey. Spoiler alert. If you haven’t seen "The Last of Us," be warned, there are spoilers in this discussion. There’s also a lot of advice and insight about screenwriting and storytelling. Craig is a screenwriting sage— in addition to co-creating "The Last of Us" and "Chernobyl"— he also hosts the podcast ScriptNotes with fellow screenwriter John August, which is Mike’s favorite podcast about screenwriting. Also, if you’re interested in supporting screenwriters, now is the time. Please support the Writers Guild of America. For more information on the writers strike, visit https://www.wgacontract2023.org/strike-hub.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	So one thing that's really interesting about the video game, one of the reasons I love
0:06.1	it and wanted to adapt it is Joel and Ellie are just people.
0:10.7	They are not superheroes.
0:12.4	They don't shoot things out of their eyeballs.
0:14.6	There is no science fiction technology.
0:17.3	There is no magic.
0:19.3	It is just reality.
0:22.6	And we were able, because we were doing it in live action to go even further with that
0:27.2	and say Joel is in his 50s.
0:30.8	He can't sprint.
0:32.3	He can't walk around crouching for an hour the way you can in the video game.
0:38.1	He's got Mike Berbiglia-esque energy.
0:41.0	He has a Mike Berbiglia-esque aerobic capacity.
0:51.8	He's not as susceptible to pizza.
0:54.9	Oh my gosh.
0:55.9	I mean, glad you had the conversations.
0:57.9	These are the hard conversations.
0:59.6	It's why we didn't go with you.
1:05.2	That is the voice of the great Craig Mason.
1:09.1	This is one of my favorite episodes of all time.
1:11.6	We called an audible on this episode because I love his series on HBO.
1:17.5	That is called The Last of Us and I'm Not Alone.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Mike Birbiglia's Working It Out podcast, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Mike Birbiglia's Working It Out podcast and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.