The Last of Us showrunner denies banning the word 'zombie' on set: 'I call them zombies all the time'
Craig Mazin, one of the showrunners on The Last of Us, has a bone to pick with series cinematographer Eben Bolter.
"We weren't allowed to say the Z-word on set. It was like a banned word," Bolter said of the term "zombie" in a February interview with The Credits. "They were 'the Infected.' We weren't a zombie show."
In a virtual press conference with his fellow showrunner Neil Druckmann, Mazin wanted to set the record straight. "Maybe we should talk about how Craig banned the Z-word on set," Druckmann said playfully.
"Which I did not do!" Mazin replied, laughing. "I call them zombies all the time. I don't know what Eben was talking about. No, we call them zombies all the time because it's funny."
The Last of Us is set in a world forever scarred by a fungal plague. An evolved form of cordyceps infected the brains of human victims, transforming them into ravenous zombie-like creatures. The longer the Infected (the terminology for the not-zombies) are consumed by the infection, the more their bodies mutate.
Whether you call these monsters Infected or zombies, Mazin teases season 2 might have more of them.
The Ringer's Joanna Robinson, who moderated the press conference, asked the creative duo about fan criticisms over the lack of Infected included in the first season, compared to how many are in the game.
"There is more The Last of Us to come," Mazin said. "I think the balance is not always just about within an episode or even episode to episode, but season to season. It's quite possible that there will be a lot more Infected later, and perhaps different kinds, but within the episodes that we were concentrating on, I think ultimately we generally stressed the power of relationships and trying to find significance within moments of action."
"There may be less action than some people wanted, because we couldn't necessarily find significance for quite a bit of it, or [we had] a concern that it would be repetitive," he continued. "After all, you're not playing it, you're watching it. Although a lot of people do like to watch gameplay, it needs to be a little bit more focused and purposeful when we're putting it on TV."
Druckmann added, "Every piece of action, if you look at the show, has to move character in some way. If it doesn't move character, and it was only there for spectacle, then it was an easy cut for us."
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