The premiere of The Last of Us on HBO has become an impressive global phenomenon where the series that adapts the cult video game has become an object of obsession and an inexhaustible source of audience records.
Its fifth episode gave us one of the most dramatic, exciting and tense moments with the appearance of the mythical Bloater and a brutal pack of infected, who are not strictly considered some kind of zombie, since they are not living dead.
But even so, during the last days there has been a recurring topic of conversation on social networks when talking about this fifth episode (beyond the matter with Bella Ramsey). The one they call the most disturbing “zombie” we’ve seen so far in the series.
And the people in the networks are not referring to the chubby curiously, no, the infected person who has upset their nerves the most is the clicker girl, a little girl who barely exceeds one meter in height and who has speed and physical flexibility disturbing.
Seeing her in action is frankly the perfect material to give rise to nightmares and now we finally know the story behind this performance, finally explaining to us why her intervention in those scenes is so striking.
The Last of Us reveals the secret of the zombie girl from episode 5: she is a real contortionist
Not many know it, but The Last of Us series has an official podcast, produced by HBO’s own people and which is released as soon as the most recent chapter of each week is finished, revealing there a significant amount of secrets and data about what we have just seen.
In this podcast, screenwriter Craig Mazin and original game creator Neil Druckmann chat with Troy Baker, actor playing Joel in the PlayStation title, about the details of the story behind the conception and development of each episode.
The experience is tremendously enriching and in their most recent program, dedicated to the fifth episode, Endure and Survive, they talk about this clicking girl. Skye Cowton, a nine-year-old child actress who is also a contortionist:
“She is a beautiful girl, but […] it’s so creepy to see how he can move his body like that. So it was all a combination of her acting, and Wētā’s work creating, taking, extracting what Barrie Gower had created with a series of prosthetics, to shape this infected girl.
And I insisted that our snapping girl wear a Blue’s Clues t-shirt, because I’m really sick, and I loved the contrast of innocence and horror.”
This is what Craig Mazin reveals about the story behind that scene, where they started from a conceptual design adapted from the original video game to shape this disturbing sequence.