Ashely Johson, the voice behind Ellie in The Last of Us games, has revealed her favorite moment from both The Last of Us Part 1 and Part 2 - and it might not be what you expect.
From all the narrative beats across two games, in equal part lovely and horrifying, Johnson knew instantly the moment that has stayed with her from both games when asked in a recent roundtable with GamesRadar+ and other media outlets. And it's a moment from The Last of Us Part 2.
Mild spoilers for The Last of Us Part 2 ahead.
"I think when Joel plays Ellie the tape, and it's the whole astronaut sequence," says Johnson. "I think that's just such a heartbreaking and beautiful moment, because it's another way of him trying to reconnect with her and it's bittersweet. That's a moment for me that sticks out from both of the games. Because it's so tender."
She's referring to, of course, what many have called the giraffe moment of The Last of Us Part 2 - the point where we get a little flashback to a younger version of the pair, as Joel prepares a birthday surprise for Ellie. They take a tour of an old museum, complete with dinosaur skeletons that you can place a fedora on, but the pièce de résistance is the space exhibition hidden further in. Within it is a small spacecraft that the pair can climb into, at which point Joel gives Ellie cassette tape and Walkman that contains the audio from an actual shuttle launch. It's a beautiful moment that caught a lot of players wonderfully by surprise.
With the remembering though, Johnson instantly thinks about how that scene could play out in The Last of Us Part 2 - before realizing that actually, maybe she'd rather Part 2 not really happen in the show.
"I think those little moments of tenderness that you see in this world really stand out to me, because those are moments that are kind of hard to find. And I can't wait for that moment in the second season because I think even being able to just to see [Bella Ramsey] do that, because what she's able to emote just through her eyes, just her subtle looks - she's so good. I can't wait to see what she does with that scene - both of them. And Pedro [Pascal]. Oh my God, he's fucking heartbreaking. He's killing me."
"I'm just like, oh, just can you two just go away and let's not do the second part so you can go somewhere and be happy together? Because I want you to just be okay... But it's not gonna happen."
The Last of Us TV show finale has now aired on both HBO Max in the US and Sky Atlantic/NOW in the UK. For more from the series, check out our guide to the major Last of Us episode 9 changes from the games and a terrifying look at the Cordyceps fungus.
