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Alison Stewart: This is All Of It. I'm Alison Stewart live from the WNYC Studios in SoHo. Thanks for sharing part of your day with us. Whether you're listening on the radio, live streaming, or on demand, I'm really grateful you're here today. On the show, the 95th Academy Awards ceremony aired last night and recapped the show with Gothamist's arts and culture editor Ben Yakas. Everything Everywhere All at Once swept the awards with former child actor Ke Huy Quan taking home the statue for best-supporting actor.

We'll hear my conversation with him and his co-star and national treasure, James Hong. In honor of Women's History Month, we'll speak with author Regan Penaluna about her book spotlighting four female philosophers. It's called How to Think Like a Woman. That is on the way, so let's get this started with the latest installment of our watch party series where we all watch a work of film or TV and then get together to break it down with an actor or a creator from the series or the movie. Today, we're talking about the breakthrough series, The Last of Us.

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Alison Stewart: During last night's Academy Awards telecast, host Jimmy Kimmel introduced presenter Pedro Pascal and joked that more Americans were currently watching him somewhere other than the Oscars. That's because at that moment, HBO was airing the final episode of The Last of Us, the series about a reluctant duo of a grieving father and an orphan teen traversing a post-apocalyptic United States.

The show has become the rare appointment viewing television in a show of landscape of on-demand streaming. It had HBO's second-largest premiere episode audience in a decade with 4.7 million viewers. Its penultimate episode of the season drew them in almost double that number. Heralded as the first great video-game-to-series adaptation, it's managed to draw on gamers and non-gamers alike.

Today, we're excited to be joined by the only actor from the original video game to reprise her role on the series, Merle Dandridge. In both, Dandridge plays Marlene, leader of the resistance movement known as the Fireflies, who played a huge role in last night's finale. By the way, if you're not caught up with The Last of Us, I'm letting you know, there will be some spoilers. I'll try to do my best to push them towards the end of the conversation. That said, if you know the game, you know what went down.

Here's a quick recap. In the series, we meet Marlene in the first episode and Ellie, who is important to the Fireflies and possibly the world because she is immune to the zombifying fungus, cordyceps, that has infected everybody and destroyed life as we know it. Not everybody, almost everybody. Marlene enlists Pedro Pascal's Joel to safely transport Ellie across the country to a Fireflies HQ in Salt Lake City, where they can perhaps figure out how to take Ellie's immunity and find a cure. That was Episode 1. Now, fast forward to last night.

After seven harrowing episodes full of hordes of infected and bands of violent raiders and a community of cannibals, Joel and Ellie reunited with Marlene, but it seems Ellie's well-being may be sacrificed for the greater good. Merle Dandridge is an actor who has appeared on screen and film and TV, big fan of her work as a pastor with the past on Greenleaf, and several other video games. She's even won a BAFTA for her video game work. She's also a show folk. She's appeared on Broadway in shows like Aida, Rent, and Once on This Island. Merle, it is so nice to meet you.

Merle Dandridge: Hey, great to see you or talk to you.

Alison Stewart: Listeners, do you have questions for Merle Dandridge? We're talking about The Last of Us. She plays Marlene for both the game and the series. You can call in and share your reactions to the season finale. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or maybe you've seen Merle on stage. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Social media is @allofitwnyc. That is Twitter and Instagram.

Of course, Marlene is leader of the Fireflies. In the first episode, someone calls her the Che Guevara of Boston. We don't know that. We get to know a little bit about her. We get a little bit more from last night. How much work did you do yourself for this role to create a backstory for her even if we don't know? I'm curious about your relationship to Marlene and her history.

Merle Dandridge: Oh yes, well, anytime I endeavor to put any character out there, I have to know a lot about them. I have to know a very lush and long and intricate history about who they are. Otherwise, I'm playing at the moment rather than being in the moment. That was, of course, the case with Marlene. What is so fantastic is that what I think the viewership is picking up on is that even the small characters in the game and in the show were bolstered by having their own lush history.

You meet anybody with this backdrop of a post-apocalyptic world. Everybody has been through some serious, serious stuff. You can bet that every person you're meeting has a backstory, which is why I really love little moments like in Episode 8 when the young girl is crying about somebody that Joel had killed. It's her father. There are consequences to everything that happens in there. As far as my own work, yes, all of those things were so important.

Of course, the relationship with why is Marlene so connected to Ellie and that is so steeped in who she was before and her relationship with her best friend from childhood. That relationship lived in my heart for a long time. I cannot tell you how delicious it was to play some of that relationship out on screen with somebody like Ashley Johnson, who I've known so long who was, of course, Ellie in the game.

Alison Stewart: When you think about Marlene, why do you think Marlene became a leader?

Merle Dandridge: There is a sense of grit and selflessness that she has that when we are in those difficult situations as the conversation that is actually coming up, do you choose selfishness or selflessness in those squeezed places? She is constantly confronted with selflessness and we had to see that played out in many ways. What I really love about the way that is drawn is that you get a chance to see how hard that choice is every single time for her. I don't know if I'm going to give a spoiler for people who haven't watched it, but making the choice in the flashback that we start with, that is not just for the greater good, but it's for the good of this person that she loves her best friend for life.

Alison Stewart: Yes, in the game and in the show, Marlene and Ellie's mom had been close friends. The scene in which Ellie is born is only in the TV series. The way that Ellie meets Marlene is different between the show and the game. When you read the script, what did you make of the changes? How did you feel about the changes?

Merle Dandridge: What's interesting is that in the game, it's presumed and alluded to that Marlene and Ellie have been together for a while. They are like a team and that she's been watching over her in a more literal way. Not literal, but more face-to-face, sharing life together kind of way. What I think is very interesting about the HBO adaptation is that while she is carrying on this resistance, it might be crippling, one, to have this piece, this vestige of her life before.

I guess it could be considered an Achilles heel to have a child that reminds her of who she was, reminds her of her humanity, of her past every single day that, one, that can be hard for her to interact with that daily, but also her life was very dangerous. It is not the safest place for Ellie to be, close to her. Obviously, I love my dear Bella Ramsey. What a mighty comet she is. One of the first things that both Bella and I did in the series was the one where she's still chained and we have the conversation.

"You have a greater purpose than any of us could have ever imagined." That conversation, as soon as I saw it on the page, I was like, "Oh, this is delicious," but it's also assumed that, inherently, Ellie understands and sees and feels in that time period, "This is my connection to who I am. This is the closest to a family that I have." Even though she's a tough cookie, she does trust Marlene in a very short amount of time.

Alison Stewart: Yes, we actually have a little piece from that first encounter. I think it's a little earlier than you're talking about, Merle, where Marlene has Ellie and she's chained up because waiting to see if she's going to turn into a zombie. They start talking. This is before Ellie has the realization. Let's take a listen. This is from The Last of Us.

Ellie: Can I go?

Marlene: No.

Ellie: I won't tell anyone about any of this. I swear.

Marlene: Where you're going to go? Back to FEDRA military school? You're that anxious to be a soldier?

Ellie: You think I chose that place? They put me there when I was a baby. It's for orphans.

Marlene: They didn't put you there. I did, Ellie.

Ellie: You're my [beep] mom or something?

Marlene: I look like your mom?

Ellie: No. No, you're not.

Marlene: My name is Marlene. I'm the leader of the Fireflies in the Boston QZ.

Ellie: Why would a terrorist dump me with FEDRA?

Marlene: Because it's where you'd be safest and you were safe there until you decided to sneak out. "Terrorist"? Was Riley a terrorist?

Alison Stewart: We're going to learn about that in a little bit. My guest is Merle Dandridge. We are talking about The Last of Us. Listeners, our phone lines are open if you have any questions for Merle Dandridge about The Last of Us. She plays Marlene from the game and the series. Our phone number is 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. If you want to weigh in on the finale last night, social media is @allofitwnyc. Let's talk about some of the big-picture questions.

This show brings up such interesting big-picture questions about who are good guys, who are bad guys, what do you do in the face of crisis. The Fireflies are the resistance fighters. Sometimes they're considered the good guys. They're fighting against the FEDRA, the pseudo-government that's come in and supposedly made everything safer. In your mind, are the Fireflies the good guys?

Merle Dandridge: I have to 100% believe that the Fireflies are the good guys, yes, because Marlene is giving up every iota of self to lead this, to be a beacon, to hold a torch of hope for everyone to remember and believe that there is a life of freedom beyond this, beyond this military regime, and that if we can just hold out that hope, we will have some semblance of the-- We can't go backwards, but we'll have some semblance of the life that we had before. We can't just accept the status quo. I think that's an interesting concept in general that we always push back against or question or reconsider what might be in front of us.

Alison Stewart: It's interesting. We had Craig Mazin, I think, after the first episode aired.

Merle Dandridge: Oh, fantastic. Isn't he so smart?

Alison Stewart: Oh, he's so smart.

Merle Dandridge: He's hilarious.

Alison Stewart: He's so kind and smart and you just feel smarter talking to him. I remember thinking, laced throughout the conversation was the idea of while there's the video game aspect of it and there's the epic nature of it that it really is a show about relationships.

Merle Dandridge: That's right.

Alison Stewart: You might tune in because you want to be scared of zombie mushroom heads, but then you find yourself tearing up because of the relationships between the people. I'm curious what you feel about the role of relationships in this show.

Merle Dandridge: [chuckles] It's funny, you talk about crying. This show makes me cry constantly. I watched it with Craig and with Neil and with Troy and Ashley last night. I had seen it a couple of times and they're like, "Is this the first time you saw it?" I was like, "No, it's not." They're like, "You're still crying?" "Yes, I'm still crying," because the relationships mean so much to me.

I think you touched on something really beautiful. The humanity and that connectivity is why people's heartstrings and why their souls just open up around these relationships, in this confrontation, in this tumultuous relationship between even Marlene and Joel, that it's not just a transaction. It's not just a heated transaction that they're having. Yes, she said, "I will get you your guns. I will get you your batteries. You have to do this for me, okay?"

Then even when she gets there, she's like, "We owe you. I acknowledge that," but behind all of that is a history of the wedge that she drove between Joel and his brother, recruiting Tommy as a Firefly, having a relationship with Tommy, and a million other things in which they have just agreed, "Let's walk our parallel paths here, okay? We'll try to leave one another alone." In this case, they have to, the fact that we get to see how invested Joel has become in this girl despite his desire to stay a lone wolf, to not even have relationship.

Even in his relationship with Tess, he's like, "Okay, that's the closest I get, but we still have an understanding," so the fact that he falls in love with this girl again. Then we get to see how deep Marlene's relationship with this girl goes, that her entire connection to who she was, her love, her family before, the last reflection, physical manifestation that she had, real love in her life, real care before she became this soldier that she has to sacrifice that. The decisions are not made without great weight and great personal loss.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Merle Dandridge. We're talking about The Last of Us. We'll have more after a quick break. This is All Of It.

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Alison Stewart: This is All Of It. I'm Alison Stewart. My guest is Merle Dandridge. We're talking about The Last of Us. The finale was last night. We're still pushing the spoilers and I'm going to keep going, push it all the way to the last five minutes of the interview. This is so fascinating, the idea that you originated the role in the video game of Marlene. What do you remember about the audition process? What do you remember about going up for that role and your thoughts as an actor, being an actor in a video game? Because this was a while back.

Merle Dandridge: Yes, it was, if you can believe it, 10 and a half years. 10 and a half years. I can't believe that this rich and wonderful, complicated, strong, conflicted woman has been in my life for that long. She's such a fantastic character and she has also brought so many wonderful people into my life like my friends. These people are my friends and my family now. When I auditioned for it, it was in 2012.

I got the script. One of the scenes, it was slightly different than what you saw last night, but the scene when Joel wakes up was my audition scene. That was the day that I met Troy Baker, who played Joel in the game and played James in Episode 8. That was also the day that I met Neil Druckmann. I remember walking into the room and just feeling like the energy just felt good. It felt really good. I remember Neil asking me, "Have you ever done any game work before?"

I named a couple of things and he was like, "Oh, oh, yes, I've heard of that." I didn't know until maybe a few months ago that he already knew and really loved my video game work previously. I was walking into a friendly room already. I could not believe. He was like, "Oh, oh, yes. Oh, I think I've heard of that game." I'm like, "Dear Neil." I went in and did that scene, which-- I don't know. It was really fantastic.

Then flash forward to being able to be on the set together. It was the first time that I had done mo-cap as well. There were a lot of different learning curves around how to operate in that world, but immediately, I was just like-- You know, when you see it on the page, you see a character that has such a rich life that you don't even have to work hard to bring your imagination to it of what's she's been through. That's how I felt when I met Marlene and I was like, "I must play this woman."

Alison Stewart: What was something that you were able to do in the series with Marlene that you maybe had always wanted to do that maybe being in the video game didn't really lend itself to but that a television series would lend itself to?

Merle Dandridge: Well, a lot of things help, I guess, your visceral sense around it because we were actually in the environment. I remember watching us come out of the woods in the middle of the night and I was like, "Oh, yes, 3:00 in the morning, 20 degrees." That's how that felt that night, yes. It brings you into a presence and an immediacy already. There is just something different about interacting with things in real time. I had to get a crash course on how to handle a weapon. I'll tell you what-- [laughs]

Alison Stewart: Oh, interesting.

Merle Dandridge: To make it look like it's secondhand. Gosh, the artist on the show, the props masters, the set deck, everyone, they were so extraordinary. It is one of my favorite things watching the show to see all the little detail that they put into it. Yes, I think that's the biggest thing.

Alison Stewart: I'm curious what the reaction is like from people who are fans of the game and then people who have come to the game via the show. Is the reaction different between game fans versus TV fans?

Merle Dandridge: Well, the reaction from the game fans is, I think, familial and as if your tribe is being acknowledged and seen. It's really interesting that a lot of people that I know didn't know that I was part of the game, which is also very interesting because it's not something like, "Oh yes, this is my résumé. I don't walk around with that," but some people that I love and care about that we get to talk about it.

This is a world and a character that I really love. To see people's passion about it and for those people who care and know it as canon, for them to feel seen and that the story is so wonderfully served, it's a great-- I don't know. It's like going around the campfire and telling old stories that feels great and then a whole new audience who gets to experience this in real-time. I've said it before, but I just feel like I'm in the bleachers and cheering for my old friend who's hitting the winning game point. I'm just like, "Yes, man. Here we go."

Alison Stewart: Let's take a call. Codi's calling in from Brooklyn. Hi, Codi, thanks for calling All Of It. You're on with Merle.

Codi: Hey, thank you so much for taking my question. I don't want to gush, so I'm going to keep it short. If the roles--

Merle Dandridge: Oh, come on, guys. Let's talk about it.

Alison Stewart: [laughs]

Codi: Oh, yes, it's so good. I thought I was going to hate it. I played the game. I'm a big fan. I think because so many people that were part of the game have so many fingers in it, it's just so nice.

Merle Dandridge: Wow.

Codi: Well done.

Merle Dandridge: See, that's the highest form of praise. Those people who have rocked with us for so long and still means a lot to them. I love that.

Codi: It's not old. The game is old. I'm playing it again. So good and--

Merle Dandridge: Yes, but it's a new experience now, right? Having seen the show?

Codi: It is also because I don't know exactly everything that's going to happen because of those changes that made a big difference.

Merle Dandridge: Wow.

Codi: I'm not really a hater, but I was prepared to not like it.

Merle Dandridge: Wow.

Codi: That was very good.

Merle Dandridge: That's what's up.

Alison Stewart: I'm glad you gave it a shot, Codi.

Codi: It's nice. Yes, I'm playing the part two now and I can't wait to see what you all are going to do for this next part. I'm making my man play the game. It's very cool. It's nice when stuff that I like is not terrible.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: Thank you for calling in, Codi. We appreciate it. Our phone lines are open, 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. My guest is Merle Dandridge. We are talking about The Last of Us. I hope this doesn't sound like a naive question, but I'm really curious about how does acting for a video game work? My mind's eye thinks, "Okay, maybe it's like voice acting," but my sense tells me there's another dimension to it.

Merle Dandridge: Oh yes, absolutely. The first game that I did, I was alone in a booth. Then with The Last of Us introduced mo-cap. When you're alone in the booth, you can read it off the page if you need to, but mo-cap is more like--

Alison Stewart: Can you explain mo-cap to people who don't know?

Merle Dandridge: I'm sorry. It's motion capture when you put on the scuba suit and you have all the little dots there all over. There are hundreds of cameras all over the stage that will pick up every little movement. In TV, you have to do it over and over again from each angle, but every camera will pick up what you do. Everything is implied, so like a weapon is probably just a plank of wood. We have to work with a lot of imagination. We do this on a sound stage and act it out just like theater. That was a new modus operandi for me, which I actually really, really enjoyed because I'm a Broadway girl.

Alison Stewart: I saw you in Once on This Island, all that sand.

Merle Dandridge: You did?

Alison Stewart: Yes, you were great.

Merle Dandridge: Oh, my gosh. Yes, it was fantastic. That was a great show.

Alison Stewart: I was going to ask. I'm going to do a sidebar now that we're going down to Broadway because people can't see you. You're sitting where there's a piano and maybe a guitar in the background. Are we going to get to see you in a musical again in our fair city?

Merle Dandridge: I would really like that. I was actually just talking to the director of Once on This Island, Michael Arden, who's now directing Parade. I can't wait to get back to see it, but I just came back to do a little cameo. My dear friend, Anthony Rapp, who's the original Rent cast member. I just went and did one of his little encore series. Not little, it's an extraordinary show. Please go see Without You, especially if you're a Rent fan, and go see Parade. Go see all of my friends.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: You're a theater kid, it sounds like.

Merle Dandridge: I'm a theater kid and I got to get back on the boards. I'm about to do A Little Night Music here in LA at Pasadena Playhouse playing Desiree Armfeldt. A little Sondheim moment.

Alison Stewart: [laughs] I love that. All right, I think I'm going to wander over into the spoiler. I'm going to try to keep it vague, but I'm letting people know.

Merle Dandridge: Let's dig in.

Alison Stewart: The final scene, your character's fate mirrors the original ending of the video game from 2013. What was it like to return to that moment, to that dialogue? You said it was your audition piece that like, ugh, that very, very-- well, no, in the room was your audition piece, but that very, very final moments we have with Marlene.

Merle Dandridge: Yes, that was a tough day. We were filming that in a working mall parking garage. [laughs] It was like people were going to Sephora one level up.

[laughter]

Merle Dandridge: Then here we were down on the bottom floor. Yes, it was tough. I can't put my finger on what the emotional block I was having around it, except that this negotiation was life or death. Both of us were making a decision. Both Joel and Marlene are making a decision that will change everything, but you can't play that. In that moment they're just trying to survive.

They're trying to get what they want in that moment and save what they're fighting for. They're both deeply conflicted and they have so much history, all three of those people in that scene, even with the sleeping Ellie. There were a lot of moving parts in that scene. For all of those people who want a little extra, if you want to go on YouTube, that scene is also played out in musical form when we did it in mo-cap, so go look that up.

Alison Stewart: Oh, bonus points. Do you have time for a couple of more calls?

Merle Dandridge: Of course, I do, yes.

Alison Stewart: All right.

Merle Dandridge: This is a thrill.

Alison Stewart: Justin's calling from Brooklyn. Hey, Justin, thanks for calling.

Justin: Hi, great to be here. [laughs] Sorry, I'm a little nervous.

Alison Stewart: It's okay.

Merle Dandridge: Hey, Justin.

Justin: I just had a couple of questions. For one, I was wondering, was it weird seeing people like Ashley Johnson and Troy Baker on set but not playing the versions of themselves that you've known so well?

Merle Dandridge: No, it was fantastic seeing them because it felt like the DNA of how we created the piece and the story was present and in everything. It was because Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann, who created the game and they're co-showrunners, partnered so beautifully to make sure that so much of it was-- the integrity of it and the departures of it were so meaningful and accurate and I guess really serving the original story so well.

Having them on set was-- and also Jeff Perry who played-- Not Jeff Perry. I was such a Steppenwolf fan. Jeffrey Pierce, who played Perry-- Yes, he played opposite Kathleen. Goodness gracious, I'm having a total brain fart this morning, but he played the original Tommy. He was also in the show. It was so meaningful to have those people around. Now, playing opposite Ashley-

Alison Stewart: -who played Ellie in the game for people who know.

Merle Dandridge: Ashley Johnson played Ellie in the game and so I already had this kind of familial sense with her. For her to play Ellie's mom just felt right and it felt good. For us to reconnect on the set of The Last of Us, it was so meta. It was great.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Marie. Oh, sorry, Mario calling in from Queens. Hi, Mario.

Mario: Hi, first-time caller. Thanks for having me. I just wanted to say, I really enjoyed watching the series as a game player when the game came out. I remember playing this game over the winter with one of my friends. I have always been an Xbox console player and this game came out exclusively for a PlayStation. I remember going to his house every day to play this game for hours. We promised not to play without each other. It felt like we're playing a movie. To see it be remade as a series and to see how accurate it was, was really entertaining to watch the step-by-step play and wait week by week to see where we're going to end up to now. I enjoyed it all the way through.

Alison Stewart: Mario, thanks for that comment.

Merle Dandridge: Oh, I love to hear that.

Alison Stewart: Yes, it's an interesting point. Obviously, you've been on a lot of different shows, a lot of series, not your first rodeo. Why do you think this does well as a TV series? You've been talking about it as an adaptation all the time, but I just want to take it out of that arena and just put it in the arena of a series, a piece of work for screen. What does it do well?

Merle Dandridge: I think it presents really beautifully-drawn characters who are put in the toughest, most extraordinary position of their life to let in and interact with and contend with love and relationship. At the end of the day, aren't we all searching for some or dealing with how love will give us the greatest joy and also give us the greatest pain of our life? All of these characters, every single one has that terrible squeeze in their experience.

Alison Stewart: The Last of Us, the finale, was last night. My guest has been Merle Dandridge. Thanks to everybody who called. Thank you so much, Merle, for being with us. Everybody, go watch Greenleaf. It's really good too. [laughs] Thanks, Merle. Nice to see you.

Merle Dandridge: Oh, great to see you. Thank you so much. Thanks, everyone, for watching. I appreciate it.

 

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