Even Lamar Johnson got emotional watching Episode 5 of ‘The Last of Us’

Spoiler alert: This story contains spoilers for “The Last of Us.”

In “The Last of Us,” a TV series filled with both heartwarming moments of human connection and heartbreaking moments of loss, one of the most gut-wrenching comes at the end of the fifth episode, which debuted early, on Friday night, because of Sunday’s Super Bowl.

Even Lamar Johnson — the Toronto actor whose character is at the centre of it — was moved recently when he rewatched it.

“Even though I know what was gonna happen, I was very much emotionally affected by the show,” Johnson said in a Zoom interview this week. “I mean, the credits were rolling at the end of the episode with the music playing and I was literally just like — it was tough.”

“The Last of Us,” an adaptation of the hit video game about a world in which civilization has been laid waste by a fungus that turns humans into monsters, has been both a critical and popular success, bringing excellent ratings for HBO and tons of buzz.

It’s mainly about Joel (Pedro Pascal), a tough survivor who’s tasked with taking teenager Ellie (Bella Ramsey), who is immune to the fungus, across the U.S. to a militia group searching for a cure.

Pascal and Ramsey are wonderful in their roles and the relationship between Joel and Ellie deeply affecting, but one of the series’ joys is how it builds stories around its secondary characters.

Johnson’s Henry is one of those: a survivor in what’s left of Kansas City, where a rebel group has wrested control of the quarantine zone from the Federal Disaster Response Agency, and is hunting and killing anyone who co-operated with the government body.

Henry is public enemy No. 1 to the group’s ruthless leader, Kathleen (Melanie Lynskey), because of his involvement in the death of her brother. But Henry did what he had to do to protect his own little brother, Sam (played by Keivonn Woodard).

Joel and Ellie get trapped in Kansas City, ambushed while driving through trying to find a highway, but make a deal with Henry to get all four of them out and, for a short while, there is respite: Ellie and Sam bond; Joel and Henry relax their mistrust to the point that Joel invites Henry and Sam to travel to Wyoming with him and Ellie.

“There’s just, like, a really, really beautiful mirroring that happens between Joel and Ellie and Henry and Sam,” Johnson said. “Henry and Joel are both the protectors and Ellie and Sam are the protected, right?

“So I think for Joel and Ellie to see the way that it ended for us, I think it was a big reflective moment for them.”

Ah yes, the ending. Not to get too spoilery about details, but Henry and Sam both die. A sombre Joel and Ellie bury them before setting off on foot toward Wyoming.

Johnson said it was fantastic working with Pascal, known for “Game of Thrones” and “The Mandalorian,” fellow “Thrones” vet Ramsey and Lynskey, acclaimed for “Yellowjackets.”

“You know, you’re only as good as who you work opposite of because acting, it’s like tennis, right? It’s like back and forth, back and forth, back and forth,” Johnson said. “If you have someone that is available and present, and giving you everything that you need, it makes it very easy.

“When I was doing my scene(s) opposite Pedro, especially that final one with the gun, he was really present and he was there for me … So I’m really grateful for that.

“And also the same with Melanie. These guys are so seasoned and they are so good. That obviously was a little nerve-wracking for me stepping into it, but to feel (their) support was everything.”

It’s not Johnson’s first time performing with acting titans. The 28-year-old worked with Bryan Cranston in the series “Your Honor” and Halle Berry in the movie “Kings.” He has also done the usual guest spots on Canadian shows like “Degrassi: The Next Generation,” “Rookie Blue” and “Saving Hope,” as well as starring in the critically acclaimed Canadian film “Brother.”

Johnson initially thought he was going to have a career as a dancer — he played one over six seasons of the tween show “The Next Step” — except that seeing “this little Black kid that looked like me” in a commercial sparked the idea he could become an actor. He started out in theatre, having trained at the Wexford Collegiate School for the Arts in Scarborough.

When he got the audition for “The Last of Us,” “I saw ‘The Last of Us’ and I saw HBO, and I saw Craig Mazin (showrunner of miniseries ‘Chernobyl’) and I saw Neil Druckmann (creator of the video game), and I was like, ‘OK, this is going to be good.’

“So I really wanted to put my best foot forward and I’m really happy that it ended up going in my favour … I’m just extremely grateful to to be a part of this show. It’s so very special.”

Like his co-stars Pascal and Ramsey, Johnson had high praise for the attention to detail on the series, which shot for about a year in Alberta.

For pivotal scenes in which Joel, Henry, Sam and Ellie are confronted by the rebels, who are then overrun by a horde of zombies, “they built the entire cul-de-sac (where) you see the infected come out of that hole … they built (the houses), they paved the roads, they put trees in, they put vegetation. Like it was honestly, absolutely incredible to be a part of that and to see it all come together.”

And “it was absolutely insane,” Johnson added, when the infected swarmed out of the hole in the pavement. “There were tons of extras that day, tons of stunt men and stunt women that day. It was high energy, but we needed it for that moment because it’s a big part of the episode,” he said.

“I watched the episode recently and, yeah, I’m really happy with how everything turned out.”

Debra Yeo is a deputy editor and a contributor to the Star’s Entertainment section. She is based in Toronto. Follow her on Twitter: @realityeo

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