The Last of Us showrunners set a precedent by banning a certain word from being uttered on set.
Last month, the HBO videogame adaptation, from Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann, was released to acclaim, with particular praise being heaped upon lead stars Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey.
The series is set in a post-apocalyptic world ravaged by an outbreak that sees heat=adsapted fungus cordyceps reduce humans to an infected state.
Many viewers unfamiliar with the games might assume that the infected are, in fact, zombies – but this is actually a point of contention among fans who get frustrated when people refer to them as such.
It turns out the word “zombie” was actually banned from being spoken on set. Cinematographer Even Bolten, who worked on four episodes of the season, made the revelation in a new interview.
“We weren’t allowed to say the Z word on set,” Bolter told The Credits. “It was like a banned word. They were the Infected. We weren’t a zombie show.”
Bolter continued: “Of course, there’s tension building and jump scares, but the show’s really about our characters; the Infected are an obstacle they have to deal with.”
The cinematographer said the series is “not a cliché zombie movie”, but described it as “a world of organic cinematic naturalism”.
In the show, the infected characters are referred to as “clickers” – but, in episode four, a new phase was revealed via a character named “the Bloater”.
Adam Basil, a 6’6” British stuntman, played the Bloater, and in a new interview, he opened up about how the character has “captured a lot of people’s imaginations”.