Ariela Barer couldn’t stand to play The Last of Us Part II, released on PlayStation consoles in 2020, all by herself. “I got sensitive during lockdown,” says the actress who plays Mel, a soldier and trained medic in the HBO series adaptation of the video game. “I was always good with horror movies, but I could not do horror games. Video games are so effective–you cannot escape what you are doing. I get stressed out playing Zelda. So I never played the second game.”
When work began on The Last of Us season 2–which is largely based on Part II–the 26-year-old actress tells me she relied on fan-made wikis to get up to speed. But she “learned the hard way” how unreliable the Internet can be. She arrived on set unaware of the show’s factions and their violent turf war amid the postapocalyptic ruins of Seattle. “I didn’t know what the Seraphite-W.L.F. stuff was,” she admits. “Someone explained to me what’s going on. I was like, ‘We’re doing what?’ I felt sick hearing the plot. Reading the scripts, I felt physically ill.”
The season 2 finale of The Last of Us, which aired Sunday night, is an hour-long endurance of suspense and heart-shattering losses. Among the casualties is (spoilers!) Barer’s Mel, who is fatally shot by Ellie (Bella Ramsey) on her road to revenge against Abby (Kaitlyn Dever). Even worse, Mel reveals to Ellie (and the audience) that she’s several months pregnant. Delirious in her final breaths, Mel begs Ellie for a C-section with a combat knife that an all-too-frozen Ellie is unable to perform.
Shooting Mel’s fatal scene was as harrowing for Barer as theoretically playing the video game. The version that made it to air was the third version of Mel’s death, dialed down from previous iterations that were “more heightened” and had “a lot more action,” she says. Yet shooting all of her character’s scenes demanded an unimaginable amount of emotion from Barer as a performer.
“I was so nervous and panicked. I couldn’t stop sobbing,” says Barer. The actress, who also cowrote and produced the 2022 thriller How to Blow Up a Pipeline, says she has an involuntary habit of laughing while crying. “[Showrunner] Craig [Mazin] came to my room after my coverage to congratulate me, and I could not stop crying and laughing. He’s like, ‘Are you a crazy person?’ That was a sweet bonding moment for Craig and I.”
With The Last of Us season 2’s finale out in the world, Barer unpacks her unforgettably distressing death scene below. Death is the end for many, but Barer’s Mel might be a rare exception—with a return for season 3 unconfirmed but not completely ruled out.
This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
“In episode 2, I was so nervous and the adrenaline was there, Barer says. “But by episode 7, I had now spent so much time with everyone and cared so much about every little bit of it, I was able to breathe.”
ESQUIRE: So you didn’t play The Last of Us Part II. But what games are you playing now?
ARIELA BARER: Zelda‘s my go-to calm-down game. I did a completionist run of Breath of the Wild where I got every shrine. I’m still on Tears of the Kingdom. I find that one more overwhelming—that’s a brain-on activity. My go-to is Hades. I need to see a doctor because I’ve gotten carpal tunnel. I can only do one round before my thumb hurts. You’re button-smashing on that one.
I would often describe Disco Elysium as one of my favorite games, but I never finished it. It’s really hard! One of my best friends, Danny Goldhaber, who directed How to Blow Up a Pipeline, he’s a huge video game guy. When I was like, “I want to get into games. What should I play?” he was like, “The best game ever: Disco Elysium.” I was not ready for it. [Laughs.] It’s brilliant.
We do not see much of Mel except when she’s with Abby. We don’t get to know her until she dies. So who is Mel, really?
Mel is a soldier and a medic. Mel has a deep sense of duty and righteousness and a dedication to helping people. Despite this very complicated and brutal world she grew up in, she is still an idealist and a pacifist. Which is an incredibly brave thing to be in the face of all this violence and cruelty.
What were you told about Mel going into the series? How much of her story from the games did you know ahead of time?
Right before my audition, Craig was like, “By the way, we’re changing this pretty central piece of Mel.” Which changed everything about the scene I was about to do—so I had to, on the fly, switch it up. I don’t know if that’s something that’s going to be revealed or if that’s for me to know. I was just told Mel is very different in the show than in the game. The beef between Mel and Abby is coming from a more personal place. The love triangle in the game is great shorthand for building tension between characters when you don’t have a lot of time. But on a show, you get more time. Their beef is not over a man; it’s over their conflicting personalities. That was really fun to play.
I was told her pacifist nature was naive, and while I can see that point, I disagree with it. It’s brave to choose peace and love and understanding in scary times.
Take me to the moment you shot Mel’s death scene. You display a hundred emotions in 40 seconds. What was the complexity of that performance like as an actor?
We shot that scene three times, and each time was two days. The first was a different scene. Took place in a different environment. I did get to watch it. When Craig told me we had to reshoot it, my one ask was “Can I see why it didn’t work?” He sent it to me and I was like, “I understand.” It was great—it just needed to be different.
We go back to it January this year. I had already shot another movie. I was going through a lot personally, and I was once again nervous. I don’t know if I can do this again. I had a call with my best friend, and she put me in my place. Like, “I know this is fantasy, but these horrible things happen for real. Women suffer this way in wartime. The least you can do is honor that. It’s not about you—it’s about Mel saving her baby.” That locked me in.
When we shot that moment, it was just Bella and I on set with each other; we did it back-to-back-to-back. I felt safe. Bella is a giving and brilliant scene partner. We were holding hands. [It was] this strange little moment of forgiveness between the two of them. We took it slower; Craig gave me lines to throw in. I don’t remember what made the final cut, but there were versions where we were apologizing, or Mel saying, “You’re doing a great job,” and encouraging Ellie.
It was a very formative experience. I feel like I can track my own arc as an actor when I watch this season. In episode 2, I was so nervous and the adrenaline was there. But by episode 7, I had now spent so much time with everyone and cared so much about every little bit of it, I was able to breathe. Craig gave me a note that was like, “Tears can fall, but no crying.”
It’s brave to choose peace and love and understanding in scary times.
Why does Mel ask Ellie to deliver her baby? Ellie is basically her enemy and her murderer. Why does she feel her baby would be safe with her?
Mel is in a place where she’s been self-punishing a bit. I don’t think she’s let herself off the hook for what she did, even if she didn’t completely do it. When Ellie walks in, it’s like, “Yeah, of course this kid came after us.” This is where you see Mel would be an amazing mother. She sees the scared kid. She sees herself in Ellie—someone who is forced into doing something by the circumstances of her life.
As her mind starts to go, she starts using medical language. What we discussed was: First her vision goes, but she can hear, and in her mind she’s on the operating table with her doctor friends who she trusts. There’s a part of her that’s half there, half not, like her consciousness is slipping. She’s saying things like “Thank you” and “You’re doing good.” That is who Mel is—she’s someone who is going to care for the people around her and forgive people. She dies thinking that she saved her baby.
“In this world, everyone has kind of made peace with death,” Barer says. “Death doesn’t mean the same thing. It’s the specifics of people’s death that matter.”
The brutality of the scene shows the circle of violence Ellie is trapped in. She’s about to be a parent herself, but she just killed a would-be mother. How does Mel’s death underline the bleak way of life in The Last of Us?
Craig and I would talk about why Mel goes on this mission to kill Joel. Because she knows she’s pregnant. Why would she risk so much? In this world, everyone has made peace with death. Death doesn’t mean the same thing. It’s the specifics of people’s death that matter. A legacy or a full life is less owed to everyone and you’re just lucky for the time you’re there. This isn’t written, this isn’t canon, this is just as an actor—but for me, episode 2 changes everything for Mel. She needs to undo it. She took something out of this world, so she’s putting something back into it. [Killing] Nora was the point of no return for Ellie, but Mel is maybe a light for Ellie to see someone in similar circumstances to her. Someone she has really hurt and forgives her in her final moments–she’s everything Ellie didn’t do. That’s more haunting that this person said, “I’m removing myself and I’m forgiving you.”
In the video game, Owen is the father of Mel’s baby. But in the series it’s ambiguous. Who is the father?
So glad you asked that, because I wasn’t sure if that came across. I am not supposed to talk about it. [Laughs.] That’s a Craig question. That’s a question I’ve asked Craig many times.
You’ve now filmed Mel’s death scene. But as the season finale implies, we might see more of Mel again due to the zigzagging timeline. What’s your experience like shooting a character’s death scene but it’s not actually your ending?
I also have no idea how much more we’re going to see Mel. I don’t know that yet. But it does make the experience less emotionally painful, because all I want to do is go back to set. I know I’m not gone gone, but I don’t know how much I come back for. And I will be so devastated whatever my last day on set is. It’s cool, having seen the end, and whatever we do of the earlier stuff gets to be colored by that. Knowing a character’s full arc, you can play up what needs to be played up for that to hit the way it needs to.
Honestly, the funniest thing to me has been my parents watching the show. They have no idea of the plot. They never played the games. They know nothing. They don’t know that I die, and they don’t know it’s not permanent. My mom called me after episode 5, like, “Why did Nora have to die? I want to see her again.” I couldn’t tell her, “It’s probably okay!”
