Gabriel Luna is no stranger to high-concept storytelling. From his breakout role in “Matador” to his fiery turn as Ghost Rider in “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D”, Luna has carved a path through genre television with a grounded intensity that never overpowers the humanity at the core of his characters.
In HBO’s “The Last of Us”, Luna plays Tommy Miller, a former soldier turned community leader in a post-pandemic America. Adapted from the acclaimed video game franchise by Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann, the series earned instant critical acclaim upon its debut, scoring 24 Emmy nominations for its first season and winning eight, including Outstanding Prosthetic Makeup and Visual Effects. While stars Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey remain the narrative core, Luna’s Tommy has emerged as a steady, morally grounded counterweight in a world unraveling at the seams.
Returning for Season 2, Luna brings more layers to Tommy—now a father, a protector, and a man worn thin by the choices of those around him. Episode two’s explosive invasion sequence was particularly memorable for Luna. “It was fire. It was hundreds of stunt performers, thousands of rounds of blanks, monsters everywhere,” Luna recalls. “But then you find these little pockets of humanity in the chaos, and that’s where the show really lives.”
Under the direction of “Succession’s” Mark Mylod, the episode was both technically demanding and emotionally raw, and for Luna, music became an unexpected tool to keep the team unified. “It helps thread the energy of a scene through every department,” he shares. “We’d be singing between takes, finding this shared rhythm that kept us all present.”
Gabriel Luna spoke with Awards Focus about calibrating Tommy for the season’s five-year time jump, the weight of holding Joel’s secret, how his own guitar helped keep him grounded in the chaos and how his role shifted from guest to guide, welcoming a new generation of talent into the world of “The Last of Us”.
Awards Focus: We’re speaking the day after the season finale premiered. Did you happen to watch it, and what were your thoughts on the final cut?
Gabriel Luna: I am so immensely proud of everyone and everyone’s work. I was there on the day to see Kaitlyn [Dever] and Bella [Ramsey] deliver that explosive ending scene, and I was honored to be asked by Alex Wong, our VFX coordinator, to do the voiceover for their Emmy submission. I remember when I went in to do that with him, I saw a lot of the veil pulled on the magic tricks that he pulled with the scene where Ellie’s on the dinghy going out to the island, and then making her way back to the aquarium. All of that looked so awesome, and much of that work was done in a water tank.
AF: I read that in the game “The Last of Us,” Tommy is the one leading the charge to find Abby. But in the show, it’s being transposed to Ellie. What were your thoughts when you were reading the scripts for season two, and how the story unfolds this season?
Luna: I think in a lot of ways it shifts, and in many other ways it keeps the truth of the characters intact. It certainly does for our live-action iteration in the game. Tommy rides out the day after the murder of his brother. He at first tries to talk Ellie down from going because of the potential danger and all of the unknown variables with this group that we’ve just encountered, not knowing how many there are, how well armed they are, and all of these very important questions to ask if you were to ride out and try to seek revenge on these people.
But, in the game, after talking her down, he has a change of heart because he ends up going out ahead to Seattle alone. In that version, he’s not a father yet, and the town is in a rebuilding stage, having suffered this horrible destruction of much of what they’ve built. So, I think in our version Tommy’s instincts and needs, and responsibilities are to his wife and son. He may not be as rash or as hotheaded or as quick to this revenge, however much he may desire it. It makes sense in our version that Tommy is this kind of pillar of the community, who is a little more aware of the needs of the community.
I love the reason why he goes to Seattle now because it’s not out of hatred or vengeance, even once he’s there, a lot of those feelings arise once the people who are responsible for his brother’s death are within his reach. But at the onset of going out is an act of love to retrieve someone Tommy loves and bring them home safely. There is a change, and I think that change is true to the events and the new structure of the story in live action.
AF: How did you calibrate your performance for the five-year time jump when the season opens?
Luna: I tried to make him a bit weary. I think the weariness and fatigue come with being a father and still having all the responsibilities that the head of the Security Council of Jackson, Wyoming, would have. Of course, he still does patrols. He still trains the standing guard. I think the weight of the world is taking its toll, and he’s not the same kind of youthful guy running around the season premiere when the outbreak happens. I think it’s just a lot of the physicality that’s important to implement the hitch in his step and his awareness of his bones and how much they hurt.
In some instances, especially in the second episode, it wasn’t hard to play because my bones were hurting just running around in cowboy boots and carrying the weight of the fuel pack with my flame thrower. I mean it hurt so good, but it’s just the kind of day at work where you go home and you lay down, you go to bed, and you get up and do it again. I prefer it that way. I try to still play the warmth of that character, that he’s somebody that everyone can go to and they all confide in, much to his grief and dismay sometimes, because he bears a lot of secrets. He’s the bearer of Joel’s secret that he saved Ellie and took out that entire hospital full of people. He knows Ellie’s immunity, so it’s trying to balance the warmth and the fun of that character with a lot of the new burdens.
AF: What was it like walking onto set for Episode Two’s big invasion scene, and what stands out to you when you reflect on filming that large-scale sequence?
Luna: It’s an extraordinary set. Don Macaulay, our production designer, did an incredible job. All our carpenters, our special effects teams, rigging a lot of these flame bars and things for the post-destruction of Jackson; there was this really beautiful familiarity with the area just because it looks so much like the main cross streets in the game version. We had a lot of returning background actors who played a lot of these community members, and we built such a strong relationship just all being and melding together, forged in a fire type of experience.
We shot that over three weeks, and then came back and shot the end piece with the final kill shot with the flamethrower. We came back and reshot in July just because we had wanted to reconfigure some things, and they rebuilt part of the city just to accommodate this claustrophobic feeling that we were seeking. There was a lot of work done over many days. So, arriving on the first day was one thing, but then all of those days seemed like one giant, weird slip in time. It was epic; it was everything. It was fire. It was thousands of rounds of blanks being shot. It was one hundred stuntmen. It was a hundred-plus full makeup prosthetics, monsters everywhere, and some incredible stunt work by our team, and especially Colin Decker, who runs our fire team. You go through all this, and then you get to the end of it, and you’re seeing the destruction. We win, but at what cost?
There’s a beautiful scene at the end, just me and Dina coming together and witnessing and feeling the first kind of shock of loss and what just happened. I remember that day, Mark Mylod was our director, and it was really hard. I was trying to get into this very emotional state, yet there was so much happening all around us. People are being set and stunt people being set. They’re trying to frame up, and fire’s burning everywhere. I’d well up, and I’m having this moment where the emotion is coming, and then it would evaporate by the sheer heat of all the fire that was around us.
We did one take, and I asked Mark to come over. He’s such a beautiful, warm, and tender person. He asked me what I needed, and I said I just need you to be with me right here. Just stand here with me. And I just stood there, and I put my hands on his shoulders and I looked him in the eyes and I could see the empathy that he had for these characters and that he had for Tommy and Maria, and the emotion just poured out of me, just being there with him. So, he walks off, calls action, and then we have a really beautiful scene.
But that’s so telling and apropos of that experience. There’s just a swirl of sound and fury all around us. And then there are these little pockets of humanity and art and beauty and everything that we make this show for, and what we all live for as people. Mark Mylod is a great representative of that. He’s one that really strikes the balance between those two things, and I think our show does that in a really kind of an overarching way.
AF: It sounds like very long days, especially with the construction of each chapter of the invasion as it escalates. How did you stay grounded during these extensive shoots?
Luna: I like to play music, whether it’s just noodling around on my guitar or just finding particular songs that imbue the day with the focus of the work. It depends on what it is. The flame thrower was “Light My Fire” by the Doors. I think I remember playing in the community scenes, “Jackson” by Johnny and June Carter Cash. It was kind of a hit with the performers. We’d all come together and sing. I always find a way to do it when there’s a lot going on and a lot of moving parts. So there’s certainly a lot of waiting on our set, but it never feels like waiting if I’m kind of threading the moments in my mind and my heart, staying with it musically.
Then, also sharing that with the crew and sharing that with the other actors and building tissue between all these departments and between all these people, where it’s not so disjointed. It’s not people working separately. It’s everyone moving towards the same end goal, and I think it helps weave these people together and weave these moments and energies together.
I’m told that that’s the effect overall. I always find the nice little pockets to do it, and I’m usually the first on my mark because I just like to be ready to go, be at the fire.
AF: Did you find that your mindset evolved from the first season to the second?
Luna: The first season was very much in support of the central story. Tommy appears in a couple of episodes, but he’s very important as an idea and force that’s kind of in the distance, looming, and that they’re moving towards. But I think coming into the second season, with what we knew our attention to be in the telling of this chapter of the story and how Tommy and Maria figure more prominently, and what that really means, I knew going into it that we would be the veterans, for lack of a better word and the welcoming party for this new, incredibly talented, young cast. I think that they’re the best of the bunch, and we happen to have them in our show, and I’m really thankful for that.