There’s been a lot of talk of mushrooms on the internet thanks to HBO’s The Last of Us. The TV show’s apocalypse is all thanks to the Cordyceps fungus and its haunting effects. Series star Pedro Pascal has come forward with his thoughts on another fungus — the magic mushroom.
During an interview on Late Night with Seth Meyers, Pascal, who plays Joel Miller in the series, talked about working on set and his experiences with the show’s infected. Partially through the interview, Meyers asks Pascal whether working on The Last of Us has put him off from enjoying mushroom dishes like pasta.
“I love mushrooms. All kinds,” Pascal emphasizes. “The kinds in restaurants. The kinds that used to come in a little ziplock bag in the ’90s. And now the kinds that are in these colourful chocolates,” he continues.
Meyers then continues joking about ingesting some psychedelic mushrooms and watching The Last of Us. “That I would not do,” Pascal quickly interjects. “That might put you off it for good. So don’t do that.”
The Last of Us is heavily inspired by and based on the video game franchise from PlayStation’s Naughty Dog. Six episodes into the series and audiences have already faced very heavy and emotional narrative threads. Each episode sees Pascal’s Joel and Ellie, played by Bella Ramsey, cross the U.S. in hopes of finding a cure for the Cordecypt virus. Along the way, our two characters stumble upon a cast of characters and horrifying infected.
One infected in particular, dubbed Bloater, has recently built quite the acclaim online. Production and the VFX pulled no punches in replicating the giant enemy from the game and making it a horrifying threat on-screen during the fifth episode of the series. Comprised of grotesque fundal growths, the Bloater became the internet’s number one mushroom. The actor who played infected even went as far as to say “He seems to be a bit of a sex icon.”
Pascal’s comments on the combination of magic mushrooms and the widely successful HBO show are mainly in jest. However, it’s a good to keep in mind as we head toward the final three episodes of the season.
