Why The Last Of Us Creators Wrote Sam As A Deaf Character In The TV Show

This post contains spoilers for "The Last of Us" episode 5.

HBO's "The Last of Us" is at times almost a shot-for-shot remake of the 2013 game from Naughty Dog, and at other times makes profound changes to characters and how their stories play out. Sadly, Sam (Keivonn Woodard) and his older brother Henry (Lamar Johnson) do not get a reprieve in the same way that Bill and Frank did. The fifth episode of the series, "Endure and Survive," brings their story to the same tragic conclusion as the game: Sam turns after being infected with the cordyceps virus; Henry shoots his little brother and, unable to live with the guilt and horror of what he's done, kills himself immediately afterwards.

But in a post-apocalyptic world with a generally high body count, the journey counts more than the destination ("The Last of Us" is a road trip show, after all). In that regard, "Endure and Survive" is effective in the parallels it draws between Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey), and other characters with a guardian/guarded dynamic. There's an inverse example in Melanie Lynskey's Kathleen; speaking on the official podcast for "The Last of Us," showrunner Craig Mazin explains that Kathleen's late brother was "her Joel," and that losing him triggered her blind drive for vengeance.

Then of course there's the relationship between Henry and Sam, which closely mirrors the relationship between Joel and Ellie. A little too closely, Mazin felt. And it was that "weird worry" that led to him writing Sam as deaf in the TV show.

Diversity in television — specifically, how it offers representation for marginalized groups of people — is an oft-discussed topic. But there's another benefit to diversity that's less to do with any social responsibility and more to do with storytelling; namely, that watching a bunch of characters who are all basically the same can become very boring. 

"I became nervous that there was a mode of communication between Joel and Ellie that I didn't want to feel like I was repeating between Henry and Sam," Craig Mazin explains on the official podcast for "The Last of Us." While this wasn't really an issue in Bill and Frank's expanded storyline, because the relationship between that pair of characters was so different, the guardian/child dynamic between Henry and Sam risked becoming a simple repeat of Joel and Ellie:

"In the game, you don't spend time with Henry and Sam on their own, ever. But if they are on their own, and we knew we wanted to do that, well, what do those discussions sound like? And it could very easily fall into the trap of 'exasperated father figure' and 'curious, concerned, scared child figure.' And so, I was looking for a way to change that mode of communication."

He was also inspired by the Sundance Now dramedy series "This Close," created by and starring Shoshannah Stern and Joshua Feldman as two deaf best friends. Mazin was intrigued by how the show explored "how they navigate the world as deaf people when they're dealing with other people who aren't deaf," which is something that he brought to "The Last of Us" through Sam and Henry's interactions with Joel and Ellie.

Around 3.6% of Americans are deaf or hard of hearing, yet there are still vanishingly few deaf characters in movies and TV shows. That does seem to be changing; the Marvel Cinematic Universe now includes two deaf superheroes — Makkari, played by Lauren Ridloff, and Echo, played by Alaqua Cox. Meanwhile, young deaf actress Millicent Simmonds had her breakout role in another post-apocalyptic landscape: that of "A Quiet Place" and "A Quiet Place Part II."

Still, the limited number of roles means that there was a relatively limited pool of deaf actors from which to cast Sam, especially since the showrunners were looking for someone fluent in Black American Sign Language (which is distinct from American Sign Language). "It's a pipeline problem," Mazin explained on the podcast. "It's not a, 'Are there kids out there who can do it?' problem." Ultimately only around five actors were found to audition. Fortunately for Mazin, one of those actors was Keivonn Woodard: 

"Keivonn wasn't just the best of the five. He was astonishing [...] I have never been in a circumstance where a kid who has never really acted on film before shows up, and is so naturally good at it, and is a joy to have around. He was just a dream. Still, to this day, I just– I'm kind of puzzled by it."

For nine-year-old Woodard, the post-apocalypse was kind of a blast. "When we ran and the truck was chasing us, the running scene was really fun 'cause I was running as fast as I could," he told Entertainment Weekly cheerfully. As for Sam's tragic final scene, the toughest part might have been the make-up. "It took so long," Woodard remembered. "I fell asleep while they were doing the make-up on my leg 'cause it was taking so long. I just knocked out."

The one thing that did frighten the young actor, though, was the massive new type of infected: the bloater. "I felt really scared," he told Variety. To alleviate Woodard's fears, he was taken to meet the bloater and the other infected performers so he could see they were just ordinary people under all that fungus:

"I didn't want to go at first, because I'm not really into monsters or scary things. I went into this big place and met a few of them, and I felt more comfortable. I felt fine. He took his head off and he took his teeth out. And then he put it back on. He showed me what it looked like, so I felt more comfortable after that."

That's got to be one of the very few situations where someone taking off their own head makes them less scary.

New episodes of "The Last of Us" air Sundays at 9/8c on HBO and HBO Max.