This story contains spoilers for this week’s episode of The Last of Us.

What’s next for The Last of Us? That question has lingered in the air since last week’s game-changing episode of the HBO series, which saw the death of Joel (Pedro Pascal) and a passing of the torch to Ellie (Bella Ramsey), now the series’ de facto lead. However, in a shift from the storyline of the games that inspired the series, Joel’s brother Tommy (Gabriel Luna) isn’t present for Joel’s death at the hands of Abby (Kaitlyn Dever.) He’s busy fighting off a massive horde of infected as they crash against the gates of the Jackson, Wyoming community.

This week’s episode, directed by Peter Hoar and written by Craig Mazin, opens with Tommy having a moment of solace with his brother. As emotionally devastating as Joel’s death was, this is equally so—and plays to the quiet and reserved strength Luna brings to the role. Although he has only one line of dialogue, Luna’s face conveys decades of love and affection, resulting in a powerful moment that fans of the series will likely remember for a long, long time.

GQ sat down for a conversation with Luna actor in the wake of Tommy’s big moment, where he’s quick to mention that all of The Last of Us is a team effort, shouting out one crew member after another by name. During our expansive chat, Luna spoke thoughtfully about the response to last week’s barn-burner, how real-life circumstances informed that moment at the start of the episode, the healing power of music on set, and much more.

GQ: What was more exciting for you, going to WrestleMania or finally having episode two out in the world?

Gabriel Luna: Man, I was anticipating this episode coming out for so long that when this WrestleMania thing came together last week, thanks to Kara and Larissa, my publicists, who were so sweet and very plugged in. I reached out maybe a month ago, and I was like, “You know what might be a good promotional opportunity? WrestleMania.” They reached out and hooked it up; we were on the floor for both nights and so wrapped up in the show. Then, the Sunday that the episode aired, we only sat through half of night two of WrestleMania because I had to hop on a plane. I left and jumped on one of these jet suite flights and got myself back to LA because my buddy’s having his 40th birthday. I was so focused on WrestleMania [and] getting on this plane so I could go to my buddy Vince’s birthday that I hadn’t fully grasped that the episode was airing until my phone started lighting up like a Christmas tree.

People were texting and sharing kind words and sweet remarks about the show, and then some heartbreaking responses to the show, and it’s been wonderful and exciting to see all that work come to fruition in the way that we thought it may actually come to pass with this strong response. It’s been nuts, man. It’s been cool to finally unload a lot of these old videos that I had from that whole experience and then just talk about it. Talk about the trials we went through and the execution of it all. [It’s] a remarkable piece of television, and I’m so happy that it all came together the way it did.

When you’re all on set, do you have a sense of, Okay, this is a big one. Does everybody know that they’ve got to really bring their A game? Or does it just feel like a slightly longer day at the office?

Reading the script definitely felt like that. When you’re reading the script, you get to choose your own lenses, you get to see [and] feel what it’s going to be, and stitch it together cinematically. Even then, I already felt like it was going to be huge. When we got there on a day-to-day basis, it still felt massive. I mean, we got 500 people on set. We got hundreds of background, 50 or so stunt performers in full prosthetics. We have weapons being fired all over the place, just bullet casings all over the ground. And if there weren’t enough bullet casings, we had some young ladies in set dec[oration] going around like flower girls throwing bullet casings [mimics hand-motion] on the ground, green screens, all kinds of pyro. Even then on the day, it felt very big,

But because of Mark Mylod‘s stewardship and Craig Mazin’s leadership, we just had a great plan. Nothing is impossible if you have the right team, you trust them to do their jobs, everybody takes accountability for their own job, and you just get it done. You just get it done moment by moment. Mark Mylod was the perfect director for this. He was able to capture the scope and scale of that huge, massive battle. Of course, he has a lot of experience—Game of Thrones and other things in that vein. And also was able to be the sweetheart that he is, able to do all of the touching and heartbreaking moments—he’s just an incredible director.

On the day, it does feel big. But because of the team we put together, it didn’t feel impossible. We thought it may be, but it wasn’t. Still, even then, man, until it’s all put together, until Alex Wang, our VFX supervisor, gets his team on it, until [editor] Timothy [Good] cuts it all together, you never know. But now that it’s out and everybody has responded the way they did, we are very proud.

How does the collaboration with the stunt team work for an episode that big?

Well, first and foremost, I made sure that my brother—I call him my brother, his name’s Ty Provost. He is of the Blackfoot Nation, and his family’s from the Blood Res down in Southern Alberta. He’s from a family of stuntmen. His older brother Leonard and his eldest brother, Tim Bruised Head, are both very important in the stunt community in Alberta and all across Canada. I made sure that Ty was with me again, and thank you to Cecil O’Connor, our producer and Jacqueline [Lesko] and everybody who collaborates and makes sure that we get what we need to get the job done.

I knew I needed Ty, even if I was going to do a majority of the stuff. Ty is just good to be there to work through things, work through some of the fights, get stretched out, get limber, keep our training—we train together, so we can keep our fitness at the level it needs to be. So it starts there with just my personal guy. I’m his actor. He’s not my stuntman. Then you have Marny Eng, our stunt coordinator, Danny Virtue, our horse wrangler, pulling all their team together. The amazing Glenn Ennis, who played the Bloater, used to be the rugby captain for the nation of Canada. He’s a very big man, and then even bigger when you put him on eight inch platforms and then even bigger when you put a helmet on him with a big antenna to represent where his head should be as the Bloater. A guy named Jonathan took a lot of burns for us. The whole team was just unbelievable. It basically just meant getting your weapons training in when you can and going and doing your riding with Danny out in the ranch, and going with Keanu [Lam], the fight coordinator, and tightening up all the beats of the fights.

As much as there is in that episode, there’s probably another 15 minutes of finished, cut footage of other aspects of that battle that we couldn’t keep just because of pacing—we got to keep the story going. There’s a whole sequence where we set up this net full of explosives to funnel them all in into one area of the town and set off this booby trap, a whole net we roll out with all this C4. I just posted on Instagram a video of me rounding the corner with this massive blast. I mean, that’s not even in the final cut because we already had so much happening. Kudos to Mylod for knowing that just because we can do it, doesn’t mean we need to, we have to keep the heart of the story driving forward: The town, how much Tommy and Maria love this town, how much we have to dig in our heels to defend it. Meanwhile, my brother is wayward, out in the blizzard, dealing with what he’s dealing with. It was a massive undertaking and couldn’t be done without the hundreds of people that were there to do it.

I know you’re a fashion guy; you like your outerwear. I think Ann Foley’s done outdone her Ghost Rider work with that shearling plaid number you’ve got. What was working with Ann again and getting that bit of costuming like for you?

I came in, and she already had all the designs in her mind and had already printed out these mockups. We worked together on the Ghost Rider [costume] and she was the one that built my jacket. I remember we modeled that jacket or the shape of it—it was going to be a café racer. But I had just done a show called Harley and the Davidsons for Discovery, where they fitted me for this really cool red cafe racer. We got some of the shape from there, and she had this great leathersmith that worked on that one. She’s already has amazing teams that she’s built. Our tailor on this, Savino—you got to go with an Italian tailor, man. If you’re going to do it right, hire an Italian tailor. She was inspired by this ad, I think it’s like a 1980s Marlboro ad from like 88 or something, and it’s almost a one-to-one of the general idea there, but she added some great elements, some of the leather patches, the plaid and the wash that she put on the plaid flannel. It’s just a cool jacket. It feels very Tommy, and at the same time, feels fresh and new and something you didn’t see in the game.

It also feels functional for the type of conditions that we’re in, not only in the story, but also in life. It was actually a really warm coat. Tip the hat to Ann Foley. I mean, what a G, like her and Paula and her whole team, Frankie—love our whole costuming team. And then Steves, our dressers are both named Steve, our main dressers, and they’re just the Steves. Just absolute legends of the game. I’m so happy that Ann was involved. After Cynthia Summers did a wonderful job in the first season, to have Ann Foley come on. I’m just like, ‘Alright, here we go.” They obviously know that we’re about to take this to a whole other level, so you’ve got to do that in every department.

The scene that opens episode three is really emotional and is a new creation for the show. What were the conversations about that like?

I read it in the script. I knew Peter Hoar was going to be directing. Peter did the “Long, Long Time” episode with Nick [Offerman] and Murray [Bartlett], who played Bill and Frank. I knew the human element was going to be in good hands. I probably wasn’t prepared for how it felt on the day, because as I was walking into that room. Once the young lady who hands me the wash rag to wash my brother’s body leaves the room, I’m now in this makeshift morgue that we have in our mess hall in Jackson, among dozens and dozens and dozens of our loved ones who are now gone. Then, specifically, my closest relative’s laying there on the table in front of me.

I remember I immediately had this sense memory of my grandfather’s funeral. My grandfather had two sons: my father Gabriel, who passed before I was born, and my uncle David passed when I was 12. When my grandpa passed in 2013, at that point, I was the oldest living male in my immediate family. I was the only grandson. My uncle David had no children. My father only had me before he passed. When it came down to his funeral, and when we were there the day of the wake, my mom, my grandma, my maternal grandma, and my mother were outside welcoming people. Then the funeral director came in: Immediate family can come in and see your grandfather.

But that was just me. I was the only one, the immediate family that was there. I remember walking down the aisle to the box that I had to buy for my grandpa, cause I was his soul heir and all this funeral that we had to put together. And I just remember being alone in that chapel and walking up to the coffin. All of a sudden, I had this in my mind as we were shooting this scene, so it made it all feel very genuine. The moment was real.

I tell this story, too, because it’s funny how small of a world it is and how closely all of us circus people in the movie industry are woven. But there was a body double for Pedro that day, and they asked me if I wanted to have full makeup done. I said, “Please, if you wouldn’t mind.” Just to have the visual of what it is and to lift up that shroud and see the damage that was done. So they put the stand in, the body double through the full works—blood everywhere, and the wounds and everything.

I just held this stranger’s hand all night, shooting the scene, washing his hand, and taking the watch off. A lot of this was left out of the cut, just for time, I guess. But said those words, “Give Sarah my love.” It’s just a really strong moment [that] says everything you need to say. There were other words in the scene, but I’m so happy they’re all gone because you didn’t need ’em. Six months later, I’m working on a show called Devil in Disguise, that I shot in Toronto for Peacock, about the John Wayne Gacy case, where I play Detective Rafael Tovar, the lead investigator. Then this guy comes up to me, he’s like, “Hey, bro, I’m Philippe.” I was like, “Oh, nice, nice to see you.” He’s like, “Yeah, we met each other. I played your brother.”`

I was like, “What do you mean?” “I was the stand-in. I was the body double for Pedro that day at the funeral.” He had moved from Vancouver to Toronto and just so happened to be working on my new show as a stand-in, and it was really nice. It was a real roundabout way where it didn’t feel like there was a finality to it, that this character, this Joel character — who I love so much, who so many people love so much, who I personally love, is my brother — he’s still up. He’s still up and about. To have the actual guy there, that was the body, standing before me was this nice, roundabout healing moment down the line.

It was a crazy night. Peter did a great job directing that scene. I hope it lands — I haven’t seen it yet, but I saw a little brief bit in the previews when I watched finally watched episode [two]—so I hope it works out. Now the story really starts, man.

The extra dialogue in the sequence—was that something on the day that you and Peter determined you didn’t need?

No, we did it. The more I was doing it, I had a sense, like, “No, I don’t think we need any of this.” I didn’t bring it up at the time as I was performing it. There was something cathartic about it because a lot of what we left out was about Ellie, me telling him what happened to Ellie. At the time, it wasn’t even really about the scene for me, as it was this weird double meaning in the scene of saying, “She’s hurt, she’s hurt bad, but she’ll be all right. I’ll take care of her,” which needs to go unsaid because of course I will. Who else does she have? At the same time, it was less about Ellie in that moment than it was the show itself. There was this weird sense of the passing of the torch from Pedro’s great leadership to Bella’s, Kaitlyn’s, myself, and the people who were going to be carrying this story forward from here — Isabela, Young [Mazino], and everyone. It still was beneficial in some way. In the moment, it was very cathartic to say out loud [for] the reality of the production that we were going [into]. In the end, I mean, what more do you need to say than, “Give Sarah my love.”

Leading up to that bit of dialogue, your face has a hint of anger on it, and then when you actually sit down and start the cleaning process, there’s a level of happy recognition. Were you actively trying to convey some level of hope or acceptance about the situation there?

There’s definitely anger and disgust at the sight of what they did to my brother. It’s like that [Vito] Corleone “Look what they did to my boy” kind of moment. Then, as I’m going down — the idea that he’s there with Sarah, with his daughter, with my niece, with our family, that he’s there, and if you believe in that type of thing, that is the moment you take some solace in that. That was the idea, that it’s not necessarily happiness, but it is comfort knowing they’re together.

What do you think is going through Tommy’s mind as all of the votes at the council meeting start to not go his way?

I haven’t seen the final cut; I saw a version of this scene. I wonder if it’s different, but it’s we got to do it the right way, but I got her back a hundred percent. I’m voting yes, we go, and it’s a quick vote for me. The moment we start taking the votes, I write it down, I hold it up, I look around, and it’s we’re all in this together, right? Everybody’s on the same page. In the end, it may very well be just me, possibly Maria. I think she votes yes. The third vote, not exactly sure who that is, but it’s not Jesse. Which is smart, he’s right. We’re all acting from our guts and our hearts, and he’s acting through his mind and his head. But it’s pride in Ellie, in her ability to put it into words, even though I get a sense that—what you see later in the scene with Catherine—she’s so shrew, she’s so smart. She knows how to work a room and manipulate people in the way she needs to and is aware of that. But it’s also the fact that Seth is right, and Bobby John Burke does a great job in that scene. It’s just like they came in, they took one of ours, and we’re just going to stand down?

We take that vote, and the looks all around are one of disbelief that everyone can just move on. This version of Tommy would accept that vote. That’s what the people chose, that’s what his wife and his community and everyone else—that’s the process by which we handle things. As the story progresses, people make some unilateral choices. Tommy has his allegiances, of course, to his family, his wife, his child, and the community, yes. But also to the closest person to the love in Ellie’s life that she just lost. And as the closest person to that, I have my allegiances to her, and things shake out from there. Whether right or wrong, justified or not, we all make a decision and we are going to have to live and die by those decisions.

At the very beginning of this season, Tommy tells Ellie that he thinks she and Joel are the same person. When Tommy goes to see Gail, is he looking for some level of reassurance that Ellie might not be like him?

I think he’s looking for some perspective for himself. It’s probably the first time Tommy’s ever talked to that therapist. I think it’s more so just as somebody who knew Joel, who might have some information about him and his relationship with Ellie, this person might be able to offer me some sense of what I’m feeling and give me a position of righteousness to not go myself in that moment.

Maybe somebody who could say, “I think she’ll be all right.” Maybe not get over it, but I think she’ll be able to grieve through this and stay here safe with you. But that’s not what she says. We all know the truth of it. We all know who she is. She’s very much Joel’s daughter in a lot of ways and won’t let certain things slide and will seek out their own personal justice. Tommy leaves; he knows, he has a sense of it. He’s hoping not, but he does have a sense that she’s going to do something stupid, as he says.

You bring up that idea of justice. While we have a long way to go before the show is done, but I’m curious as for your perspective on what the series is trying to say about the fine line between justice and vengeance.

I am not shy about framing it up this way because I think it’s important to say, and it was part of Neil [Druckmann]’s—from what I understand in writing this story as this allegory—as this metaphor for what’s happening in the West Bank and other conflicts around the world where they’ve been going on and on in this cycle of vengeance and retaliation for millennia. Any particular person could pick any particular point as the origin, but we all know that it extends beyond that. There was a transgression that preceded that, and there would maybe have been another one that preceded that. You have this continual, endless circle of being unforgiving.

The lesson of the second game, I believe, is forgiveness. Love and, ultimately, forgiveness. Not to get into it for those who haven’t seen it, but as this story goes on, you start losing more and more on your path to this and more and more of yourself. You just keep losing. So, how much are you willing to lose before you learn this lesson? What we’re trying to leave people with is, at some point, you just got to stop. You have to stop and turn back towards love.

Isabela mentioned to me that when moments got tough, music was a big thing for her and that she had these sing-a-long sessions on set. Before we started chatting I saw you grab your guitar. What role did music play for you on set?

This guitar [Luna grabs the guitar and pulls it into frame] which was given to me by Robert Rodriguez, is with me every day at work, every job I do. I play it every day. I usually try to find a song that gives me a way into the scene and whatever it’ll be about. Just to play it a little bit, to put more tissue between all of us there working. Even people humming the same tune can sometimes help you build [and] strengthen these ties between departments, between people working together. It certainly did that for us as a cast because we’d sit in holding, [or] we’d all peel off or go out. Me and Young would go sit in one of the benches or somewhere in town and just play for each other. In the first season, Bella and I would play a lot; They’d play songs for me and I’d play my own originals for them. It ends up helping [to] give everything this sense of levity. We’re working on this thing—it’s very heavy, but it never feels like that. It never feels bogged down and overly weighty. It has lift to it because we always keep a melody in the air.

They’re all incredibly talented, all of them. Young is an incredible guitarist. Isabella plays the ukulele, the piano, and sings in this Eartha Kitt-style, raspy voice. Bella has a three-octave range. Kaitlyn has a band with her sister. Ariela [Barer] sings really beautifully, these cool indie tunes. Spencer [Lord] plays the guitar. He’s a ripper. He can play really well. Tati [Gabrielle] sings amazingly. All the new cast, for the most part, are really musical. Pedro and Rutina [Wesley] have a great musical appreciation.

It’s in the DNA of The Last of Us. Music is such a huge part of the storytelling, the meanings of certain songs, who taught you that tune, what it means, Gustavo’s score—and the way that he plays those strings and how each string in the finger plucking style that he plays, either the banjo or the guitar or whatever it is—feels like emotions being picked out one by one. Music is the lifeblood of the story, both the game and the live-action version.