Actor Troy Baker portrayed Joel in Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us video game series, and in the HBO series, he plays a villain named James. In an interview with Polygon, Baker discussed the role and the fate of his character. Spoilers for The Last of Us follows below.
First, Baker acknowledged that when he was cast as James, the lieutenant to Scott Shepherd’s sadistic, cannibalistic boss David, he struggled to remember just who the heck James was in the first place.
“Honestly, when I first found out that I was gonna play James, I was like, ‘Dude, thank you so much. It’s very, very gracious–who is James?’ Because he wasn’t a big character,” Baker said.