Credit: HBONick Offerman, one of the stars of the huge HBO science fiction apocalypse series The Last of Us, recently used an awards acceptance speech to slam homophobic fans of the show.
The Last of Us stars Pedro Pascal as Joel, an emotionally devastated man in a future America that has been ravaged by a massive, highly contagious fungus that turns its human hosts into mutated, zombie-like creatures. He takes a job to transport a girl named Ellie (Bella Ramsay) across the country, attempting to survive in a collapsed society in which other humans are even more of a danger than the infected themselves.
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The show, based on the mega-popular Naughty Dog video game series, was an immediate success for HBO. The premiere episode of The Last of Us garnered nearly five million viewers in January 2023; within months, that number had ballooned to a staggering 30 million per episode, becoming one of the most widely watched TV series in the world.
It was also universally critically acclaimed, currently holding a near-perfect 96% on Rotten Tomatoes. In particular, the third episode of the show, “Long Long Time,” was applauded, though it featured Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsay only as supporting characters.
Instead, the episode featured Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett as two men who fall in love in an isolated, heavily guarded camp and manage to find happiness over the course of 20 years together. In a show with a nearly unbearably bleak look at the world, it is a brief moment of warmth and humanity, and, appropriately, Offerman recently won the Independent Spirit Awards for Best Supporting Performance in a New Scripted Series for his part.
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At the ceremony, Nick Offerman used his speech to call out viewers and members of the public who were offended by the show’s depiction of an LGBTQIA+ relationship (per Deadline), saying, “Thank you so much, Film Independent. I’m astonished to be in this category, which is bananas…Thanks to HBO for having the guts to participate in this storytelling tradition that is truly independent. Stories with guts that when homophobic hate comes my way and says, ‘Why did you have to make it a gay story?’ We say, ‘Because you ask questions like that.’”
In addition to that award, Nick Offerman has also won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series and the Astra Creative Arts TV Award for Best Guest Actor in a Drama Series. Murray Bartlett was also nominated in each category.
What was your favorite episode of The Last of Us? Tell us in the comments below!