Among the most iconic characters in contemporary gaming is Joel, protagonist of The Last of Us and a prominent member of the cast of The Last of Us Part 2. Have you ever wondered who inspired Naughty Dog to create him? If the answer is yes, you’re in the right place; if not, read on anyway to impress your friends.
Who is Joel Miller?
In Naughty Dog’s post-apocalyptic universe, Joel Miller is a single father living with his daughter Sarah in Austin, Texas. He and his brother Tommy work as construction contractors. When the Cordyceps outbreak hits in 2013, he is forced to watch his daughter die and adapt to the brutality of a world in chaos. When fate brings him to Ellie, he slowly remembers what it means to love, and he becomes a father figure to her. Unfortunately, he learns the hard way that every action, word, and lie has a consequence.
Who is Joel inspired by?
As you can read on page 10 of The Art of The Last of Us, during the creation of the character the team tried to make Joel appear as a “fairly flexible” man, capable of acting both as “a ruthless man in the underworld of a quarantined city” and as a “caring, fatherly figure to Ellie.” 
With his appearance, the creators also wanted to evoke “rural America”, bringing out traits such as self-sufficiency and ingenuity in situations of difficulty and deprivation.
As we learn in the postmortem published in Edge magazine in June 2013, while writing Joel Neil Druckmann was inspired by the character of Llewelyn Moss played by Josh Brolin in the film “No Country for Old Men”.
During the filming and recording sessions, Troy Baker – who voiced and acted as Joel in both The Last of Us films – gave Joel a more emotional edge than Moss, who in the Coen brothers’ film is a Texan welder returning from the Vietnam War who stumbles upon a large sum of money. That’s because the story of The Last of Us explores what a father is willing to do and sacrifice to save his daughter. Joel’s complex morality has led many players to question his true role in the story: is he a hero or a villain? According to Druckmann, he’s just “a complex person who made good decisions and bad decisions.”
And you, did you know this detail? While you’re at it, continue the journey behind the scenes of video games by discovering who inspired Ezio Auditore from Assassin’s Creed 2, Brotherhood and Revelations.
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