The Last of Us Bloater actor Adam Basil is processing his 'big daddy mushroom' status
Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Last of Us season 1, episode 5.
Adam Basil never expected his life to blow up over his latest role. The muscled veteran stunt performer from the U.K. has provided physical performances for Venom in Venom: Let There Be Carnage, the Beast in Beauty and the Beast, and various players on Game of Thrones. But it's his part as the Bloater, a megaton hulk grotesquely mutated by a fungal plague on HBO's The Last of Us, that has people sliding into his Instagram DMs.
"He seems to be a bit of a sex icon," Basil tells EW over Zoom from his flat, noting all the memes and GIFs this creature has spawned since debuting on Sunday. "He's captured a lot of people's imaginations. Someone asked me if I'd come to their wedding. I've had people sending me love messages. He really brought out something in people that I don't think even they knew they had. He's the big daddy mushroom, I think there's been a [meme]."
HBO; Dave Benett/Getty Images Stunt performer Adam Basil talks about his time as the Bloater on 'The Last of Us'
Basil made his debut on The Last of Us in episode 5, "Endure and Survive." When Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) find themselves caught in the midst of a Kansas City manhunt in this post-apocalyptic reality, it leads to a standoff in a cul-de-sac. Kathleen (Melanie Lynskey), the leader of a rebel movement that has taken over the area, is prepared to kill the man who ratted out her brother to the former military regime. Then a truck falls through a sinkhole, and out bursts a swarm of Infected, the zombie-like creatures transmogrified by the cordyceps pandemic.
The Bloater is one of the more distinct Infected creatures, which include the Clickers. The longer a person is stricken with the fungal brain infection, the more their body transforms. This sucker, with the capabilities of ripping a man in half (specifically Jeffrey Pierce's Perry), has clearly been stewing for quite some time.
Barrie Gower, a prosthetics designer on The Last of Us, and his team built a prosthetic-enhanced Bloater suit for Basil to wear during the filming of episode 5. Behind-the-scenes photos have been circulating online since "Endure and Survive' debuted. However, the final version of the Bloater seen on screen is a product of the highly realistic visual effects work delivered by The Last of Us VFX supervisor Alex Wang, and, from Wētā FX, VFX supervisor Simon Jung and animation supervisor Dennis Yoo.
"They're so realistic. They dress me in goo and blood," Basil says of his look. "The Bloater has hair sticking up and he's got fragmented teeth. Everything about him is very believable close up. When you first walk on set, people will look around and they take a double look. Like, 'S---! What's that?'"
Basil previously worked with Gower on four seasons of Game of Thrones. He played one of the first gladiators to enter the fighting pits after Daenerys (Emilia Clarke) reopens the arena in Meereen. He wore a green suit to serve as the zombie bear in season 7. He also doubled for the Hound (Rory McCann) and the Mountain (Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson), and played various White Walkers.
When Gower came over for The Last of Us, he had Basil in mind for a role. "He needed someone who fitted the stature of the Bloater. Sounds rude, doesn't it?" Basil, who towers around 6'6", jokes. "'I don't want to put it like this, but you're just perfect for this character.' 'What's he called?' 'The Bloater.' 'Oh! Huh.'"
Gower worked with fabrication company Stitches and Glue to create the look of the Bloater around Basil. It began with a full body mold, followed by multiple sets of prosthetics. First the legs, then the body, then the head. Basil estimates the full thing added 40-80 lbs. of weight.
"They use poppers, these metal hooks, to click it in," he explains. "It's a lot of hooks and there's a lot of pressure holding it all together, 'cause you think the force of the body wants to pull this thing apart. So you really clicked into it." (Pun intended.)
Basil spent several weeks in movement training with choreographer Terry Notary (Kong: Skull Island, War for the Planet of the Apes). He played through The Last of Us video game and took particular note of any big Bloater moments, like the high school basketball court battle.
"It was important that [the Infected] moved differently than zombies," Basil says. "They're driven by this impulse. The main thing for me was to just keep the heaviness of the character. Although the good thing about it, [the suit] was heavy."
"He moves fast," Basil adds. "It's not like he's completely cumbersome. When he goes, he goes really fast. He wants to get to those people there, and he's going to smash through anyone to get there."
The Infected swarm in the cul-de-sac was shot over the course of a week, with the crew tackling the sequence in chunks. It was all night shoots with, the weather up north in Calgary, Canada, dipping to -8 degrees. Basil was in the thick of it, being led by the hand to his marker since the Bloater suit blocked off part of his vision. He couldn't skimp on leg days at the gym, either, because he had to first squat down in full attire in a ditch so the camera wouldn't catch him in the frame. Then he would rise up to kick off the sequence.
"I could see enough to see my first guys that I had to get to," he remembers. "I come over to the top. There were a few people running at me. I had to knock them [away]. It'd be a left swipe, a right swipe, a left, and then I smashed this guy. He went flying into a fence. They're all on wires. So they've been propelled by air ramps. There's the pressure of timing. You don't want to mess it up, because if I mess up, these guys have to do it again."
HBO The Infected explode from the ground in 'The Last of Us' episode 5.
Basil is the kind of stunt performer who thinks more in terms of character. He got his start performing in theater in England, hustling to land auditions to pay his rent. A stunt coordinator tipped him off about the British Stunt Register, an association of stunt professionals which demands various skillsets for qualification, from martial arts to scuba diving to mountaineering.
Since joining, Basil has now worked on Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Wonder Woman, Justice League, Mission: Impossible — Fallout, Hobbs & Shaw, and many others.
Recently, he's seen on the Sky Atlantic Western series, Django, playing the guest lead role of John Bolton, a.k.a. the Giant, whom Basil describes as "the meanest cowboy ever" that hunts down Native Americans for profit in the Wild West.
He still doesn't know how he's going to top himself after playing the Bloater. "Hopefully the Bloater will be back," Basil says, noting how The Last of Us has been renewed for season 2. "I mean, he ran off into the night. It's Valentine's Day. Maybe he was off to meet the Bloater of his dreams. Maybe that's what he was. It's hard to top that just 'cause of how much he's captured everyone's imaginations" — and his DMs.
[This article has been updated to acknowledge the work of The Last of Us VFX supervisor Alex Wang, Wētā FX VFX supervisor Simon Jung, and Wētā FX animation supervisor Dennis Yoo, who created the final version of the Bloater seen in episode 5.]
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