Murray Bartlett

2023 - 1 - 30

Nick Offerman - bill and frank last of us - bill the last of us - last of us episode 3

Post cover — Image courtesy of "British GQ"

Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett on The Last of Us's "Long Long ... (British GQ)

The third episode of HBO's post-apocalyptic The Last of Us series, "Long Long Time", recalls a decade-and-a-half of impossible gay romance.

It’s the nicest, I think, as an actor if you can do it in order, so there’s cause and effect. From a storytelling perspective, granting Bill and Frank over a decade-and-a-half to breathe makes their story all the more affecting. Offerman: I mean, in those cases, you try and do it as chronologically as possible. Frank falls into one of many holes dug around the perimeter, is rescued by a cautious Bill, and an unlikely love blossoms — hardly the product you'd expect of a world-ending pandemic. What we get, then, is the beautiful, bold chronicle of an impossible relationship between two men seemingly destined to be together; you'd call it serendipity, if not for the global cataclysm that enables it. I’m completely unfamiliar with games, I can name a few games that I’ve heard about, like first-person shooter games, from hearing them talked about…

'The Last of Us' Presents an Achingly Beautiful Gay Love Story (Rolling Stone)

Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett shine as a couple who remind us what it means to be human, in the HBO series' extraordinary third episode.

What a fabulous, fabulous episode of television, down to that final image of the bedroom window Bill left open so that the home he and Frank made together would not be tainted by the smell of what they have become after death. Bill at first seems to be taking pity on Frank by inviting him in for dinner, but it’s clear almost immediately that he is taking pleasure in both the company and the chance to show off his skills as a host. “There is no girl.” In that exchange, we understand that this is a part of himself Bill was terrified to show the world in the before times. It would be a blast, after all, to have Bill travel with them for a while, or even to just get one scene between the four of them. It’s clear that Frank would have loved Ellie, and it’s not hard to imagine Bill developing a thinly-veiled respect for her in a hurry. But Frank — who seems a very social creature, and quite taken with Bill even before recognizing his host’s deep secret — does, indeed, want him, and not just because he knows that life in this house would be pretty sweet. Soon he has a heavily-protected compound with vegetables growing in the garden, chickens to provide eggs and other forms of protein, and no one to bother him. The soldiers finish clearing out the town, or so they believe, because Bill is the kind of hardcore doomsday prepper who has a bunker hidden below his basement for just this eventuality(*). (*) My understanding is that Frank is already dead when Joel and Ellie encounter Bill, while Bill is played by the great character actor W. And just as The Mandalorian could get away with casting [Timothy Olyphant](https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-features/timothy-olyphant-deadwood-interview-835207/) as Jetpack Raylan Givens because nobody plays that archetype better, The Last of Us gets enormous value out of the shorthand that comes from, for instance, inviting Offerman to play a slightly less cartoonish and infinitely more damaged version of [Ron Swanson](https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/captain-america-why-ron-swanson-from-parks-and-recreation-is-the-angry-white-dudes-ultimate-hero-92862/). Ellie is a lot more verbal than [Grogu](https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-recaps/mandalorian-recap-season-2-episode-5-jedi-baby-yoda-name-1095806/) (just as Joel is a whole lot more expressive than Mando), but it’s a similar contrast of taciturn combat-readiness and childlike wonder. [Tess gone](https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-recaps/the-last-of-us-season-1-episode-2-recap-hbo-anna-torv-tess-death-1234661763/) — though she appears in flashbacks later in this episode — the series is leaning harder than ever on the Lone Wolf and Cub dynamic between Joel and Ellie that [Pedro Pascal](https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-features/game-of-thrones-pedro-pascal-on-playing-the-red-viper-189463/) already has some familiarity with from his work on [The Mandalorian](https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-recaps/mandalorian-season-2-finale-rescue-recap-1105641/).

[VIDEO] 'The Last of Us': Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett Interview (TVLine)

'The Last of Us': Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett discuss Bill and Frank in Season 1, Episode 3 -- Watch their video interview.

(Read a [detailed recap here](https://tvline.com/2023/01/29/the-last-of-us-recap-season-1-episode-3-bill-frank/).) Rehashing it here will harsh my post-ep buzz the way that crushing the strawberry patch would’ve messed with Frank, and nobody needs that.) [Nick Offerman](https://tvline.com/tag/nick-offerman/)) who was perfectly happy as the lone, post-Outbreak Day survivor in his Massachusetts suburb.

Episode destroys fans: 'I'll never recover' (NEWS.com.au)

The latest episode of a buzzy new series has sent social media into complete meltdown - leaving even the hardest of critics in tears. Lexie Cartwright.

But yeah, how great [it would be] to go back and fill in all those spaces.” He added, “But I mean, it’s amazing in that way. It would be wonderful to see a lot of the stuff fleshed out, a lot of the dynamics that we skip across. “And so we met each other at that point and it was really with such a great love of this extraordinary script. “And I haven’t seen the rest of the episodes yet, but I’m gonna guess they [Bill and Frank] might be the happiest people in the land for a lot of the time that the show covers. We were very fortunate that it worked out … “That’s what I love about it is … She affords me fabulous riches and, all of the incredible lotions that I love to rub into my body,” Offerman laughed, before driving home his point. “I mean, obviously if you’re in a war zone or some dire situation, it’s an enormously challenging thing to do. “One of the great things about this game and this show is … Enter Frank (Bartlett), a flower emerging from the rubble of this damaged world. Or of any show, for that matter.

The Last of Us: Murray Bartlett says his partner was 'really affected ... (The Independent)

'He really internalised it and obviously had trouble separating with the fact that he was watching me in a TV show,' actor said.

“I mean, you felt like you were looking at a painting in the mirror when they'd finished with them.” I wish that they were more celebrated because they make us look incredible and nobody ever knows all of that work that goes into it.” “I will say, my partner who I watched the episode with was really affected by it... “[These artists are] pouring over us with brush and glue and paint and powder and sawdust and spit and bubblegum for hours creating these masterpieces. He turned to me at the end and was like, ‘I don’t want you to get sick’ [laughs]. New episodes arrive on Mondays at 2am GMT.

Murray Bartlett Makes Frank Special on The Last of Us (menshealth.com)

Aside from his role in HBO's 'The Last of Us,' you may recognize Australian actor Murray Bartlett from shows like 'The White Lotus' and 'Welcome to ...

Evan is the culture editor for Men’s Health, with bylines in The New York Times, MTV News, Brooklyn Magazine, and VICE. "It’s one of the most beautiful episodes of television I’ve ever read in that it’s beautiful writing and feels like a film," he told Complex. Bartlett continued to work throughout the years, appearing in episodes of Damages, The Good Wife, and White Collar, along with movies like the Kristen Wiig vehicle Girl Most Likely. [aftermath of the initial 2003 Cordyceps outbreak](https://www.menshealth.com/health/a42577712/the-last-of-us-fungal-infection/) as the last person in his small town in a way that he's comfortable and complacent with. This story does not have a happy ending, so if you haven't seen it and are curious about one of the more Bartlett is part of an extremely stacked cast that also includes Meryl Streep, Edward Norton, Kit Harington, Matthew Rhys, Tobey Maguire, and more. [Watch Welcome to Chippendales Here](https://go.redirectingat.com/?id=74968X1576254&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.hulu.com%2Fseries%2Fwelcome-to-chippendales-00f77d8e-bbe3-4523-a73e-5deb475a3e47) In the late 2000s, Bartlett landed a regular role on the soap opera Guiding Light, which he starred in 257 episodes of. “One of the beautiful things for me about this experience was being paired with Nick and finding that both of us wanted to just go there," Bartlett "Long Long Time," a supersized, 80-minute affair, largely focused on a stand-alone story centered on a different duo: [Nick Offerman](https://www.menshealth.com/entertainment/a31994535/nick-offerman-devs-interview-profile/) and Murray Bartlett, playing the previously-mentioned characters Bill and Frank. After White Lotus, Barlett has kept busy on the small screen. he’s not daunted by the carefully constructed armor that he sees Bill has created around himself."