Last Of Us Episode 6 Director Talks About How Her Experience In A Real War Affected The Show

The newest episode of The Last of Us was directed by Jasmila Žbanić, who is a real-life survivor of the Siege of Sarajevo and the Bosnian War of the 1990s. Žbanić made her directorial debut for TV with the episode, "Kin," and now she's shared some insight into how her experience in a real battleground affected her directing of the episode.

This story contains spoilers for HBO's The Last of Us.

Episode 6 sees Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) making their way to Jackson, Wyoming to meet up with Joel's brother Tommy (Gabriel Luna). The settlement in the show's fictional Jackson was not all that unlike where Žbanić was living during the war.

"What we talked a lot about was that I survived the war in Sarajevo in the '90s. I think for [Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann], it was interesting that I was kind of living in a place which was like Jackson in a way, because we were surrounded by the Serbian army, we were constantly bombarded," she told Variety. "We had to be on alert, we had to survive, we had to learn how to live without anything, without civilization. There was no electricity, no food, nothing. But we managed to survive because of solidarity, and the way the city was restructured. You have to start from zero."

Žbanić went on to say that Jackson, as depicted in The Last of Us, is "really beautiful and hopeful" because it shows that, even in a terrible tragedy, people can survive, just like Žbanić did.

"People are able to keep the society. They are not always the enemy to each other. So I was really happy to direct this episode that really said something that I deeply believe in," she said.

The full interview is stacked with lots of other fascinating details and insight from Žbanić about the newest episode of The Last of Us.

Žbanić directed the movie Quo Vadis, Aida? which was nominated for an Academy Award. New episodes of The Last of Us air Sunday nights on HBO.