1 week Ago By Josh Dawson
When the second season of the celebrated HBO series The Last of Us premieres tonight, Kamloops residents may notice several familiar faces. Kamloops resident Jason Hewlett said he was cast alongside several friends to appear as apocalyptic construction workers in the new season’s first and second episodes. He spent two days on set when the production shot in Kamloops last February.
While rumours online at the time suggested a was indeed the second season of the series, nobody could confirm if that was true. Hewlett said he signed a non-disclosure agreement, but has since been given the all clear to talk about the shoot. “At the time it was known as MegaSword, that’s what we were told it was.
But it became very clear, very soon what it really was,” Hewlett said. He said he got involved with the production when a casting agency in the Lower Mainland was looking for locals to play construction workers. He said a local casting company got involved in the production and helped hire “a lot” of locals as extras.
Hewlett said the extras were bused from the Kamloops Airport to the shooting location. They received their costumes, had their makeup done and began shooting at first light until the sun set. While Hewlett wasn’t given lines, he said he did share a scene with Canadian actor Darcy Laurie.
“We were told to look like we were having this conversation with Darcy and it was really neat,” he said. “It was a little bit of acting and pretending.” While he never saw series leads Pedro Pascal or Bella Ramsay, he said the rumour on set was Pascal and Canadian actress Catherine O’Hara were shooting scenes concurrently nearby.
The new season premieres tonight at 6 p.m. and Hewlett said he’s looking forward to seeing if any of his shots made it to the final cut.
“As someone who’s a really big movie fan, it was neat to just see how something of that size and scope works — it’s a well oiled machine,” he said. “If you had a once in a lifetime experience, that was definitely one of the ones to have.”.
