Actor Nick Offerman knocked the backlash over his episode in the HBO hit show The Last of Us in which he played a survivor falling in love with another man during the apocalypse.
As Breitbart News reported, The Last of Us, based on the video game, engendered some backlash over a one-off episode that featured actors Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett in a romantic relationship as two survivalists. Winning the prize for best-supporting performance in a new scripted series at the 2024 Independent Spirit Awards, Offerman said the episode wanted tell a love story between two men, rejecting those who called it a “gay story.”
“Thank you so much. I’m astonished to be in this category, which is bananas,” Offerman said as he took the stage. “Thanks to HBO for having the guts to participate in this storytelling tradition that is truly independent. Stories with guts that when homophobic hate comes my way and says, ‘Why did you have to make it a gay story?’ We say, ‘Because you ask questions like that. It’s not a gay story it’s a love story, you asshole!”
Offerman’s speech reportedly earned big applause from the audience, according to Variety.
Offerman’s comment earned a huge applause from the Spirit Awards audience. His performance as Bill in “The Last of Us” also earned him an Emmy Award for best guest actor in a drama series earlier this year.
The Last of Us creator Craig Mazin previously knocked critics of the episode as homophobes.
“Some people didn’t like Episode 3 because, you know, gay stuff. And then they kind of retroactively try and come up with a [different and inoffensive] reason why,” Mazin said. “[But] one of the complaints I saw was, ‘Oh, it’s just a filler episode. It doesn’t advance the story.’ And I was like, ‘I think this episode advances the story more than any other episode we have’ — because it’s not plot, it’s character. It’s the letter Bill leaves behind to Joel that powers the rest of the show.”
Paul Roland Bois directed the award-winning feature film, EXEMPLUM, which can be viewed for FREE on YouTube or Tubi. “Better than Killers of the Flower Moon,” wrote Mark Judge. “You haven’t seen a story like this before,” wrote Christian Toto. A high-quality, ad-free stream can also be purchased on Google Play or Vimeo on Demand. Follow him on Twitter @prolandfilms or Instagram @prolandfilms.
