“Give Sarah my love.” Spoken in a voice inflected with exhaustion and grief, they’re the only words that Tommy, played by Gabriel Luna, is able to muster to Joel (Pedro Pascal), whose lifeless body lies shrouded on a table in a makeshift morgue in Jackson.

As Tommy’s eyes well up and he runs a wet cloth against Joel’s skin, we get a close-up of Joel’s arm and the old, broken military watch on his wrist. It’s a poignant symbol that brings us back to the very beginning of “The Last of Us,” when we meet Joel, Tommy and Sarah. It was Sarah who repaired the watch as a birthday gift to her father, and her sudden death was central to Joel’s grief. And now that grief passes on to Tommy as he says goodbye to his brother.

For this scene, Luna says he tapped into the grief that he has experienced over the years after losing close family members, including his grandfather in 2013.

“I remember being the only one in that chapel, walking up to my grandfather’s coffin, and that’s what I had in my mind when I was shooting the scene ... the young lady gives me the rag to wash (Joel’s) body, and she exits. Now I’m the only one in there,” he says. “But as I’m walking up to Joel’s body, that’s what I was thinking of — my grandpa and being the only one there.”

If Episode 2 was the depiction of fire and uncontrollable rage — with Tommy flaming down an unrelenting monster known as a bloater, and Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) torturing and killing Joel — Episode 3 is the opposite. It’s pensive and introspective about what was and what will be, much like Luna in this moment of his career on one of TV’s biggest shows.

After appearing in small indie films and doing stage work, Luna was cast as the lead in the El Rey series “Matador.” Though “Matador” only lasted a season, the actor then joined “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” as Robbie Reyes, aka Ghost Rider. In 2019, he starred in “Terminator: Dark Fate” as Rev-9, where he went head to head with the original cybernetic assassin played by Arnold Schwarzenegger. That led to a role in Netflix’s “FUBAR” with Schwarzenegger again, and then “The Last of Us.”

This interview with Luna two days after Episode 2 aired has been edited for clarity and length.

Q: There’s been a lot of reaction to Episode 2. Have you been following it?

A: It’s been a tornado of a couple of days. I was at WrestleMania when the episode aired. I left ... a little early to catch a flight, and when I landed, my phone was absolutely lighting up like a Christmas tree, just everyone calling and saying, “Oh, that was amazing. Congratulations.” When you read the script, you knew that there was potential there for it to be something extraordinary. Then when you got there on the day — we spent almost two months shooting the second episode with Mark Mylod, our amazing director of (shows like) “Succession” and “Game of Thrones.” And then, of course, Craig Mazin and Neil (Druckmann), the geniuses behind the whole thing. You start to see it come together. We might actually be doing something that’ll go down in history, not just the big battle sequence, but also just the iconography of that Joel scene at the end. All those things together were gonna make for a seismic reaction, or at least I hoped shooting this a year ago. I’m sitting here two days after that, and it all came to pass. Everybody reacted the way we thought they might, and people are still watching it. I’m sure if I check my phone there will be another dozen texts from folks.

For me, it’s unforgettable. I still think about those moments. Craig Mazin once said, “You know, this is the one that they’re going to remember us for.” I think he was right. And if this is one of the major things I’m remembered for — I couldn’t be more proud.

Q: Did Craig and Neil talk to you about the divergence from the video-game storyline for your character? (In the game, Tommy is with Joel when he’s killed.)

A: Towards the end of the first season, I told them, “You know, it always rubbed me the wrong way that Tommy was knocked out, completely incapacitated during Joel’s murder. Is there a possibility that we shift things around?” Craig’s like, “You know what? I got an idea.”

Right before the strike in 2023, Craig sends me a big, long text, explaining how it all is going to go down, how Tommy is replaced with Dina at the scene of Joel’s murder, and is now in Jackson with his wife, Maria. The entire town is trying to survive this onslaught and originally, in the text, there’s like two or three bloaters. We shot it as if we were being attacked by two or three. We had to shave a lot of it down. I just got goosebumps reading it. My heart was beating just reading this text. The fact that this change was made based off of input from me and talking to Craig and everybody else — maybe they had designs of doing that before, but I just love them so much for being so open to the possibilities.

Q: Have you talked to anyone in the cast since?

A: Craig has a text thread called “The Crazy of Us,” and so we’re all just talking to each other. It’s exciting now for the second episode, but we got a lot more to come, we’re just getting started. But we thought we’d give them a nice little shock to the heart right at the beginning.

Q: In Episode 3, you’re one of the first characters we see. What was going through your mind when you were filming?

A: We talked about my grandfather earlier in this interview. I remember when he passed away. Peter Hoar was the director for (this episode), and he did the Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett episode (“Long, Long Time”) last season. I just breathed and let it happen. Pedro was not actually there, it was the body double. They asked me, “Would you like to have him in full makeup?” “I would. Just to see all the damage, right?” And they put him in full makeup, his eyes swollen and bloody, so when I lift the shroud, I could see and have a physical reaction.

I will say one more thing regarding that. We had a lot of dialogue there that I’m glad they cut. Because all you really need to say is, “Give Sarah my love.”

Q: Was that in the script?

A: That was in the script. There was a whole other bit in the script (about Ellie). She’s OK, she’s hurt bad, but she’s going to be all right. And me promising to take care of her. Which didn’t need to be said because I’m the only thing she has left. But from this point, it’s now Bella (Ramsey) and Kaitlyn’s dance. Me, in a supporting capacity, a little bit more central moving forward, but ... these are the characters that start moving the story forward. It was also this interesting double meaning, as I was saying these words, it’s not only will I take care of Ellie, but we will take care of the show moving forward.

Q: You have done a lot of genre work. Is it something that interested you?

A: Because of my physical ability, I’ve been able to go into these kind of roles that require a lot of action elements, which are a big staple of these genre pictures. I think that’s what I love. I’m lucky. I’m glad that I get to do these types of things that have these great followings and really passionate fans. I’ve always said it’s in good hands. I tried to ease their concerns by letting them know, maybe not directly before we ever committed to the screen, but certainly after the fact that I love this same way you do. And I love “The Last of Us.” I love the Ghost Rider. I love the 40-year history of the Terminator. I don’t want to mess it up just as much as you don’t want me to mess it up. I really hope that people can see that it is in the nurturing hands of somebody who really loves this type of storytelling.