He’s been honest with her the entire time. In fact, he’s given her medicine, so she can save Joel. You know what, he’s forgiven her, which is a very Christian thing to do. Make us feel, at least when he was initially with Ellie in that sawmill, that he’s a good guy. When we expanded this out, we thought it was important to humanize David. RELATED: Neil Druckmann Says They Bring Ellie's Mom 'To Life in the Most Beautiful, Poetic Way' in The Last of Us Humanizing Villains
James is also shown to be more uncomfortable resorting to cannibalism than he is in the game. Then, when Ellie does find herself at his mercy, he points a gun at her, but it's unclear if he would have tried to kill her before David steps in. He rightly points out that taking Ellie alive will mean just one more mouth to feed and suggests to David that they let her go. The HBO version of James is less vengeful and more concerned with the community's survival. It was an opportunity to flex and it was such a fun time.' But this was a role that was smaller in the game and Neil and Craig were kind enough to kind of put some meat on the bones and let me really chew and it was a lot of fun.
I believe that all characters are the heroes of their own story, so that's how I kind of approach everything. 'They will hate me, but hopefully they'll understand me. Baker previously told Deadline Hollywood this about his character:
