Warning: This article contains major spoilers for The Last of Us’ April 20 episode “Through the Valley.”

Kaitlyn Dever‘s role on The Last of Us hit a little too close to home.

The actress recently shared that her mother Kathy died from breast cancer weeks before she started filming the HBO series’ second season. And adding even more emotional weight to her plate was the fact that her character Abby Anderson was also grieving the loss of a parent.

In fact, in season two’s shocking second episode, Abby kills Pedro Pascal‘s character Joel Miller as revenge for the death of her father, who Joel killed when he stopped the militia group from operating on Bella Ramsey’s Ellie in season one. 

“To be as honest as possible,” Kaitlyn told Entertainment Weekly in an interview published after the April 20 episode, “I will just say that my days leading up to this scene were horrible.”

“It was just a massive scene emotionally, and with blocking, too,” the 28-year-old added of the scene, which was the first one she shot as Abby. “There were so many moving parts and so many things to navigate.”