‘The Last of Us’ Star Bella Ramsey Understood Their Character Right Away: ‘Ellie Came Very Naturally for Me’

This story about Bella Ramsey and “The Last of Us” first appeared in The Race Begins issue of TheWrap’s awards magazine.

Bella Ramsey grew up while filming HBO’s hit freshman series “The Last of Us.” Literally.

“We spent a year out there in Calgary,” Ramsey said. “We adopted a dog over there. It was the best year of my life, it really was. I turned 18 when I was over there and did absolutely nothing for my 18th birthday.” They paused, then added, “The day before, I stabbed an infected in the basement. That was my last day of being a child.”

It was a fitting milestone for the British actor, thrust into the spotlight with their star turn in the series after breaking through in a small yet iconic role as the young, resolute Lyanna Mormont in “Game of Thrones.” In “The Last of Us,” Ramsey plays Ellie, a teenager immune to the rampant fungal infection that wiped out most of the world’s population, turning the diseased into zombie-esque creatures with a penchant for destruction.

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This sudden scrutiny of stardom has, unsurprisingly, taken some adjustment for the now 19-year- old. “There’s definitely a pressure and I felt that massively, especially when my casting got announced and there was a very mixed reaction,” Ramsey said. “Most of the stuff I saw wasn’t great and I was already reckoning with, ‘Did they pick the wrong person?’ I felt that pressure all the way through shooting. But now it’s come out and everyone’s happy and I’m happy.”

And while the burden of expectations has been relieved by the warm reception for the series, the success has intensified the public’s interest in the actor, who identifies as nonbinary. “I’ll think I’ve adapted to being famous, but then I got into LAX from London late last night and there were people waiting outside the airport with things to sign and there was a paparazzi guy and it was so weird,” they said. “Like, how do you know I’m here?”

Further evidence of Ramsey’s transformation into a more accurate identity came when their team asked what pronouns they’d like to use in articles. “I was like, ‘I don’t know.’ I settled on they/them and then went back to she because it was just easier. And now I’m at the point where articles will use anything and it doesn’t really bother me. And it all came about because of language. It was about not being perceived as a woman, because I’m not. I just didn’t want the headlines to be, like, ‘Young, strong, inspirational woman Bella Ramsey,’ because I’m just not.”

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At the same time, Ramsey had no trouble finding Ellie as a character, unintimidated at the thought of diving into the genre-heavy material even though their original familiarity with “The Last of Us” was merely that it was a video game. “The story and the character descriptions were so great, even without knowing the scale of it, I was like, ‘This looks so interesting,’” they said. “The size of the project never really bothers me — it’s more about how interesting it is. This was incredibly interesting, and I had heard of it and it’s a bit gay, so I was like, ‘I’m in.’”

As for Ellie herself, Ramsey felt an immediate connection. “Ellie came very naturally for me,” they said. “Some characters, I read the scripts and you sort of feel them under your skin already.”

Read more from The Race Begins issue here.