Bella Ramsey has collectively spent nearly two years embodying the hard-headed teenage orphan Ellie Williams in HBO‘s adaptation of The Last of Us.
Season 2, which concluded in May, earned Ramsey their second Emmy nomination for the role. Adapting the second game in Naughty Dog’s duology The Last of Us Part II, the second season picks up five years after the events of the first season with Ellie and Joel (Pedro Pascal), who has become somewhat of a surrogate father to the wayward teen, easing into as much of a routine as one can in the aftermath of the zombie apocalypse at a compound in Jackson, Wyoming.
Quickly, though, Ellie’s world is turned upside down when a group of Fireflies murder Joel on the outskirts of town as revenge for his own murder spree to save Ellie at the Salt Lake City hospital that left their loved ones dead. The brutal murder, which takes place in the second episode of Season 2, sets the stage for the central storyline of the second game as Ellie chases down Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) and her crew in Seattle to avenge Joel.
Given that the season ends on a cliffhanger with a standoff between Ellie and Abby, Season 3 is expected to continue the story from The Last of Us Part II. But, for now, Ramsey has been taking a bit of a breather from Ellie before diving headfirst back into the emotionally fraught character.
“It’s something I look back on now, and I don’t know how we did it. I don’t know how we completed that,” Ramsey tells Deadline of Season 2.
In the interview below, Ramsey reflects on filming the daunting second season of HBO’s The Last of Us, opens up about some of the more emotionally and physically intense scenes, and explains how Ellie has shaped them as an artist.
DEADLINE: Now that you’ve had a bit of separation from Season 2, and it’s out in the world, how do you reflect on the experience of filming it?
BELLA RAMSEY: It’s something I look back on now, and I don’t know how we did it. I don’t know how we completed that. It was simultaneously one of the most challenging experiences that I’ve had just because of the practicality of the long days and the intensity of the stuff we were doing. There aren’t very many sit-down, have-a-conversation scenes in The Last of Us. They’re all like we’re walking for 1000 miles, or we’re riding horses, or we’re killing zombies or each other. It’s very physical, doing that over and over and over again for like seven months…Yeah, it was simultaneously the most challenging thing I’ve done so far, and also, now with some space away from it, incredibly rewarding. Seeing how much it means to so many people, and being able to look back now and reflect and see all the ways that I grew as a person — as I did during season one as well — I am very grateful for it.
DEADLINE: How did you get through the mental and physical toll of shooting something as heavy as this second season of The Last of Us?
RAMSEY: Honestly, the love of the crew. They really do become like your closest friends and family for the seven months, especially when you’re an actor away from home. Most of the crew members we had were Vancouver locals, but I’m just from the UK. I was there on my own. So those people on set that I was with literally all day every day do become…the people who are just holding you through everything. So if it wasn’t for the love of them and this fun that we cultivated and had on set, and the connections that you make with people so fast…that was really what got me, and I think all of us, through the more challenging moments of Season 2.
The Last Of Us
DEADLINE: There are some really huge set pieces in this season, but you also have a lot of quiet, intimate moments that are very emotionally charged. Which is more difficult for you?
RAMSEY: I think the intimate, emotional moments definitely, because you can’t rely on the spectacle of the set pieces, and you can’t rely on the magnitude of it. For example, the scene where Joel dies, because I was physically restrained and was screaming and crying, and it was quite physical…I found that way easier than I did the scene where I go up and see his room for the first time and find his jacket and then cry into his jacket. That still, quiet emotion is like, there’s nowhere to hide. That is way more challenging to me than anything that’s physical. Physicality only helps. Whenever everything else is stripped away, and it’s just a person feeling something, and the camera is right there seeing every nuance of that, that is definitely much harder.
DEADLINE: Where did you surprise yourself this season in terms of what you thought you were capable of versus what you ended up accomplishing?
RAMSEY: I’d say that that scene again, where I’m just there crying into his jacket. Crying I find so difficult. Very few people in my life have seen me cry, and so then having to cry on a set when you’re in a character, and you’re being watched, and it’s silent, and there’s a pressure that you have to cry now, and also the fear of like, ‘What if my real crying like looks fake?’ I overthink it massively. That scene, I think, because it was so emotional, and the smell of that jacket was sort of the smell of Pedro, and he wasn’t there, and I was tired and exhausted — being tired always helps with a cry. I think that really lent itself to that. I suppose there’s both the emotionality of that but then also how much your body is capable of. My body was capable of doing those long days over and over. I got bronchitis when we were filming and then was crawling out of the ocean like a few days later, but I made it. I survived.
DEADLINE: You’re obviously playing a character, but some of those moments are incredibly intimate and, as you say, there is some real emotion on display. How much do you feel like Ellie is a part of you at this point? Where does Ellie stop and Bella begins?
RAMSEY: I’m still figuring this out. I think whenever I’m filming and living as a character for a certain amount of time, especially someone like Ellie that I’ve been basically in her skin for like a year and a half, two years now, in total [based on] filming, the difference is really difficult to distinguish. I am just Ellie for a bit, but I’m not method acting at the same time. I don’t really know what happens, but between action and cut I don’t have a big process, and I don’t do very much prep at all. It’s like I have these people inside of me, under my skin, and then when it’s time to be them, their skin comes to the surface, and then I have their brain for five minutes or two minutes, or however long the take is. Then it switches back to my brain and my skin. It’s a very organic process for me with every character, especially Ellie, because she’s so familiar to me. It just sort of happens. At the [HBO x Deadline Contenders] panel, Tim, the editor, was saying that during that scene with Joel when he’s dying, when they say cut, I do a stupid grin. I do that with every everything. Anytime there’s anything emotional, and I would cut, I do a silly face or something, and I slip back into my stuff.
The Last Of Us
HBO
DEADLINE: So, before action and after cut, you’re pulling yourself out of the intensity of the scene by diffusing the tension?
RAMSEY: Yes, yes, sort of. I think I naturally just come out of it. I don’t have to force myself out of it. If I know that we’re shooting this for like the next three hours and I’m feeling something I want to hold on to, I’ll sort of protect a little part. I’ll protect the emotion I’m feeling. But on the outside, I’m exactly the same. I’m chatting and laughing at people and just being Bella, but I still have Ellie’s pain inside of me that is there in secret. I’m holding on to that. Then when we roll again, I just allow that to be the forefront, I suppose, and let myself really feel that pain. I don’t have to like be that. I’m just being Ellie and not Bella.
DEADLINE: I know you’ve said that you try to stay off social media and don’t often look at what anyone is saying, but how have you come to terms with how important Ellie is to so many other people, including fans?
RAMSEY: It’s a real responsibility to play someone who means so much to people, but it’s not something that I’m actively thinking about. I maintain the feeling that people can have an emotional connection to a character or not, and however people feel, whatever people’s opinions are about how I or anyone else in the show is playing a character, I think everyone’s entitled to that — to feel however they want to feel about it. I just try and do the best that I can. But I’ve seen the real positive effects of like, when I meet someone and they tell me about how much Ellie means to them and the show and the game. Whenever I meet a game fan, and they’re like, ‘Oh, I really loved what you did with Ellie in the show,’ that always really means a lot if I know that this character has meant as something to someone for an extended amount of time, and then they’re happy to see me. It feels really special, the idea that you can have an impact on someone in this way.
DEADLINE: How was filming Episode 6, all of those flashbacks with Joel?
RAMSEY: It was so nice. Episode 6 felt like I went to a different show for a month and then came back. It was like a mental break, a physical break. I felt so rested during that the filming of the episode and so happy.
DEADLINE: Did you film it chronologically? So had you already filmed all of one through five?
RAMSEY: It was semi chronological, yeah. That was the second last episode, so it was towards the end. It really was a relief, and to be back with Pedro, that’s a dynamic that I just know so well and I adore, and it’s so easy.
DEADLINE: The end of that episode is the porch scene, though, which is maybe where that sense of relief that I think also comes across to the audience may have ended. Can you tell me how you and Pedro prepped for that scene and how you wanted to approach it?
RAMSEY: We didn’t talk about it. We did a read the lines out loud, and then you block it. Then we did a crew showing [and] all the crew came and watched us do it. Then we rehearsed and then we shot it. It was very magical, even though we didn’t specifically, explicitly talk about the scene and what it meant. We didn’t need to, because we felt it. I think we both felt the weight of all that we built together as Bella and Pedro and Joel and Ellie throughout all of Season 1. Season 2 was all culminated in this moment that we had on the porch together, and all of the unspoken words were finally spoken, and there was an understanding, I think, that was felt and didn’t need to be externalized. It was kind of the last time that we were going to be Joel and Ellie in this way. I’ve never been so in a scene with him, and it was like the studio didn’t exist. The crew didn’t exist. It was just me and Pedro and Ellie and Joel at the same time, like it was us as people and as characters, feeling so much love and pain.
DEADLINE: I read another interview where you spoke about the ‘Take On Me’ scene. You said you enjoy that you come across as quite shy and unsure, even though you’ve been working on your music recently and feel a lot more confident in your voice now. Basically, you insinuate you probably could improve that performance, but you’re content with how it is…Did you have to develop that type of relationship with your previous work, where you can look back and make peace with it rather than get caught up with what you could’ve done better?
RAMSEY: I think that’s something that I’ve developed. It’s just the surrendering of control and realizing that there’s nothing that I can do about it. I remember the first time I watched Game of Thrones, back when I was, like, 12 or something, and I saw myself on screen for the first time. I didn’t like it, and it took me years until I could watch my Game of Thrones [episodes]. I found it very uncomfortable experience, watching myself back. As I’ve developed as an actor with auditions, and you’re doing self tapes and in-person auditions, you can go over and over and think about all the things you should have done after but instead, now I’m like, ‘Well, whatever ends up on screen, I have no control.’ So it’s just a relief, I guess. [In] Season 1, I did lose sleep over one scene that I did, though. I thought I could have done better. I think that’s a great, continuous process. It’s definitely something that I’ve developed and to continue to develop.
DEADLINE: How do you feel that playing Ellie has stretched you as an actor?
RAMSEY: Massively so. I think that I’ve got to experience a lot of the human emotions, not all of them, playing Ellie. She’s been through a lot and goes through a lot and has more to go through in future seasons. So I get to live in and explore a really vast array of emotions, sometimes all of them at the same time, like that last scene in Episode 7 with Abby. She sees Abby. Her last remaining ‘family member’ Tommy is on the ground. Her best friend, only friend in the world, has just been shot. But she’s also seeing this person that she’s been looking for this whole time. That was the most challenging scene, emotionally, that I’ve ever had to do, because that is so many emotions I feel all at once. She definitely has stretched me to really feel things and multiple things at once.
