- 5/28/2025
"Ellie's gay and doesn't care what you think about it." Bella Ramsey takes a deep quest to explore some of the most beloved characters they've played throughout their career. From playing Ellie in 'The Last of Us' to Lyanna in 'Game of Thrones,' follow Bella as they unpack the backstory behind each chapter.
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00:00Ellie's gay and doesn't care what you think about it.
00:02And I remember reading that, being like, that's cool.
00:04Hello, I'm Bella Ramsey, and Lem has made a video game for me
00:07to explore some of my most beloved characters.
00:10Let's go.
00:20I'd like to be the light blue thing next to the tree.
00:24I knew you were going to choose that.
00:25Really?
00:26I think so, yeah.
00:27It's so cute.
00:28This is The Last of Us.
00:31What am I supposed to do with this?
00:33Put it on stupido.
00:35That was Ellie and Riley having that one and only little kiss
00:40before everything goes horribly wrong.
00:42The mall was crazy.
00:43That was an actual abandoned mall.
00:45It was, like, about to be knocked down.
00:47It was really weird to be, like, filming actually in a mall
00:50when it's all a bit abandoned.
00:51There was a room just full of, like, old mannequins.
00:54It was quite creepy, actually.
00:55Filming with Storm Reid was a really cool experience.
00:59She won an Emmy for that, for being Riley in the show.
01:02That was so exciting when she won that.
01:04She's the best, like, crier.
01:06I was, like, watching her.
01:07I was like, how?
01:09Actually, how do you do that?
01:10Because I really struggle with, like, crying in a scene.
01:13I'm really bad at it.
01:14She just does it.
01:16Ellie being gay was something that was established
01:19right from the self-tape email that I got.
01:21Craig wrote, like, a description of the character of Ellie,
01:24and he wrote,
01:26Ellie's gay and doesn't care what you think about it.
01:28And I remember reading that, being like, that's cool.
01:30But I don't think that it's something that Ellie particularly
01:33thinks about very much.
01:35It's just something that is, I suppose.
01:38When I was growing up, which wasn't that long ago,
01:41I feel like there wasn't very much representation,
01:44like, even then, when I was a kid.
01:46Definitely characters now that I look back, I'm like,
01:49oh, they were definitely, like, coded.
01:51Elektra in the dumping ground in Tracy Beaker,
01:54which will only mean something to, like, British viewers probably.
01:57But Jess now, who played Elektra, she's actually, like,
02:00a friend of mine now.
02:01But she was definitely, like, the closest representation
02:05to, like, a gay character on kids' TV.
02:09She had, like, a blue streak through her hair.
02:11It was kind of an emo.
02:12It was kind of cool.
02:13Ba-ding!
02:15I liked that noise.
02:16The last episode of season one of The Last of Us.
02:20Swear to me that everything you said about the Fireflies is true.
02:28I swear.
02:29Ellie is basically a little bit sus of Joel
02:32and everything that he's told her about the Fireflies
02:34and what happened in the hospital.
02:36And so she's just, like, going through and basically being like,
02:40this is why this is important.
02:42All of this is what I've been thinking about.
02:44And the idea that he would lie to her about something so important
02:47destroys her to think about.
02:49And so I think she had to believe him, had to choose to believe him.
02:52Filming scenes like this with Pedro, actually,
02:55this scene was a bad one for laughing.
02:58Oh, gosh, it's so scary when you start laughing intensely during a scene.
03:02It feels like you're never going to stop.
03:04It feels like there's no way out.
03:05And especially with someone like him, who is so funny,
03:08and his laugh gets me.
03:11The way that he, like, wheezes, it sends me.
03:14When something's been funny once,
03:16it then becomes funnier and funnier and funnier.
03:18Especially when everyone around you is like,
03:20we got it, we got to go, you can't keep laughing.
03:23For some reason, it's just, it's awful, it's really bad.
03:25People are, yeah, desperate for me and Pedro to be father and child.
03:29It's pretty fun.
03:30Like, I think it's a father-kid relationship
03:33that is actually quite successful.
03:36And I think that people want that to be real.
03:38I want it to be real.
03:39Although, my dad is great.
03:42He's just over there.
03:43He was sort of my dad on set, but I was also sort of his.
03:46It's more that we're just very much in it together as equals
03:48and, like, experiencing this crazy thing together.
03:51That noise is such a thrill. What a dopamine hit.
03:56I think I'm about to see Game of Thrones.
03:58I remember when you were born, my lady.
04:04You were named for my Aunt Liana,
04:05who said she was a great beauty.
04:07I'm sure you will be too.
04:08I doubt it.
04:09My mother wasn't a great beauty or any other kind of beauty.
04:12She was a great warrior, though.
04:14Watching Liana Mormont.
04:16In Game of Thrones, the first character I ever played when I was 11,
04:20that was the first, like, proper speaking scene I did on Game of Thrones.
04:25I had, like, a little horse riding scene before,
04:28but that was, like, kind of the first, like, proper day
04:30that I ever had on set, ever, on any set.
04:32You know what? This was 10 years ago.
04:34I can barely remember what happened.
04:36I more just remember the, like, feeling of, like, excitement.
04:40And just, I was just, like, taking it all in.
04:43It was just, like, the coolest thing.
04:44Like, the camera and, like, the boom operators.
04:47I just thought the whole thing was so cool.
04:49My introduction to Liana Mormont
04:51was the self-tape script sides that I got.
04:55I was so new.
04:56I had no idea what I was doing.
04:59Still don't, really.
05:00Liana definitely sort of sees herself
05:05as an equal to everybody.
05:08There's a lot of scenes where I'm standing in, like,
05:11a room of grown men, like, twice my height
05:14and three times my age, giving them orders
05:16and telling them exactly what I think about things,
05:18what Liana thinks about things.
05:19Liana had no fear with that.
05:21And something I get asked about with Game of Thrones often
05:23is, like, how, was that intimidating, like,
05:25going onto a set full of, like, big actors
05:27and, like, so many, like, people older than you?
05:29I was never intimidated.
05:30It was so comfortable.
05:31I'd gotten more naturally with people older than me anyways.
05:34I was just, like, so happy to be there.
05:36I just felt like I was one of them.
05:38So that's probably a similarity between me and Liana,
05:40is that she wasn't intimidated by them
05:41and neither was I.
05:42And I might be a girl,
05:48but I am every bit as much a northerner as you.
05:50Indeed you are, my lady.
05:51And I don't need your permission to defend the north.
05:54I'm watching, I think, a scene from season seven
05:57of Game of Thrones, where I'm letting Lord Glover
06:02and the rest of the room know
06:03that I do not plan on knitting by the fire.
06:05I loved doing this.
06:07I had so much fun.
06:09I remember reading that knitting by the fire line,
06:11thinking it was so cool.
06:13I wouldn't want to be kept inside, protected,
06:16and made to knit by any fires while everyone was out there fighting.
06:20I'd want to be out there fighting too.
06:21I loved getting to, like, say this.
06:24I felt like it was coming from Liana, like, from me as well.
06:27I felt very passionate about it.
06:28I didn't understand what non-binary was when I was 11 and did that.
06:33I was a tomboy, and that was sort of my word for non-binary.
06:36I didn't learn that word until I was much older.
06:38But I was a self-proclaimed tomboy.
06:40Getting to, like, wear Liana's costume and, like, be her
06:44and not be put in a box by sort of the men's expectation
06:48of what Liana will and won't do, it just felt very natural to me.
06:52It was something that's very powerful about it,
06:54but I didn't feel like I was being this, like, strong, powerful advocate.
06:58I just felt like I was being myself.
06:59I think Liana definitely could be a little, a little fruity in all ways.
07:04But she is 10, so let's be real.
07:08But I think that, yeah, if she got the chance to grow up,
07:11I can't see Liana with a moment with a man.
07:13She, I, meh, meh, who knows?
07:16I actually can't see her with anybody.
07:17I think she would have been a single Pringle for all of her life
07:20and wanted it to be that way.
07:22Ding!
07:24Wakes me up every time.
07:26Well, I think it might be The Last of Us.
07:32Hey.
07:33What do you call Grizzly's ribs?
07:35Barbecue.
07:37I'm watching a scene from episode one, season two,
07:40of The Last of Us.
07:42I said that with The Last of Us.
07:44Isabella Merced was a fresh face for season two.
07:47She was so fun to work with.
07:50We really were in it together.
07:52We were, that scene specifically, we were freezing our asses off.
07:55It was so cold.
07:56We had so much fun.
07:57The relationship between Ellie and Dina this season is really special
08:02and beautiful and funny and getting to do that with her was brilliant.
08:06Being a teenager and having a crush is awful.
08:09It's an awful feeling and wonderful at the same time.
08:12It's so all-consuming.
08:14You just, it ruins you.
08:17And it's the best thing of the world, obviously.
08:19Like what, how cool that we get to feel these things.
08:22I mean, the apocalypse feels pretty tough as well.
08:24But in a way, I think that having, being a teenager and having a crush in the apocalypse
08:28is easier than being a teenager and having a crush in the real world.
08:32Because in the apocalypse, like you've got limited time.
08:34I feel like you've got nothing to lose.
08:36You just tell your crush that you have a crush on them.
08:38In the real world, there's like, there's not that like immediate threat to your life.
08:43So I think that so many crushes go unspoken.
08:46I think there's definitely some trauma from what happened with Riley.
08:49Yeah, for Ellie.
08:50Her biggest fear is ending up alone.
08:52The fact that she had to do what she had to do with Riley,
08:54when Riley obviously turned infected and Ellie didn't.
08:57Ellie has this sort of fear of getting close to anybody,
09:00because she notes the reality of like,
09:03you get close to someone, you're going to lose them at some point.
09:06I think that that's definitely something that plays on her mind.
09:10Never get sold.
09:16Better?
09:17Nope.
09:20Okay.
09:21This is a set.
09:22Ellie's garage?
09:24Garage.
09:25I think I say garage.
09:26It was in a studio.
09:27But then it ended up being built on this other set.
09:31I had to shoot a few bits in that garage later on.
09:34This set had already been torn down in the other studio or something.
09:37So they like literally rebuilt the whole thing outside in this other set that we were in.
09:42So there were two versions of Ellie's garage.
09:46So Ellie has tats this season.
09:48One tattoo specifically that goes on a lot of her arm.
09:52Cat, who was Ellie's first girlfriend in Jackson, gave her this tattoo as a way to cover up the burn that she's now got.
10:06Not the bite anymore.
10:08She got rid of that.
10:09That tattoo was kind of a cover up for that and I think is how Ellie and Cat sort of bonded.
10:14Ellie's queer journey in season one is very much just like one episode.
10:20And then in season two it's a more overarching theme.
10:24But for most of the time it's just like Ellie and Dean are on their own.
10:27On the road.
10:28There's no one there to question them.
10:29So they're just sort of falling in love.
10:32Ellie's physicality, she's gotten tougher in ways that she shouldn't have had to get tougher.
10:38Even in season one she was much tougher than a 14 year old she'd have to be because of the world that she's in.
10:43I mean even going into the season I trained in like stunts and jujitsu and boxing and like fighting to be more physically strong.
10:51And I think that that is something that carries through the season.
10:53It's just like Ellie just has this like strength and like hardness about her that wasn't so present in the first season.
10:59It sort of develops because it has had to and I think that a lot of the like physical training that I did informed like my mentality as well.
11:07The mental strength or weakness of Ellie.
11:11Ellie meets Abby for the first time.
11:23When things are going pretty badly, Abby is battering her father figure right in front of her eyes.
11:32And it's pretty bad.
11:35Ellie meets Abby and it really sets up their relationship.
11:39It sets the tone shall we say.
11:41To Ellie the idea that this immunity that she had was going to be for something to like save the world and like help it to return to how it was going to be like with a vaccine or something.
11:53That to her felt like her purpose in life.
11:56I don't think that she really feels a purpose other than that.
11:59And so the idea that that choice and that sort of purpose was taken away from her without her being consulted.
12:07I think just makes her really upset and angry.
12:11And I think she now feels like a bit purposeless.
12:14This immunity thing.
12:15I think it's this annoying secret that she's had to keep.
12:18And I think that she definitely would have rather have died for a purpose than be spared.
12:24She finds a new purpose.
12:26Joel was right.
12:27You keep finding something new to fight for.
12:29And she does.
12:30Very much so.
12:31This season.
12:34What do I get to do with the gems?
12:36That would be great.
12:38Thank you them for coming and collecting these gems with me on this journey through the map of the characters that I have played.
12:46The kids call this mashing.
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