Bella Ramsey, who plays Ellie Williams in HBO's The Last of Us, has come out as gender fluid and non-binary in a new interview and fans' reactions have been so wholesome.
“I didn’t see Bella acting like Ellie - I saw Ellie,” said The Last of Us creator Neil Druckmann of Ramsey's audition for the part of the plucky and optimistic survivor. Right now, the show is the highest-rated video game adaptation ever and even the director of Part II said that it might be better than the inspiration.
While all of this praise is music to the ears of the show's stars, HBO is implementing some restraint with the adaptation, vying to not tell the story beyond the games. That being said, there are new characters that have been invented for the show,
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Check out the trailer for The Last of Us, which premiered its first episode over the weekend, here!
Unfortunately, Ramsey has struggled with a backlash against their casting from a certain subset of illogical fans. “It’s only recently that I’ve accepted I am Ellie, and I can do it, and I am a good actor,” they said in a recent interview with The New York Times. “But this will last for a few weeks and then I’ll think I’m terrible again. That’s just the process.”
As well as The Last of Us, their performance in the medieval-comedy Catherine Called Birdy earned them a Critics Choice Award nomination for Best Young Performer. On the non-gender-specific denotation of the award, Ramsey explained that this was affirming for someone such as themselves who doesn't align with gender conventions.
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“I guess my gender has always been very fluid,” they answered, adding that they're a non binary individual. “Someone would call me ‘she’ or ‘her’ and I wouldn’t think about it, but I knew that if someone called me ‘he’ it was a bit exciting... I’m very much just a person. Being gendered isn’t something that I particularly like, but in terms of pronouns, I really couldn’t care less.”
Taking to Instagram, the actor thanked The New York Times for “[creating] a safe space where I could be myself.”
Featured Image Credit: HBOTopics: The Last Of Us, TV And Film