Bella Ramsey Recast For The Last Of Us Season 2? Here’s What The Creators Have To Say
Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin say Bella Ramsey will play Ellie on The Last of Us for as long as she wants.
Bella Ramsey may have been first noticed as the wise beyond her years Lyanna Mormont in Game of Thrones, but it’s as Ellie in The Last of Us that turned the actress into a household name. During an interview with The Wrap, co-creators Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin shared new details about Season 2 while reflecting on the massive success of the debut season. Despite some fan concerns, they also confirmed that Bella Ramsey would return as Ellie for the second season.
Fans of The Last of Us Part 2 on Sony’s PlayStation consoles took to social media and claimed that Bella Ramsey was too young to keep playing Ellie during the events of the second game. Mazin explained during the interview that the star is the exact age, 19, as the fictional character was during the events in question. Not only is she the right age to properly play the character, but both creators also went on to shower their star with praise.
Druckmann says that finding Bella Ramsey for The Last of Us was like “finding lightning in a bottle.” The franchise creator related the experience to casting Ashley Johnson as Ellie’s voice actor for the games. The only way that Ramsey won’t play the live-action Ellie is if she decides to walk away herself, which won’t be happening anytime soon despite the extreme scrutiny of the online fanbase.
In multiple interviews following the record-setting debut of the show, Ramsey claimed she wants to play Ellie “forever” no matter how many games, spin-offs, or seasons they make. This is good, as The Last of Us was renewed for a second season after airing only two episodes. When the debut breaks a record, freshly broken just months ago by House of the Dragon after standing for 13 years following Boardwalk Empire’s smashing premiere, it makes sense that HBO will want the gravy train to keep running.
In addition to bringing back Bella Ramsey, the second season of The Last of Us will include more deviations from the source material. Season 1’s alterations to the first game, highlighted by Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett, featured an episode diving into the backstory of side characters from the original game. If Season 2 includes more masterful deviations like “Long, Long Time,” it will continue the trend of accruing more viewers with each episode airing.
Pedro Pascal as Joel will also be back for Season 2, though fans of the games have questions about that too. A common joke refers to the day that Pascal’s script is only one page long while Bella Ramsey gets the usual 40 pages; after all, bad things tend to happen in the depressing dystopian future of The Last of Us. Mazin and Druckman admit that the upcoming season won’t be exactly like the game, so characters that die may live, while those that lived may wind up dead.
The Last of Us Season 1 finale aired earlier this week, again to another record-setting audience, and left fans with more questions than answers. We don’t know when the show will return, but it will be with the original stars included, no matter what anyone says about them online.
