Bella Ramsey Opened Up About Gender, Pronouns, and Backlash to “The Final of Us”

On HBO’s The Final of Us, actor Bella Ramsey performs Ellie, a personality which will fairly actually maintain the reply to saving the world within her. In actual life, Ramsey does not have the burden of the world on her shoulders, however she does comprise multitudes. In a brand new interview with GQ, Ramsey talks about figuring out as nonbinary, the ability of taking part in girls on display screen, and the way she stopped listening to the haters.

Ramsey mentioned she identifies as nonbinary in a January New York Instances interview, and instructed GQ she makes use of any pronouns (she opted for she/her in GQ). Whereas what pronouns folks use to explain Ramsey does not a lot trouble her, she mentioned she needs viewers would cease calling her a “younger lady” due to how she seems on display screen. 

In The Final of Us, Ramsey performs a queer teen surviving the apocalypse, for which she mentioned she used a chest binder “90%” of the time. Previous roles, nonetheless, like Catherine Known as Birdy required a extra female look.

“That is what bothers me greater than pronouns: Being referred to as a ‘younger lady’ or a ‘highly effective younger lady’, ‘younger woman,’ however I am simply not [that],” Ramsey mentioned. “Catherine Known as Birdy, I used to be in attire. Younger Elizabeth, I used to be in a corset. And I felt tremendous highly effective in that. Taking part in these extra female characters is an opportunity to be one thing so reverse to myself, and it’s actually enjoyable.”

Chatting with the Instances, Ramsey mentioned she identifies first as an individual, slightly than a gender. “I’m very a lot only a individual,” she mentioned. “Being gendered isn’t one thing that I significantly like.”

When she was first forged as Ellie, Ramsey instructed GQ that she would obsessively scroll by way of social media, all of the criticism about her taking part in the function. Now, nonetheless, Ramsey mentioned she’s not afraid of the critics — at the same time as they descend on the present for a current and wildly widespread homosexual storyline.

“I do know folks will suppose what they wish to suppose. However they’re gonna should get used to it,” she mentioned. “Should you don’t wish to watch the present as a result of it has homosexual storylines, as a result of it has a trans character, that’s on you, and also you’re lacking out.”

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Associated: Why The Final of Us Star Bella Ramsey Virtually Did not Take the Function of Ellie