Bella Ramsey Is 100% Confirmed Not Getting Recast In ‘The Last Of Us’ Next Season

While it was strongly, heavily implied, The Last of Us didn’t want to make it official until after the finale, where we know Ellie survives. Bella Ramsey will return as Ellie in season 2 of the show, and will not be recast with an older actress.

Ramsey (who identifies as non-binary, and told the New York Times she doesn’t care about which pronouns people use to identify her), previously had celebrated news of the show’s renewal for season 2, excited that the adventure would continue, but there was never official word of her continued casting until now. And it was never really a debate at all, according to the showrunners.

“We are extremely lucky to have Bella…and the only way we would ever consider recasting Bella is if she said, ‘I don’t want to work with you guys anymore,’” showrunner Neil Druckmann told The Wrap. “And even then we’re not sure we would grant her that. We might force her to come back this season.”

Ramsey had previously said she would like to play Ellie forever:

“There are no limits for me,” Ramsey said. “They can do as many games as they like, as many series as they like, and I’ll be here, flying back out to Canada.”

The debate among a subset of fans was twofold, first that Ramsey looked too young to play an aged-up Ellie, who will be five years older next season when the second game is adapted. And that Ramsey wouldn’t be able to pull off Ellie’s extreme violence in the sequel.

Both of these arguments have never made sense. Ramsey is already 19, Ellie’s age in the second game, playing a 14 year old, so she’s the correct age, and with hair and makeup changes, can easily look her actual age next season where she will actually be older than Ellie was in the game.

Second, by the time season 1 has wrapped, we have seen the violent lengths Ramsey’s Ellie has gone to in order to survive, and it’s easy to imagine her amplifying that next season as she becomes a more hardened killer. Ramsey’s Ellie has been one of the most highly praised elements of a highly praised show, and I think it was clear to everyone whose opinion mattered that there was a zero percent chance she would be recast in future seasons.

The show will put even more of a burden on Ramsey moving forward as she takes on an even larger role opposite her foil, Abby, who has yet to be cast, despite some wishlisted fan options. Abby, like Joel and Ellie, is a hugely important, tough role to cast, as in the game she was a blend of three different women, a face model, a body model and a performance capture voice actress. Now, they have to find someone to embody elements of all three.

But given the casting decisions for Joel and Ellie, I think we can have faith they’ll make the right call. And I can’t wait to see what Bella does next season, even if we have to wait a while to see her again.

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