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How Bella Ramsey From The Last Of Us Is Dealing With Negative Reactions On Social Media

Ramsey originally avoided social media but has seen the negative comments.

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The star of HBO's The Last Of Us Bella Ramsey has spoken about their experience of being cast as Ellie, as well as the public reception.

With only days to go until the premiere of The Last Of Us press is well underway, and stars Bella Ramsey and Pedro Pascal, who will be playing Joel, have both been discussing what it's been like bringing two video game characters to life for television.

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Ramsey, in particular, has received negative responses online for being cast as the 14-year-old protagonist, mainly because they don't look like Ellie. In various interviews, the actor has discussed the process of getting the role and what it was like for them to receive negative attention online for their casting, so soon following the announcement.

The 19-year-old originally responded by not going on social media to view the comments, but they did anyway. "It’s the first time I’ve ever had a negative reaction to something," Ramsey said in a New York Times interview, who was 17 at the time.

Ramsey opened up further saying, "There would be times I’d find it funny. Then I’d get to the end of a 10-minute scrolling session, put my phone down and realize: maybe that was a bad idea.

"It’s only recently I’ve accepted I am Ellie and I can do it and I am a good actor, but this will last for a few weeks and then I’ll think I’m terrible again," Ramsey added. "That’s just the process."

The Last Of Us premieres on HBO on January 15.

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rebornblood

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Edited By rebornblood

Could they have picked someone who looked further from Ellie? what goes through their heads I wonder lol

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deactivated-64f32fa0d8a48

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@rebornblood: Acting ability > appearance.

Not sure who all auditioned and we'll likely never know but I trust they made the best decision they could because everything I've seen so far, and from all the reviews, they seem to have nailed it.

And if your biggest qualm is some 17 y/o girl not being attractive enough to play a 14 y/o character maybe go outside and touch some grass and rethink some things because it is pretty sad this is the hill people are dying on. It's such a non-issue.

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Akriel_Boulve

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@rizenstrom: Because that worked so well for Lance Redick playing Albert Wesker. He's a great actor, but the writers were more focused on diversity than writing a good story.

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VXXXJesterXXXV

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@rizenstrom: it's funny to me that only one person mentioned attractiveness and that was you boss. The dude you replied to pointed out they don't look similar, that has nothing to do with attractiveness. So maybe do a little looking in the mirror, because apparently you don't find a 17 year old as attractive as her 14 year old video game counterpart. What a strange argument to make

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@VXXXJesterXXXV:You don't have to be attracted to someone to admit they have qualities that are conventionally attractive (handsome, pretty - whatever you want to call it, it's all the same).

And yeah, just calling it like I see it. In my experience there have been many, many instances of adaptations having characters that aren't accurate to the source material and the only time the internet gets mad over it is if they change the race, gender, or make them someone who isn't conventionally attractive.

Henry Cavil looks nothing like Geralt in the books. Jason Momoa looks nothing like Aquaman. Paul Rudd looks nothing like Ant Man. Ezra Miller doesn't look like Barry, Marisa Tomei looks nothing like Aunt May, most depictions of Jim Gordon aren't comic book accurate... But as long as they are somewhat attractive and white, or white passing, nobody makes a fuss.

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Akriel_Boulve

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Edited By Akriel_Boulve

@rizenstrom: How in the hell do you find Ellie from the game attractive though? She's got a very generic face and it's not visually attractive or cute in pretty much any way. By comparison Sarah had that cute precocious look to her. I think you're reading a lot into things that aren't there.

I don't find Sonic attractive in a conventional sense, but the original version of his movie form was horrible and people rejected it because of how it looked in comparison to what we expected in much the same way. The actress for Ellie has a huge forehead and other features that make her visually incompatible with what most people think of as Ellie. Also Joel's actor doesn't look nearly hard and world weary enough to play him. Acting can make up for a lot, but looks do still matter for a character.

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@Akriel_Boulve: Well that wasn't meant to be the main takeaway, that comment was just defending against the implication they were trying to make, my main point is that people are only mad about this because Bella Ramsey isn't conventionally attractive not really whether or not Ellie is.

I don't know why you're dragging Sarah into this, it's not a competition or particularly relevant.

Sonic is an entirely CGI character, he's not being played or modeled after real people, it's completely different.

Ellie in the first game was strongly believed to be based on Ellen Page so your best bet for an accurate depiction would involve a time machine to go back like 15 years. Nobody is going to be an exact match and it shouldn't really be a factor anyways.

Appearing somewhat accurate to the character can be a factor when casting, sure, but it's towards the bottom of priorities. The showrunners have a vision and they choose the actor or actress best suited to bring that vision to life out of who auditioned for the role.

If there was someone else who auditioned who was equally or better suited towards that and looked more like Ellie then maybe I'd agree but we don't know that. We weren't there and it's not like there's a list.

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Akriel_Boulve

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@rizenstrom: No one is saying that you need an "exact match". What I'm saying is that there are certain visual cues that detract from the image of the character. For instance if you cast Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime as Mr Bean, it just wouldn't work because people have an expectation of Mr Bean's character being soft and unimposing.

It doesn't even have to be physical looks of the human playing the character. If you put Indiana Jones in a Denim Jacket and put a tassel on the end of his bullwhip, people would be equally put off.

In this case the actress has a very pronounced forehead and that can put people off when comparing them to Ellie who did not.

CG characters are still visually represented though and we have expectations. You can't just put anything on the screen and call it "sonic" without the fans being upset if it doesn't have a decently high fidelity to the character, as we saw. The point is that visual representation matters.

I'm sorry but you can't supplant one criticism with another. If I don't like the musical score of a game or movie, that can't be undone by stellar acting. If you revive Barry White and cast him as little orphan Annie, he might be the better singer, but he would be an inappropriate stand in for the character.

These are extreme comparisons obviously, but they are to drive the point that looks do matter and you can't just cast on acting ability alone without putting off people.

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@Akriel_Boulve: I'm sorry but boo-hoo, get over yourself. This is such an idiotic, childish thing to argue about and I'm done. Episode 1 is out, Bella did a phenomenal job, and reviews are high because any sensible person could not give two shits about her forehead being too big or her nose not being the right shape. Do you even hear yourself? God. I honestly do not understand why you care so much.

Ellie doesn't even look like Ellie, Part 2 and Part 1 remake changed her face and she looks completely different. Video game character appearances change all the time.

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Akriel_Boulve

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@rizenstrom: That's fine and I'm glad the show is doing well, but that doesn't invalidate the arguments I have made.

A show can be successful and also not faithful to the original version. One of my all time favorite movies "The Princess Bride" is actually extremely unfaithful to the original version. So much so, the writer for the movie completely rewrote the story to exclude the parts he didn't like because his grandfather never read them to him when he was that very same sick kid that was portrayed in the movie. He even released an entirely new edition of the book omitting those parts, which is the version most people have read after watching the movie.

Does that mean I cannot love the movie?

No, of course not. But it also means that I can't really be upset with someone who doesn't like the movie because it veered far and away from the original story.

It's only people like you who cannot accept that others have a different opinion than you. It eats you up inside and makes you want to force people to believe as you do. There is a word for that....

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@rebornblood: you're*

Also I'm not implying anything "disgusting", if you're reading something more into that it says more about you than it does me. I only mentioned the age to emphasize how dumb it is to argue over the appearance of a literal child.

The character is 14. The actress was 17 at the time filming started.

These are just the facts.

The fact that people are harassing her over this is what's disgusting. Absolutely pathetic excuses for human beings harassing someone who was, at the time, a child for doing a role (quite well from what early reviews are showing).

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@rizenstrom: The difference between a 17 year old girl and a 14 year old one is gigantic, so I see your point.

Then again, these are the same people who are trying to abolish the concept of gender, so I'm not surprised they can't identify secondary sexual characteristics.

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@Barighm: Adding spectrums to gender isn't abloshing the concept of gender so not sure what your argument is there. They're have been bigger age differences in other shows that havent had this much scrutiny so not understanding the problem here either. The cast of stranger things have age gaps between they're character and actors but that hasnt had a big scrutiny.

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Baconstrip78

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@rebornblood: Phillip Seymour Hoffman looked and acted nothing like the real Art Howe in Moneyball and yet he was one of the best parts of the movie. Who cares?

Pick the best actor for the job with the best range. Actors that can’t act ruin a series way faster than one that doesn’t look like they did in the source material that the majority of your viewers never experienced anyway.

I have no idea what Nick Fury looks like in the comics nor do I care. He’s Samuel L Jackson to me and millions of other fans.

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VXXXJesterXXXV

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@Baconstrip78: thing is you know EXACTLY what nick fury looks like in the comics having seen the mcu. The nick fury they based him on was based entirely on Sam Jackson's look.

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rebornblood

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@Baconstrip78: I think wokeness is what ruins movies nowadays. I barely watch movies nowadays because their always pushing something and I just want to watch something entertaining and not be lectured.

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@rebornblood: It's not so much "wokeness" as it is these woke people seem to go into production with an axe to grind, so it's like their anger and pessimism bleed through every seam of the product. The overall product suffers from their lack of focus. That or it's just virtue signaling.

Either way, there have been good "woke" productions, it's just everything is being ruined right now by anger and greed. Just like always.

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Akriel_Boulve

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@Barighm: I don't think you can really separate the two though. The wokeness is what drives the anger and pessimism. If they chose to just write a story without their woke ideologies at the forefront, then we can end up with an actual good product that isn't woke. It seems to me that if it is woke, then it will be garbage because being woke carries all that baggage with it and forces virtue signaling, diversity quotas, etc etc. So what in your opinion was a "good woke production"?

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karmakanic

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@rebornblood: Please define what wokeness is, and how casting Ramsey is part of a nefarious woke agenda.

What I'm tired of is the word "woke" being a synonym for something people just don't like. Try to be honest with your feelings instead of setting up a straw man.

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psych32

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@karmakanic: We know what they want to really say its just they cant make it from a moral point of view. Its easier for people like them to call something “woke” without knowing what it means.

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@psych32: And this is the problem and why nobody, even other members of the community, can stand you folks. If somebody doesn't like something, they must be a bigot.

The message has always been crystal clear to me: these mainstreamed productions are routinely poor quality products. That's it. That has always been the case. The problem isn't with "wokeness" in principle, just its APPLICATION. What's making it exceptionally infuriating this time around is nobody can say that without being labeled a bigot.

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psych32

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@Barighm: Your previous comment complained about "wokeness" without giving an example and being vague. I implied your take either didnt have a moral standing or other weak argument, doesnt necessarily mean its a bigoted one.

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Akriel_Boulve

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@psych32: Wokeness is pretty simple to define, so I don't know why people like you seem to struggle so much with understanding it. Being "woke" was originally a term of endearment that started with the BLM movement. They used it to self describe themselves and their narrative that we need things like greater diversity in workplaces and more representation of minorities in media. These are not terrible ideologies in and of themselves, but they took it to the extreme and also married it to other "Progressive" ideologies to create the monster we have today.

To put it simply, wokeness is now predominately a vehicle for virtue signaling. It's an attempt to rewrite history by gender/race/sexual orientation bending or outright replacing existing characters with more "diverse" ones. It's also a one way street. If someone were to suggest adding Diversity to Black Panther and have some white or asian Wakandan's then that would go against being woke. It's a constant march towards the top of the Progressive Stack. Now instead of focusing on the content of the character, we are supposed to look at superficial qualities like skin color or orientation or gender.

So now it's a "good" thing to make Albert Wesker or Ariel black, when at best it should be a neutral thing, having selected the best actor for the part. In a post racial society we would simply stop seeing race, but now these woke people want to make everything about race, elevating some over others simply based on the color of their skin. As such, it is actually the method of a grand revival of racism, sexism, etc, and not the vehicle of it's destruction as the woke people would like us to believe.

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@Akriel_Boulve: Thats the problem with your argument, your assuming just because they make a diverse cast they're not finding qualified actors, they're just putting random bodies to pass the eye test. Using that as an excuse to justify an anti-diverse argument is a bad take.

BTW, the whole argument making the black panther white shows you don't fully understand the purpose of why people take a diverse approach. in the comics, there already had a white wakandan called the white wolf, which you would know if you weren't trying to hide a weak argument behind a legitmate claim.

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Edited By Akriel_Boulve

@psych32: Except it's not an assumption. They confirm it themselves. I mean just look at the super-cuts put out by Disney and other groups focusing on black Ariel. They openly celebrate that they have a minority actress playing the part. If they were just picking the absolute best actress for the role then they wouldn't be doing this.

It's also not about "random bodies", they are (generally, with some exceptions) still picking high end talent, but they are doing so with a specific exclusion towards people of particular ethnicities, orientations and genders.

I'm all for natural diversity and actually want society to move towards post-racial mentalities, but this is not the way. I don't want racial quotas on the NBA anymore than I want them in a Disney film. If you have a film like Black Panther where it makes sense that all the main characters are black, then they SHOULD be black. The same is true if you have a period piece on the Tudors, they should all be white, and not substitute in a black Anne Boleyn simply for the case of forcing diversity where it doesn't make sense.

You simply cannot fight discrimination with more discrimination. All you end up doing is reversing the privileged classes when you do so.

How is it a "weak argument" when the movies don't have the White Wolf? Also, I said to make the Wakandans mixed races, not that there could, or should, be a parallel society of all whites. You don't seem to even understand my argument at all based on this attempt to refute my points.

So let me put it another way, why not have Tom Hanks play MLK in a movie? He's an amazing actor and I honestly think that he has the chops to portray MLK thoughtfully and with distinction. The only issue is that he is white, but why not add that diversity to history? If we can have a black Anne Boleyn, then why not a white MLK? THAT is my point.

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Deckard26364

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@rebornblood: It's not just wokeness. It's also "Napness" comments like yours. Your comment is no different then the "woke" you claim to be railing against. Same agenda, worded differently.

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rebornblood

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@deckard26364: Its not an agenda its my opinion. I am not promoting anything or spending millions to "educate" a random comment section lol. I just think its stupid they push this crap down our throats constantly for no reason.

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@rebornblood: you’re reading too much into nothing.

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@Barighm: Someone complains about something being woke by being vague with no context. Yet calling it out is somehow bullying? Yeah ok

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Akriel_Boulve

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@psych32: If they were just "calling it out" they would say something like "How is this woke?" not "Why are you a racist?" which is what psych32 meant by "we know what they really want to say..."

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@rebornblood: just a thought, but maybe what went through their head was "who is the child actor that can best portray this character?" and not "forget their acting ability, who LOOKS right, because that's the most important thing, right??" Remember, this is a child actor, and quality child actors are not as abundant as adults who've had many more years to hone their craft. The odds of getting both an excellent child actor that also LOOKS exactly like someone from a game are astronomical... so yeah, it's a good thing they weren't dumb and only cared about the looks and went for talent instead.

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Edited By Akriel_Boulve

@dpkramer88: So you'd be ok with John Goodman playing little orphan Annie? He's a pretty good actor I bet he could beat the thespian pants off all the little girls auditioning for the role!

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rebornblood

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@dpkramer88: Fair enough but I mean, damn. they didn't even try to make it close lol

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@rebornblood: "they didn't even try to make it close".

You don't know that.

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