As you may be aware, HBO’s The Last of Us has received a second season renewal, and while the first season of the hugely popular adaptation is still in progress, Ellie actor Bella Ramsey has a clear message to all the trolls moaning and whining about the show’s LGBTQ+ storylines: Get over to it!
Ramsey, who identifies as nonbinary in real life, discussed the criticism of the show depicting queer tales in an interview with GQ UK.
She said that as the series develops, people will need to simply deal with it because those stories are part of the original Naughty game as well.
The young and talented actor stated that “I am not particularly anxious about it. I know that people will think what they want to think. But they are going to have to get used to it. If you do not want to watch the show because it has gay stories, it has a transgender character, that is on you, and you are missing out. It is not gonna make me afraid. I think that just comes from a place of defiance.”
Ramsey also revealed to the publication that they had visited the Season 2 writers’ room and believed the show would stick to the games’ plot for season 2 which is expected to tackle the events of The Last of Us Part II.
That would entail [Spoiler Alert!] the addition of a transgender teen boy by the name of Lev as well as Ellie’s love story with a young bisexual woman named Dina.
“There are a few bits with Ellie all on her own, probably, but I like that she also has [Dina] now,” Ramsey said.
Together with Neil Druckmann – the guy behind the wildly popular video game franchise – Craig Mazin, who’s best known for creating the Emmy winning Chernobyl series, developed The Last of Us for HBO audiences.
The creator praised the game for having the “greatest” story ever told in video game form, which is why he was so excited and honored to work on this adaptation.
During the interview for Empire Magazine, Mazin made it very clear that “It’s an open and shut case: this is the greatest story that’s ever been told in video games. Joel and Ellie did not shoot anything out of their eyeballs. They were simply people. And that, in and of itself, is very rare in games. The fact that they kept it this grounded, and made you feel – I had never experienced anything like it, and I have been playing video games since 1977.”