What’s stronger than a pack of online trolls? A gay army, duh. Just ask Bella Ramsey.
The Last of Us star Bella Ramsey recently appeared on The Last of Pods podcast to talk about her role in the massively successful dystopian series. In the show, she plays Ellie, a queer teen with a world-altering secret. The series is at points terrifying, beautiful, shocking, and achingly poignant. Along with the general horrors of living in a world besieged by fungus-infected zombies, and humans who are even more monstrous, the show features a moving relationship between Ellie and her pseudo-father figure Joel (Pedro Pascal). It’s a stellar piece of storytelling and the performances regularly leave the audiences gasping each week.
But can you guess which part the online trolls are freaking out about? Yep, that’s right, Ellie’s canonical queerness. The show also expanded the back story of its other queer characters, Bill (Nick Offerman) and Frank (Murray Bartlett), in one of the most moving episodes of television put to screen, ever.
Liane Hentscher/HBO
Ramsey shared that she had been advised by series creator Craig Mazin, who knew that there would be a backlash in the ugliest parts of social media, to avoid reading comments. However, as the actor confesses, they had “slightly, dramatically blown open that oath” and in the process discovered it wasn’t just a sea of trolls out there, after all.
“I’m very aware that there’s a gay army on Twitter who are supporting me and Ellie, and it’s like they’re so much louder than any people who still hate it, or hate the show, the homophobic trolls,” shared Ramsey.
That support from the audience means everything to the actor, who previously spoke out about the hateful reaction from portions of the audience. “[It] feels nice to have that army behind me. That’s been a reaction that I’ve really enjoyed,” said Ramsey.
That’s right Bella, we’ve got your back. But oh boy are the trolls gonna be mad when season two drops. We won’t spoil the details here, but suffice it to say, it’s going to be gay.
