Making ‘Last of Us’ without Pedro Pascal was tough. But Bella Ramsey loves a challenge

For Bella Ramsey, real pressure came with stepping into the leading role for the second season of “The Last of Us.” But it wasn’t entirely mental. The difficulty came from performing nearly every scene without the solidarity of co-star Pedro Pascal, whose character Joel was brutally killed off in Episode 2.

“I did feel the sense of, ‘Well, I’m just here every day all day for the next seven months and that’s so exhausting,’” says Ramsey. “But I love hard things. Doing hard things is how I feel satisfied and fulfilled.”

Season 2 saw Ramsey embodying Ellie, a stubborn young woman living in a postapocalyptic reality, in a more mature way. Slipping into her skin for the second time was “very familiar.” Ramsey tackled new skills, including extensive stunt training and a few guitar lessons, but generally they relied on their instincts to find Ellie’s emotional state. “The way that she thinks and moves and speaks and acts and behaves is almost second nature because of how long I’ve lived in her,” Ramsey says. “She feels very easily accessible to me.”

Ellie’s burgeoning relationship with Dina (Isabela Merced) was key to understanding the character’s evolution. As the newly minted couple travels from Jackson, Wyo., to Seattle in search of Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) after Joel’s murder, Ellie’s protector impulse becomes more pronounced, particularly after learning Dina is pregnant. “I say this with all the love for Ellie, but she is quite selfish,” Ramsey says. “But then she has these moments of, ‘Wait, it’s not just me anymore.’ She’s forced out of her inherent selfishness by love. She was forced to think about other people, which is growth for her.”

Pascal and Dever shot for short periods of time during the production in Canada last year. Ramsey says they were “less in denial” about Pascal’s exit than he was “because I had felt the effects of him not being there.” Shooting the scene where Ellie walks in just as Abby impales Joel with a broken golf club was a pivotal experience.

“I was really trying to get loads of energy in me before that scene to be able to do it,” Ramsey says. “I was dancing and getting hyped up. When we actually did it, I had to live in it for a little bit … At the end of the day you feel this exhausted satisfaction and catharsis. But seeing his little face on the ground was pretty awful. I’ll never forget it.”

Less awful was Episode 6, a flashback to Ellie and Joel’s relationship before his death. Ramsey describes shooting it with director Neil Druckmann, who also created the video games, as “joyful.” Several scenes are a shot-for-shot remake of “The Last of Us Part II,” including Joel taking Ellie to an overgrown space museum. But Ramsey never tries to mimic the game version of the character, even when replicating such an iconic scene.

“I was just living it through my understanding of Ellie,” they say. “I’ve watched the gameplay, and what tends to happen with me is that if I watch someone exist like Ellie exists in the game, I accidentally adopt those mannerisms. But it’s not something that I’m consciously doing. I only know Ellie as me.”

Although Ramsey had prepared with the stunt team in London ahead of filming, the physicality of the shoot was intense. They note that “every other day was a stunt day,” which was incredibly taxing. Ramsey was allowed to do all of their own stunts, including the fight scene in Episode 1 and the water work in Episode 7.

“The bit where [Ellie is] crawling out of the ocean was at the actual ocean in the middle of the night, which was freezing,” Ramsey says. “I had just recovered from bronchitis. I had a wetsuit on underneath the costume and the water collected in the wetsuit and my backpack, so it was so heavy. I had to summon everything I had to be able to do it.”

Being part of “The Last of Us” is proof for Ramsey that they can do anything as an actor, including cry on a command — a newly acquired talent in Season 2. “I’ve been really aware of how capable the body and mind can be because of the duration and the challenge of shooting a show for so long, physically and mentally,” Ramsey says.

This year marks Ramsey’s second time up for lead actress in a drama for “The Last of Us,” making them the first out nonbinary actor to be nominated for an Emmy more than once. It’s gratifying for Ramsey, who never imagined they’d be in a position of influence.

“It’s nice to be seen,” Ramsey says. “I feel like that’s what people like me have been searching for: to be seen for who they are. It’s a lovely thing for that to happen on a large scale, and hopefully it will help other gender-nonconforming people to feel seen as well. I’m just existing, which is the point. I feel so grateful to have this accidental impact on people.”