Bella Ramsey immediately became a star when she debuted as Lyanna Mormont on Game of Thrones, and her castmates helped her navigate the experience.
Game of Thrones made stars out of a lot of its actors, both the headliners and the ones in small parts. Take Bella Ramsey, who burst onto the scene in season 6 as the indomitable Lyanna Mormont and immediately became a fan favorite for her take-no-bulls**t attitude that routinely put people many years her senior in their place.
And all this from a first-time actor! “Suddenly, I was thrown into this world of film and TV that I’d never even imagined that I’d be in,’ Ramsey recently told Metro. “It’s not like I didn’t want to. It’s just that I hadn’t even thought of it. I was always acting at home, but I’d never even kind of considered it as a career. I was very, very fortunate.”
Clearly, Ramsey has the kind of talent that needs to be onscreen. Even as her first Game of Thrones episodes were coming out, she was making The Worst Witch for Netflix, which meant she was too busy to notice what a hit she was becoming. “I still remember the first time I was recognised,” Ramsey remembered; she was waiting in line for the bathroom at St Pancras station in London when a woman came up to her and excitedly said, “You’re from the telly!” They ended up having a “lovely chat” afterward, which was surreal for Ramsey. “I found it quite cool, the fact that I could make someone’s day literally just by being myself.”
At the same time, sudden fame could be “crazy and a bit overwhelming,” but her Game of Thrones costars were there to help her with that part of it. “I learnt a lot from Kit Harington (Jon Snow) and Liam Cunningham, who played Davos,” Ramsey said. “I learnt a lot from them about interviews and about how to go about them and to just be yourself. They were obviously aware that I was going to have to be doing some, so they helped me by preparing me for it.”
Of course Liam Cunningham helped with this; bonding with children was practically Davos’ job on the show.
Since then, Ramsey has gone on to further success on shows like His Dark Materials, where she plays the wayward child Angelica (and does a great job, FYI). But it doesn’t sound like she’s the kind of actor who likes watching herself back. “I just don’t enjoy watching my bits at all.”
"I like to watch the stuff that I’ve done to appreciate everyone else’s work. I think it’s important for me to get better as an actor, to watch myself and to pick up on things that I did which I liked and the stuff that I didn’t like and want to do better next time.I guess it’s just kind of evaluating your performance, but trying not to be too harsh or too critical, because that’s a trap that you can easily fall into."
If she gets any better, she’ll take over Hollywood in no time.
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