A one-scene part rewritten into three seasons, a BAFTA-winning lead they chose to leave, and the nominations that followed Ellie: the working record of an actor whose roles kept getting bigger.
Lyanna Mormont was written to appear in one scene of Game of Thrones. Co-showrunner D. B. Weiss later said the plan changed because of the 11-year-old who played her: Bella Ramsey's performance led the production team to turn a single appearance into a recurring supporting role that ran through the sixth, seventh and eighth seasons. That pattern, a small part rewritten larger because of what Ramsey brought to it, recurs across their career.
Isabella May Ramsey, born in Nottingham on 25 September 2003, is an English actor best known for Lyanna Mormont and for Ellie in HBO's post-apocalyptic drama The Last of Us (2023 to present). The Ellie role brought nominations for a BAFTA Television Award, two Critics' Choice Awards, two Golden Globes, two Primetime Emmys and a Screen Actors Guild Award, according to Wikipedia's entry on Bella Ramsey.
The career is not a clean upward line. A children's lead won them a BAFTA and also coincided with anorexia nervosa, and they walked away from that series before its final run. The record below follows the work in order, including the parts that cost something.
Early life and the Television Workshop
Ramsey was born in Nottingham and raised in Leicestershire, where they began school. They have kept family details private, saying only that they have an older sister and that 'my whole family is very musical and creative'. Growing up, they enjoyed art, music, writing and football, and performed with local amateur groups including Stagecoach in Loughborough.
At 12 they moved to the online school King's InterHigh. Ramsey has said mainstream secondary school was not conducive to their happiness, particularly because of their neurodivergence. The flexible online programme let them balance study with acting work that was about to arrive.
The more formative step came at 10, when Ramsey joined the Television Workshop in Nottingham. The Workshop provided training and support for early auditions, including the one for Game of Thrones, and Ramsey kept attending into adulthood. They credit it with their approach to performance: '[it] teaches you to be and become. No pretending.' Looking back, they have said, 'I never really set out to be [an actor] and then it sort of happened. I wouldn't have it any other way.'
Game of Thrones and the expanded Lyanna Mormont
Ramsey's professional debut came at 11, as the young noblewoman Lyanna Mormont in HBO's Game of Thrones. They first appeared in the sixth-season episode 'The Broken Man', and critics and viewers responded to a child playing a no-nonsense leader with full conviction. Ramsey later said the set 'felt very natural' and immediately like a place where they belonged.
Weiss's account of the character's growth is the concrete measure of that debut: Lyanna was intended for one scene and became a recurring role because of the performance. After Ramsey's appearance in the season finale, The Hollywood Reporter named them the sixth season's breakout star.
Ramsey stayed with the role through the seventh and eighth seasons, which meant the rest of their early career was built around the show's production schedule, with other projects slotted into the gaps.
The Worst Witch: a BAFTA and a real cost
While still on Game of Thrones, Ramsey took their first leading television role, Mildred Hubble in the CBBC fantasy series The Worst Witch, which began in 2017. The performance won them a BAFTA in the Young Performer category.
The same production is where things went wrong. During filming of the first series, Ramsey developed anorexia nervosa, partly driven by the anxiety of spending long stretches away from home at a young age. They also struggled with emetophobia, a fear of vomiting.
By the third series Ramsey had largely recovered from anorexia, but they chose not to return. The role was recast with Lydia Page for the fourth and final series. For a young performer, stepping away from a lead role after winning a BAFTA for it is an unusual decision, and it is one Ramsey has spoken about openly rather than leaving unexplained.
Film work between the series
Breaks in the Game of Thrones and Worst Witch schedules went into supporting film roles. The credits from that stretch include:
- Two for Joy (2018), a psychological drama
- Holmes & Watson (2018), a comedy
- Judy (2019), a biographical drama
- Resistance (2020), as the orphan Elsbeth
Resistance depicts how Marcel Marceau helped Jewish children escape Nazi persecution during the Second World War. Ramsey has said they were drawn to it because 'the script didn't shy away from the reality of war' in telling a story they considered important.
The film itself received mixed reviews, but individual notices singled Ramsey out. Michael Nordine of TheWrap called the performance 'expressive' and 'affecting' and wrote that 'great things can be expected of the teenage thespian in the future'.
Voice work and music on Hilda
Ramsey moved into voice acting as the title character in Netflix's animated series Hilda, which ran from 2018 to 2023, and in the television film Hilda and the Mountain King (2021). The series won three Daytime Emmy Awards.
Ramsey's own recognition for the role came from the British Animation Awards, where they were nominated for Best Voice Performance in 2020 and again in 2022. Their contribution went beyond the voice track: for the show's second series they wrote and performed the song 'The Life of Hilda', drawing on the music that runs through their family and their own childhood interests.
His Dark Materials, short films and Becoming Elizabeth
In 2020 Ramsey joined the second series of HBO's His Dark Materials as Angelica. Casting director Kahleen Crawford recalled that the performances of Ramsey and co-star Ella Schrey-Yeats, who played Paola, led to both roles being expanded with additional screen time. It is the Lyanna Mormont pattern again, on a different production.
Between larger projects Ramsey kept working in short films: 3 Minutes of Silence (2020), the horror-drama Requiem (2021), which put them alongside fellow Television Workshop alumna Safia Oakley-Green, and Villain (2023). Short-form work is an unglamorous choice for someone with Ramsey's profile at the time, and the Requiem casting shows the Workshop connection persisting well after the early auditions.
Their next television role was Lady Jane Grey in Starz's Becoming Elizabeth (2022), a historical drama about the early years of Elizabeth I. Megan O'Keefe of Decider described Ramsey as the 'scene-stealer of the cast'.
The Last of Us, Catherine Called Birdy and Time
The Last of Us, starting in 2023, made Ramsey's Ellie the role most associated with them alongside Lyanna. The awards record is substantial on nominations: a BAFTA Television Award, two Critics' Choice Awards, two Golden Globes, two Primetime Emmys and a Screen Actors Guild Award.
Other work around the same period produced its own recognition. Ramsey starred in the historical comedy film Catherine Called Birdy (2022) and was nominated for the Critics' Choice Award for Best Young Performer. In the prison drama Time (2023) they played Kelsey Morgan, which won them the Royal Television Society Award for Female Supporting Actor.
Industry lists followed. Ramsey was named on the Time 100 Next list of rising stars in 2023 and on the Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe list in 2024.
The 2026 slate
Three film credits are listed for 2026, spanning live action and animation:
- Sunny Dancer, a coming-of-age film, with Ramsey as Ivy
- The Liberation, a psychological drama, with Ramsey as Ella
- The Sheep Detectives, a mystery comedy, with Ramsey voicing Zora
The mix matches the shape of the earlier career. Hilda established Ramsey as a lead voice performer, and The Sheep Detectives continues that alongside on-screen drama, rather than treating voice work as something left behind with children's television.
What to watch for when reading Ramsey's record
Count wins and nominations separately. For The Last of Us, the major-award record is nominations. The confirmed wins sit elsewhere: the Young Performer BAFTA for The Worst Witch and the Royal Television Society award for Time. Profiles that blur the two overstate one part of the record and understate the other.
Watch the dates on The Worst Witch. The series ran past Ramsey's departure, with Lydia Page taking the role for the final series, so any list crediting Ramsey with the whole run is wrong. The reason they left, recovery from anorexia and a decision not to return, is part of the story, not a footnote.
Expect gaps on the personal side. Ramsey has deliberately kept family details private beyond an older sister and a musical, creative household, so anything more specific in a profile deserves suspicion. And the 2026 films were still new at the time of the latest records, so check release details and reviews directly before relying on any claims about how they were received.
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