As the gripping dystopian TV adaptation of the video game The Last of Us drew to a close in the middle of March 2023, Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey's star status reached new heights. With legions of fans at their beck and call and Hollywood waiting by, all eyes were on their next steps.
Pascal went further into the cinematic stratosphere, taking a role in Ridley Scott’s upcoming sequel to Gladiator. But Ramsey – whose roles also include Lyanna Mormont in Game Of Thrones and Birdy in Catherine Called Birdy – took a different approach, and headed back to the UK to appear in a gritty prison series, written by one of the country’s most respected writers of social realism.
In Time series two – written by Jimmy McGovern and Helen Black – Ramsey picks up the mantle of troubled leads from Sean Bean and Stephen Graham of the BAFTA-winning first series, and joins new cast-mates Jodie Whittaker and Tamara Lawrance in the often-harrowing but powerful series set in the fictional Carlingford women’s prison.
Ramsey plays Kelsey, a pregnant heroin addict, who decides to keep the baby after hearing that judges are more lenient on sentencing pregnant women. Speaking at a press screening of Time, 20-year-old Ramsey – who identifies as non-binary – told the audience that it’s the first role that they didn’t need to audition for. Initially, though, they weren’t sure how to approach the character and subject matter. “I was kind of terrified taking this one on because other characters I’ve played [before] they very felt like they were inside of me, and Kelsey was a character that felt more external," they said. "She didn’t really live inside of me and that was terrifying to be given this opportunity. It wasn’t until I got to the set and action was called for the first time that I was like, ‘phew, it’s going to be okay.’”
From the opening episode, there are obvious signs that this isn’t Kelsey’s first time around in the prison system, as she fills in the other new inmates on how things run, as well as informing the prison nurse that she's obliged to be given 40 mgs of methadone each day. She’s a contradiction; street smart in many ways, but vulnerable with a no doubt traumatic past that’s yet to be revealed. Empathetic to others, but sly – she thieves her cellmate’s grooming products in desperation for her next hit.
But the violence from the original series is perhaps even more shocking when translated from a man’s prison to a female prison. Kelsey is savagely beaten up by an inmate who she gave the stolen products to, and she’s intimately violated by another after she hides a wrap of drugs from her boyfriend in her vagina.
When asked what it’s like filming such violent and upsetting scenes in both their recent shows, however, Ramsey (who told the crowd that because of the SAG-AFTRA strike, they were unable to say even the name of their character, or the name of The Last Of Us in a public, promotional setting) revealed: “I do like doing those scenes and my favourite scenes are the ones to do when I’m terrified, or being assaulted or screaming.
“But I can’t prepare for them, because if I prepare for them, they’re not for real,” they added, of how they develop their hard-hitting roles. “If I think about it too much, and if I prepare how I’m going to feel or what my face is going to do, like thinking about it too much so I don’t think about it. That’s the way I find I want to do it.
“I don’t even feel the fear in rehearsals, because it’s only when action is called that I feel it for the first time, because it’s real, or it feels real anyway and it’s coming from a place of instinct, rather than thought or intellect.”
In preparation for this role – filmed in Liverpool and Wales – Ramsey researched addiction, and spoke with an inmate who had also experienced a dependency on drugs, which inspired how they fully fleshed out and characterised the role
“Addiction is a phenomenal thing in terms of how it takes a hold of you so for Kelsey to be working with that and working to recover," they said. "I met someone in prison for various things before we started filming and the way she described addiction was ‘needing it with every part of your body’. Knowing that and how difficult it is to let go of that and recover I admire that about them for sure.”
The three-part Time series two, focusing on incarcerated women, comes at an imperative point in social history. In 2022, there were 3,216 women in prison in England and Wales, and from 2021 to 2022, there were 29 pregnant women incarcerated, with 50 births in custody occurring in the same time frame. Birte Harlev-Lam, executive director at the Royal College of Midwives told The Guardian: “It is a national scandal that women are still giving birth in prison, and it’s a practice that needs to stop.”
Ramsey’s co-star, Jodie Whittaker – who plays single mum Orla, who’s given six months prison time for “fiddling the ‘leccy” – touched upon this at the screening, and commented on the fatal impact that sending women to prison has on families, relationships and jobs. “From the point of view of Orla, it’s such a broken system; the aftermath of that suddenly, someone’s in prison and suddenly three children are in care that costs the system.
“With women going into prison, the statistic is that the home life is broken down. Statistically, when a man goes to prison, the home life can be maintained. But, in the context of children, that domino effect of devastation is epic and what’s brilliant on this show is they’re humanising everyone in it. They’re not saying who’s right and wrong, they're giving an authentic narrative to the stories rather than a blank headline in a newspaper.”
Carrying over from the first series’ focus on the issue of the prison industrial complex, the series has other dark themes to contend with that aren’t just endemic to men’s prisons, but women’s too. Violent assaults, abuse, murders, self-harm and crippling mental health issues are just some of the issues troubling the inmates; some arising as a consequence of being locked up.
However, like Ellie in TLOU, Kelsey uses comedy as a form of defence, and Ramsey said that moments of levity on the set also helped them deal with the often disturbing scenes. “There was a great sense of community on set. I think when you’re doing something that’s so dark, you have to… we were like singing and dancing to Jessie J. It was a bit ridiculous," they said. "Even when we were filming, we’d just laugh, it’s just funny. The subject matter is not funny, but then when something goes wrong if you’re doing something that’s so dark, if someone stumbles on a line it’s the funniest thing in the world.”
They added of the camaraderie that grew on set throughout filming. “The sense of community was definitely there right from the beginning.”
Time series two starts on 29th October on BBC One.
