Bella Ramsey was “remembering the happiest of memories” to film the saddest crying scenes in The Last of Us Season 2

The Last of Us Season 2 premiered on HBO on April 13, 2025, with a 7-episode run. Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey are back this season, as Joel and Ellie, along with a bunch of new characters and cast members.

This season, things are complicated for Ellie as she is going through a lot, and with Joel’s death, she is naturally shouldering more responsibility than ever.

While Bella Ramsey is not alien to acing action sequences, what proved to be a difficult shot was when they had to remember Joel and weep in his memory. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Bella said that to evoke that emotion, they were:

“remembering the happiest of memories,"

that they had with Pascal.

They further added that they generally struggle with showing emotions openly in front of people, and crying publicly is not their thing at all. These characteristics further made it difficult for them to shoot such an emotionally charged scene.

Bella Ramsey had a hard time crying over Joel’s death in The Last of Us Season 2

In the same interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Bella talked about how they found it extremely difficult to pull off the scene where they had to smell Joel’s jacket in the closet and break down. They said:

“Oh God, in the closet, that was the hardest. So I really struggle with crying in scenes. I can get a tear out, but that’s different to crying. And even getting the tear, it doesn’t come easy for me. I don’t cry in front of people in my everyday life. A very, very limited amount of people in my life will see me cry.”

They further added:

“And so having to do that on a set full of people with the monitor and then more people watching the monitors…it’s virtually impossible for me. So I was really worried about that scene, and that was the toughest one for me to shoot.”

Talking about how she finally got the shot, Bella said:

“I’ve tried [before in crying scenes] to think about something really sad in my own life and try and evoke emotions that way. That doesn’t really work for me because it takes me out of the truth of the situation for Ellie. So I was remembering the happiest of memories that I have with Pedro.”

They added:

“The thing that is always the saddest for me is remembering the happy things. I was remembering us the first few times that we met and the whole of shooting season one together, and the funniest moments. I was remembering all of that and through the lens of losing him — not just Joel and Ellie, but like me and Pedro — because the memories of me and Pedro and Joel and Ellie are so intertwined for me.”

Bella also mentioned that despite Pedro’s character being dead, they can never imagine Ellie as the leader. Bella said:

“I would never consider myself a leader. But there’s something that happens when I’m given responsibility where I really like the feeling and I take the responsibility very seriously.”

The Last of Us can be streamed on Max with new episodes of season 2 dropping every Sunday.

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