The Last of Us' Bella Ramsey: Isabela Merced's Dina Brings Out Ellie's ‘More Wild and More Free' Side in Season 2 — Watch Video
Not that we're blaming her — you try being orphaned by a mushroom-zombie pandemic and fostered by a gruff, grieving hermit and see how guarded you become.
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In Season 2 of HBO's hit drama, though, Bella Ramsey's character strikes up a friendship with a character named Dina (played by 100 Things to Do Before High School's Isabela Merced). And, just like that, the audience gets to see a side of Ellie heretofore rarely revealed.
It's even more impressive when you find out that the two actors didn't know each other at all before their first shared day of work.
'Chemistry is so difficult to force,' Ramsey tells me in the video above. 'Like, Craig [Mazin, series co-creator/showrunner] and Neil [Druckmann, series co-creator/showrunner] know what they're doing. They cast me and Pedro [Pascal], we'd never met each other.' Similarly, when Ramsey and Merced met on set, 'It really worked out.'
Mazin says he wasn't surprised that Merced and Ramsey worked so well on screen, but he was pleased nevertheless.
'We chose her for a reason' he says of Merced. 'We had all the faith in the world that she would be a great Dina. But what you don't know, necessarily, is whether there's going to be that extra, impossible-to-predict spark. And I'm telling you? Action, one take, cut — [I sat] back and went, 'We're gonna be fine.''
Per the official synopsis, Season 2 will begin with a time jump: 'Five years after the events of the first season, Joel and Ellie are drawn into conflict with each other and a world even more dangerous and unpredictable than the one they left behind.' Merced is one of several Season 2 additions to the show's cast; others include Kaitlyn Dever (Dopesick), Jeffrey Wright, Young Mazino (BEEF), Danny Ramirez (The Falcon and the Winter Soldier), Ariela Barer (Runaways), Tati Gabrielle (Chilling Adventures of Sabrina), Spencer Lord (Heartland) and Catherine O'Hara (Schitt's Creek).
The Last of Us Season 2: Everything We Know
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The new influx of characters makes for a whole host of new interpersonal dynamics, Ellie and Dina's chief among them.
'In between scenes, Isabela is very much like Dina, more wild and more free than me, in many ways,' Ramsey says. 'But I think Isabela definitely brought out that in me.'
Merced agrees that the connection between her and Ramsey 'was there from the beginning, and I think the important part was nurturing that and making sure, as people who are paired up in almost every scene together, that I really had Bella's back,' she says. 'I wanted Bella to know that, like, I'm an advocate and I'm an ally… It was a matter of being a supporter, and that's what I feel like I gave and got.'
The Last of Us returns for Season 2 on Sunday, April 13, at 9/8c. Until then, press PLAY on the video above to watch Ramsey, Merced and Mazin talk about Ellie and Dina's relationship. Then, hit the comments with thoughts about the upcoming season.
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