Bella Ramsey said that she wore a chest binder 90% of the time while shooting 'The Last of Us' to focus better on set
- Bella Ramsey said that she wore a chest binder for "90 percent" of filming "The Last of Us."
- The actor previously said that she's nonbinary and "couldn't care less" about pronouns.
Bella Ramsey said that she wore a chest binder most of the time while filming HBO's "The Last of Us" because it helped her to focus on set.
Ramsey stars in "The Last of Us" as Ellie, a teenager seemingly immune to the cordyceps fungus that has transformed the world into a post-apocalyptic landscape. The actor said that her gender "has always been very fluid" in an interview with The New York Times, telling the publication that she identifies as nonbinary and "couldn't care less" about which pronouns people used to refer to her.
In an interview with GQ, Ramsey, who elected to be referred to by she/her pronouns in the story, said that she wore a chest binder "90 percent" of the time while shooting "The Last of Us." "Which probably isn't healthy, like please bind safely," Ramsey told GQ.
Chest binding is a practice that minimizes the appearance of a person's breasts and flattens their chest. As Insider previously reported, chest binding can sometimes alleviate gender dysphoria, a discomfort towards one's physical or perceived gender expression. Experts told Insider that wearing a correctly sized binder is important when it comes to safety, as is taking breaks from wearing a binder and not doing so for more than eight hours.
Ramsey told GQ that being called "young lady" or "young woman" bothered her more than what pronouns people used to refer to her. Still, she said that playing feminine characters, like her starring role in the film "Catherine Called Birdy," made her feel "powerful" because they gave her a chance to play characters who were radically different from herself.
Ramsey also said that her costar Pedro Pascal, whose sister is trans, was "super supportive." The two, she said, would regularly have conversations about gender and sexuality.
"They weren't always deep," she told GQ. "They could be funny and humorous, the whole spectrum. We were just very honest and open with each other."