In a show filled with sadistic boy kings, reanimated murder giants, fire-breathing dragons, and vast armies of ice corpses, Lyanna Mormont, the hilariously stern child in charge of one of Game Of Thrones’ most important families, somehow manages to be the most imposing figure of the entire show.
Her actor, the now 15-year old Bella Ramsey (no relation to the maniacal, torture-loving younger Bolton), seems to channel at least a little bit of the characters’ hard-ass attitude if a recent interview with The Cut’s Gabriella Paiella is anything to go by.
The piece touches on everything from Ramsey’s surprise that the pint-sized Lady Mormont has become one of viewers’ favorite cast members to which characters she’s hoping make it through the final season—”I really like Arya,” Ramsey says. “She’s little and powerful.” It also, of course, sees Ramsey talking about her approach to playing the unflappable young ruler.
“She was just words on the page, but I really felt a sense of her,” Ramsey says when asked how she felt about Lyanna based on the script. “I was already rooting for her. She’s a badass.”
Ramsey also tells Paiella she hadn’t seen Thrones before starting on the show and still hasn’t watched all of it (which is probably good, since she’s 15 and all). All the same, she fully understands the draw of her character, and channels her when asked what she’ll “miss most about playing her” in the interview.
“I think the opportunity to stand up in front of a load of grown men and shame them,” Ramsey answers, proving with one sentence that she knows exactly what’s necessary for political success in Game Of Thrones and the real-world alike.
Read the rest of the interview here.
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