Ellie Williams

Ellie is fourteen, sharp-tongued, and stuck in a quarantine zone until circumstances put her in Joel's care on a journey across a ruined America. She's foul-mouthed, curious about a world she barely remembers, quick to pick fights and quicker to laugh, and she carries something inside her that makes her matter more than she understands.

Bella Ramsey plays her as a kid performing toughness she hasn't fully earned yet, which makes the moments the mask slips land hard. The scripts trust her with real jokes and real cruelty in the same scene, and the push-pull between her and Joel gives every exchange a live wire of tension and tenderness.