Bella Ramsey has admitted that they were “naive” ahead of filming the second season of The Celebrity Traitors, as they dropped some cryptic hints about their upcoming appearance.
The 22-year-old Game of Thrones and The Last of Us star will join the likes of Richard E Grant, Michael Sheen, Miranda Hart and James Blunt on series two of the reality spin-off, which is set to air later this year.
Ramsey, who uses they/them pronouns, told The Guardian that they signed up for the competition because of their love of the party game Mafia, on which the Traitors format is loosely based.
However, they suggested that the process wasn’t quite as simple as they had anticipated, as “what you see on screen isn’t actually what it is”.
Ramsey started playing Mafia when they attended the Television Workshop in Nottingham, the drama organisation that launched the careers of stars such as Line of Duty’s Vicky McClure, Skins’ Jack O’Connell and The Odyssey’s Samantha Morton, “so I’ve been playing it since I was 11”, they said.
“I love it so much,” they added. “I’ve done Mafia nights at my flat. So fun. In my head, it was just like, I’m going to go to this castle and play this game for two weeks.”
“So I’m like, you just go and you do that. But I’m too naive. I should know, after doing this [acting] for so many years, that what you see on screen isn’t actually what it is.”
Ramsey went on to joke that they “might try to be out of the country” when the show airs, as the show’s popularity will likely bring them renewed attention.
“Suddenly everyone recognises you and you’re famous for two weeks, and then there’s somebody else,” they added. “So it will be a bit of a thing for a few weeks and then people will move on, you know?”
The first season of The Celebrity Traitors aired last autumn, with the finale breaking records to draw in an average live audience of 11.1 million viewers, making it the UK’s biggest unscripted TV episode since 2022.
The dramatic final episode saw comedian Alan Carr, who played as a Traitor from the opening episode, win £87,500 for Neuroblastoma UK, after managing to hoodwink Faithful Nick Mohammed.
