Back when Bella Ramsey first charmed audiences as the adorable Lady Lyanna Mormont in Season 6 of Game of Thrones, none of us would’ve guessed that, just seven years later, she would be fighting to survive the apocalypse alongside Pedro Pascal in HBO’s adaptation of The Last of Us. It’s not that she doesn’t have the experience, mind you: after helping the Starks take back Winterfell from the Boltons, Lady Lyanna remained around to fight against the mindless, living-dead hordes of the Night King, so our girl knows a thing or two about fighting zombies. Still, it is quite a shock to see little Lady Lyanna all grown up and ready to kick some ass in a more modern setting. However, Bella Ramsey didn’t just hide in Bear Island after the end of Game of Thrones just to reemerge over half a decade later on a different show. Over the course of the past seven years, the now 19-year-old actress has kept on working, delivering one amazing performance after the other, the greatest of which has certainly been in the film Catherine Called Birdy.

Written and directed by Lena Dunham, Catherine Called Birdy is definitely one of the most delightful and underappreciated movies of 2022. It's a fable about learning to find happiness even in the direst of circumstances and fighting for your rights. The film stars Ramsey as its titular character, a smart, confident, and vivacious teenage girl living in 13th-century Lincolnshire whose life is turned upside down when her father decides that it’s time for her to marry. Acting opposite Andrew Scott (Sherlock, Fleabag), Billie Piper (Doctor Who), Lesley Sharp (The Full Monty), and Sophie Okonedo (Hotel Rwanda), Bella Ramsey delivers an amazing performance. Throughout the movie, she manages to convey all the energy, street smarts, and inventiveness of her character in a delightful way. However, she’s also able to break our hearts whenever Birdy is sad over the loss of her friends or crying in despair for having to marry the hideous Shaggy Beard (Paul Kaye). If you want to see Bella Ramsey’s full range, then Catherine Called Birdy is definitely the movie for you.

Andrew Scott and Bella Ramsey in Catherine Called Birdy
Image via Amazon Studios

Bella Ramsey Gives a Performance Beyond Her Years in 'Game of Thrones'

It was clear from the get-go that Bella Ramsey was a great actress. Even in a show with so many good child performers such as Game of Thrones, Ramsey, who was just 11 at the time, caught everyone’s attention when she first appeared as Lady Lyanna Mormont, the badass young girl who serves as the head of House Mormont. Even the lords of Westeros were smitten by this serious, angry young lady with no time for nonsense or small talk: Ser Davos (Liam Cunningham) and Lady Brienne (Gwendoline Christie) can hardly hide their glee at seeing such a small, adorable kid reaffirming her intentions to fight for the North in front of a bunch of disdainful old men in Season 6. By Season 8, they are all ready to rally behind her when she challenges Jon’s (Kit Harington) allegiance to Daenerys (Emilia Clarke).

Of course, it’s easy for audiences to fall in love with fictional angry little ladies. It’s the dissonance between the cuteness of their looks and the severity of their personalities that makes them so adorable. It’s Christina Ricci’s Wednesday Addams stating that she has only murder in mind or, to stick with Game of Thrones, Maisie Williams’ Arya Stark saying that the correct way to use a sword is to “stick them with the pointy end.” It’s threatening, it’s adorable, it’s perfect. However, just as it is easy for viewers to fawn over these kinds of characters, it is also very common for fans to feel nothing but hatred for fictional depictions of precocious children. Had Lady Lyanna been portrayed by a less capable actress, there were good chances of her behavior coming off as annoying instead of endearing. If Lyanna Mormont became a beloved character and one of the few good things in the final seasons of Game of Thrones, it’s all because of Ramsey and her ability to find the right tone.

It’s a talent that also comes in handy for her performance in Catherine Called Birdy. Despite the many differences between the two stories and characters, much like Lady Lyanna, Birdy has a personality that could easily be read as annoying on screen. She’s loud, messy, and constantly making jokes, and though it is pretty clear that the adults in the film find these traits to be less than charming, it would be a disaster if audiences were to agree with them. As viewers, we are supposed to side with Birdy and enjoy her shenanigans, and it would be a real shame if someone less skilled than Ramsey were to take over the part and ruin the experience.

Bella Ramsey as Lady Lyanna Mormont looking determined off-camera in Game of Thrones
Image via HBO

What Is 'Catherine Called Birdy' About?

Based on the novel of the same name by Karen Cushman, Catherine Called Birdy tells the story of a spirited young girl in medieval England trying to come to terms with the fact that her marriage to an awful lord might be her family’s only hope of escaping ruin. Ramsey stars as the titular Catherine - or Birdy, to her friends - a 14-year-old girl whose father, Lord Rollo (Scott), has spent all of the family’s money on things like clothes, drinks, and even a pet tiger. Now, in order to keep the family afloat, Rollo is trying to marry off his only daughter to any wealthy lord that will take her. The problem is that Birdy isn’t the least bit interested in being taken by any wealthy lords and does everything in her power to scare them away. From pretending to be someone else and making up stories about Lady Catherine’s spare extra ear to forcing a poor suitor to put live pigeons on his face as proof of his love, young Birdy seems to have mastered the art of remaining single for as long as possible.

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Things change for Birdy when a man known as Shaggy Beard comes into her life. A rich salesman and landlord who is said to own three small towns and a leper colony, Shaggy Beard, or Sir John Henry Murgaw, is described by Birdy as a “hideous mottled troll”. And, yep, that’s about right. After all, not only is Shaggy Bird old and ugly, but he is also a filthy, disgusting man who enjoys farting at wedding tables and making inappropriate comments about women. Trapped between accepting her fate and running away from home and never seeing her beloved family again, Birdy must find the best possible solution to her predicament and understand that things will not always bend to her will.

Around the main plot, a series of parallel stories develop, all of which center on the lives of women in medieval times: Birdy’s best friend, Aelis (Isis Hainsworth), wishes to marry for love, but her father has betrothed her to a nine-year-old boy. Birdy’s mother, Lady Aislinn (Piper), is pregnant again after a series of stillborns. Birdy’s beloved uncle George (Joe Alwyn) is marrying (for money) a much older woman named Ethelfritha (Okonedo), who has finally found some peace after becoming a widow and inheriting her many husbands’ estates.

In a Movie Full of Great Performances, Ramsey Is the Glue that Holds It All Together

But all of these stories, despite being perfectly capable of standing on their own, are only relevant as they relate to Birdy. It’s how they impact Birdy’s vision of the world and how they make her understand her own plight that matters. Likewise, all of the performances only become truly great through the actors’ interactions with Ramsey. This is not to say that performers like Billie Piper and Andrew Scott aren’t doing a good job in Catherine Called Birdy. Of course, they are, and so are Ainsworth, Alwyn, and Okonedo, but they are all there to make Ramsey’s character shine, and the way in which they give her the center of the stage seems effortless. At the same time, Ramsey’s performance brings out the best in all of her co-stars: Andrew Scott is truly revolting and exasperating as Birdy’s sorry excuse for a dad, but it is only through his scenes with Ramsey that we get the see the full extent of his character; Billie Piper is the mother every medieval lady wishes she had, but it is in her scenes with Ramsey that we see just how gentle this usually fiery actress can be.

One performance that is particularly worthy of note when it comes to how it complements Ramsey’s and vice-versa is that of Lesley Sharp, who plays Birdy’s nursemaid Morwena. The two actresses have an out-of-this-world chemistry that makes absolutely every scene with them delightful to watch. Morwena and Birdy love one another deeply, and this affection is palpable in Ramsey’s and Sharp’s performances, even when the two are screaming at each other.

In 'Catherine Called Birdy', Bella Ramsey Shows Us Her Funny Side

But perhaps the main reason to watch Catherine Called Birdy, performance-wise, is to see the full extent of Bella Ramsey’s range. Both in Game of Thrones and The Last of Us, her two most famous projects, Ramsey portrays somber characters in even darker settings. In Catherine Called Birdy, we are finally able to see her thrive in an environment free of zombies and whatnot, with a production design and cinematography that favor bright colors instead of darker tones. Birdy has her moments of sadness and despair, of course. After all, her situation is far from ideal. But being the sunny personality that she is, she’s constantly cracking jokes and pranking the people around her, not to mention all the times she just makes us laugh with her naivete (“I thought a virgin was when God made you pregnant.”) Ramsey delivers her lines with expert comedic timing, and there’s a certain effect to the way she speaks that only makes her funnier.

This by no means should be construed as an incentive for Ramsey to drop her more serious roles and devote herself exclusively to comedy. After all, we all know just how great she can be in those roles. But, hey, it sure feels good to find out that such a gifted young actress is gifted in more areas than one. Here’s to a long career for Bella Ramsey, with lots of characters like Lyanna Mormont and Ellie Williams, but also lots of Birdys!