Bella Ramsey has a message for The Last Of Us haters who slammed the latest season of the hit US drama.

“You don’t have to watch,” the British actor said while appearing on the podcast The Awardist earlier this month.

“If you hate it that much, the game exists. You can just play the game again. If you do want to watch it, hope you enjoy it.”

Bella went on to explain that because the “show is [already] out”, they don’t stress over the critics and avoid “reading or looking at anything” negative about the series.

“There’s nothing I can do about it anyway,” they pointed out. “The show is out. There’s nothing that can be changed or altered. So I’m like, there’s not really any point in reading or looking at anything.”

Noting that “people are of course entitled to their opinions,” Bella added: “But it doesn’t affect the show, it doesn’t affect how the show continues or anything in any way. They’re very separate things to me. So no, I just don’t really engage.”

Some fans criticised The Last Of Us after Pedro Pascal’s character Joel was killed off in season two. Though some details of his death were altered in the show’s adaptation, his brutal death aligns with Joel’s fate in the video game The Last Of Us Part II.

Meanwhile, other fans have focused on the differences in physical appearance between Bella and their character, compared to how Ellie is depicted in the video game series.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter in April, bella admitted that they became “quite fixated” on the differences in Ellie’s appearance and their own, but that the show’s co-creator Craig Mazin soothed their concerns.

“I got quite fixated on the way that Ellie looks in the game and her physical stature and, to be specific, the muscle definition in her arms. And I didn’t look like that. My body type isn’t that,” Bella shared.

They continued: “I talked about this a lot with Craig, and he never put that expectation on me. He wanted me to look strong and feel strong, and that was in how I carried myself, my posture and the confidence you have. It was a challenge for me to let myself off the hook for not looking computer-generated.”

A premiere date for the third season of the post-apocalyptic series, which first aired in 2023, has not yet been announced. The show was renewed for a third season in April.