The Last Of Us breakout star Bella Ramsey has signed on to play the White Widow, one Britain’s most notorious terrorist suspects.
The Last Of Us season 2 is well into production, but that hasn’t stopped Bella Ramsey from branching out. Deadline reports that Ramsey will star in Girl Next Door, writer-director Bruce Goodison’s film about Sherafiyah Lewthwaite, also known as the White Widow.
The film will tell the story of “a 21 year old suburban mother of two who became radicalised”. The real Lewthwaite, who was born as Samatha Louise Lewthwaite, is the widow of one of the 7/7 bombers and is accused of causing more than 400 deaths.
“This film is about a young life-affirming idealist with a broken heart,” Goodison said of his film, which is currently in development. “Sam turns her grief into a strength that was then exploited by men for purposes of global terror. I just didn’t believe the hype – was Sam really the terrorist mastermind the press and anti-terror police would have us believe, or was there another truth? Her truth.”
He added, “I’ve written an unsettling mystery that asks how it might feel if the person you love and expect to share a life with goes out one day and commits an act of terror that challenges everything you hold dear. Sam goes on an odyssey that both consumes her and alters her. Little by little she is isolated and radicalised and it could be argued this was as a result of being rejected by us.”
Goodison also notes that he spoke to several people in Lewthwaite’s life and also obtained one of her personal diaries.
“The film is unapologetically from Sam’s perspective – anyone playing Sam needs to be fearless. Bella Ramsey is the perfect fit. Bella will bring heart, life and complexity to this role.”
Filming for Girl Next Door is expected to take place in October, but there’s no release date as of yet and no other casting news.
More on this as we get it.
