Filming "Sunny Dancer," about a summer camp for teenagers with cancer, turned out to be completely different from what Bella Ramsay expected - and in the best possible way, the "Game of Thrones" star told Reuters ahead of the film's premiere at the Berlinale.
"When the email first came in about it, I thought, 'I don't think I'm going to like this,'" the 22-year-old actress said.
"And then it was perfect - it was completely not what I thought it would be, in the best way."
Ramsey plays Ivy, a 17-year-old cancer survivor who wants nothing to do with the camp her parents have signed her up for.
But the teenagers she meets there are far from the fragile group she imagined - they secretly drink alcohol, fight, flirt and generally cause trouble - so Ivy quickly throws away her reservations.
"Sunny Dancer", which also stars Neil Patrick Harris, Ruby Stokes and James Norton, opens the festival's Generation 14plus selection, intended for the film program for young adults.
"There's not a single hospital scene. No, not a single one," said Ramsay, who also starred in the series "The Last of Us."
After doing the necessary "sensitive" work (consultations and checks) at the beginning, screenwriter and director George Jakes "freed" the crew to focus on the fun, the actress recalled.
For his second feature film, Jakes knew he wanted to make a film about cancer, but more of a comedy or coming-of-age film.
He drew on the experience of watching his mother battle cancer when he was a teenager, and later on working with a British charity that helps teenagers with cancer.
"You realize how naughty they are and how much fun they are and how they do chemotherapy in Ed Hardy jeans and Jordan sneakers," Jakes said.
He added that he wanted to break the stereotype that these are just "poor, sickly children lying in hospital beds."
"They are full of life," he said. "And they are much more interesting than their diagnosis."
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