Outnumbered star Ramona Marquez has spoken about her experience of growing up as an actor ahead of the show’s Christmas special next week.
Marquez, who is now 23, was just six when the BBC One show began airing in 2007. She played Karen Brockman, the youngest of three children to frazzled parents Pete (Hugh Dennis) and Sue (Claire Skinner), and sister to Jake (Tyger Drew-Honey) and Ben (Daniel Roche).
The sitcom ran for five seasons, the final season airing in 2014, before coming back for a Christmas special in 2016. Now, eight years later, it’s back for another special – marking the longest gap between episodes in the show’s history.
Marquez was five when she began filming Outnumbered and 13 when it ended, but told The Independent that, while she might have been in the public eye more than most children, it felt normal for her.
“I’ve never known any different,” she said. “I was so young. I do have some memories from before I was five, but not many. I hear about other instances in TV where young kids were exploited, and I feel lucky that we were always respected.”
Ramona Marquez as Karen in the 2024 Christmas special. CREDIT: BBC/Hat Trick Productions/Adam Lawrence
However, she said that the media coverage could sometimes be more difficult for the Outnumbered kids as they grew up. About one article from 2021, which said that Marquez was “selling off her old bras for £4 after quitting acting for uni,” Marquez responded: “I sold a sports bra. It wasn’t even mine. I’d never even seen it before. It just must have been my sister’s or something, who knows, and then it was in the news. And it was such a misrepresentation. It was just a crazy, crazy thing to write.
“It was so out there that even the readers were commenting, saying, ‘I read the story and she’s sold like 500 things on Depop. You’re portraying that to be something quite sinister.’ You sometimes think, well, you know, I could be doing that. There’d be nothing wrong with that if I wanted to, but I’m actually not, so let’s just keep the facts straight.”
In 2016, after attending Reading Festival, Marquez had to shut down rumours that she’d taken drugs, too, writing on social media at the time: “I really enjoyed Reading and meeting lots of fans and cool people it was so lit. It is pretty upsetting though now seeing people posting about me and saying that I’m doing drugs and really horrible things like that.”
Eight years later, she said: “That one year at Reading Festival, that was probably the only time it’s ever been super funny or crazy. Luckily I was with a big group of friends and we just made a joke out of it. Every time someone asked for a photo, all my friends would get in, it’d be like a massive group photo. It was quite funny. But without those people around me, I wouldn’t be so comfortable going somewhere like that alone. Because you do feel vulnerable in a way.”
Elsewhere, Marquez admitted that she’d like to get back into acting after finishing university, calling it her “complete passion and ambition,” while she’s also been learning to tattoo.
And, as for the Christmas special, it’s “classic Outnumbered chaos.” The plot has been kept carefully under wraps, but it was revealed that Pete and Sue are now grandparents – and Marquez revealed that it’s Jake who’s now a parent to a daughter.
The official trailer was released earlier this week, too, and you can watch it below.
Outnumbered is set to air at 9:40pm on Boxing Day (December 26) on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.
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