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Daddy, what’s a twat?” Ramona Marquez was simply 5 years previous when she uttered this line – certainly the stuff of each guardian’s nightmares – within the 2007 pilot of Outnumbered on BBC One. It was one in every of her very first items of dialogue as Karen, a sweet-faced mess of blonde curls with a knack for tough questions. The encounter, which happened along with her frazzled father one morning earlier than faculty, set the tone for the frenzied household sitcom which, for seven years, adopted the Brockmans as they grappled with the unhinged actuality of controlling three wayward youngsters.
The present returned for a Christmas particular in 2016 (by which Karen was a teen glued to her glittery iPhone), and it’s again once more this yr for one more one-off festive episode. Hugh Dennis and Claire Skinner are reprising their roles as mother and father Pete and Sue, with Daniel Roche and Tyger Drew-Honey again as Karen’s older brothers Ben and Jake. “It’s traditional Outnumbered chaos,” Marquez, now 23, tells me from a shed within the backyard of the house she shares along with her girlfriend in southeast London. Particulars on the episode are a carefully guarded secret, and Marquez is just actually in a position to inform me about one plotline. “We’re joined by a grandchild [Jake has had a daughter] – so Karen’s an auntie!”
Outnumbered was groundbreaking when it arrived within the Noughties: a present that appealed to everybody from the age of six to 96, and with the kids’s dialogue nearly completely improvised. Marquez, Roche and Drew-Honey could be requested by creators Andy Hamilton and Man Jenkin to give you humorous issues to say in every scene, which means that, as actors, Dennis and Skinner have been regularly on the mercy of regardless of the youngsters mentioned. Absolutely no grownup may have dreamt up this line of Karen’s, when she earnestly explains that fairies might be deadly: “They fly down your throat and switch your coronary heart right into a pumpkin then your blood stops operating and then you definately die.” The present’s genius lay in its superb, at instances nearly surreal unpredictability.
Marquez was 5 when Outnumbered started and 13 when it ended. Throughout that point, we watched her develop from a scrappy however angelic child right into a brunette teen getting ready to adolescence. She virtually grew up in public, though for her in fact, it merely felt regular. “I’ve by no means identified any completely different,” says Marquez. “I used to be so younger. I do have some recollections from earlier than I used to be 5, however not many. I hear about different cases in TV the place younger children have been exploited, and I really feel fortunate that we have been at all times revered.” That didn’t imply it’s at all times been simple. Whereas the day-to-day expertise of filming holds “the most effective recollections” for Marquez, it was what occurred off-set that could possibly be tough. The tabloid curiosity could possibly be intense. Over time, there have been numerous sensationalised tales concerning the Outnumbered forged showing within the press. “Ramona Marquez appears to be like worlds away from Karen Brockman and exhibits off HUGE tattoos” was one typical headline earlier this yr. One other, printed by The Solar in 2021 whereas Marquez was learning Spanish and Mandarin in Manchester, screamed: “Ramona Marquez promoting off her previous BRAS for £4 after quitting appearing for uni.”
Marquez remembers the bra headline nicely. “I bought a sports activities bra. It wasn’t even mine. I’d by no means even seen it earlier than. It simply should have been my sister’s or one thing, who is aware of, after which it was within the information. And it was such a misrepresentation. It was only a loopy, loopy factor to jot down.” She laughs. “It was so on the market that even the readers have been commenting, saying, ‘I learn the story and he or she’s bought like 500 issues on Depop. You’re portraying that to be one thing fairly sinister.’ You typically suppose, nicely, you understand, I could possibly be doing that. There’d be nothing incorrect with that if I needed to, however I’m really not, so let’s simply hold the information straight.”
She was additionally recognised a good quantity in public. Six million folks watched Outnumbered in its prime. And being a teen is difficult sufficient as it’s, with out so many individuals understanding who you’re. In 2016, after attending Studying Competition, she was compelled to close down rumours she had taken medication. “I actually loved Studying and assembly numerous followers and funky folks it was so lit,” she wrote on social media on the time. “It’s fairly upsetting although now seeing folks posting about me and saying that Im doing medication and actually horrible issues like that,” she added. “I simply don’t perceive why folks really feel the necessity to being assholes, it’s such a piss-take.”
“That one yr at Studying Competition, that was in all probability the one time it’s ever been tremendous humorous or loopy,” she tells me now. “Fortunately I used to be with an enormous group of mates and we simply made a joke out of it. Each time somebody requested for a photograph, all my mates would get in, it’d be like a large group photograph. It was fairly humorous. However with out these folks round me, I wouldn’t be so snug going someplace like that alone. Since you do really feel weak in a method.”
Right this moment Marquez is not recognisable as that curly-haired grasp interrogator. After we meet over Zoom, she’s dressed all in black, her hair dyed darkish, with winged eyeliner and a crucifix necklace. However she nonetheless has that very same husky voice, and he or she can also be now a vegan, which can or could not have been a consequence of the Outnumbered scene by which Karen attracts felt-tip photos of cows killing folks as a result of they don’t need to be made into hamburgers. She hasn’t been on display because the 2016 Christmas particular, aside from a quick Outnumbered Youngsters in Want skit final month. However she could be very lively on social media, and her position as Karen has nabbed her a not-insignificant fanbase – she has 129,000 followers on Instagram.
She could be very level-headed concerning the consideration, good and dangerous. “I normally discover it fairly humorous,” she says. “Perhaps I’m simply desensitised to it. I do know the individuals who like me and there’ll at all times be individuals who don’t such as you, aren’t there? Particularly in the event you’re perhaps a bit on the market or a bit bit different or posting about having bushy legs.” When she did precisely this in 2022, it sparked on-line debate. “I simply suppose, nicely, you wouldn’t need to attraction to these sort of folks anyway.”
Throughout the filming of Outnumbered, Marquez notched up a handful of different childhood display credit; she appeared within the 2009 TV film Enid concerning the lifetime of Enid Blyton, and within the 2010 Colin Firth movie The King’s Speech as a younger Princess Margaret. Now that she’s completed uni, she’s hoping to get again into appearing. “I like that world,” she says. “It’s my full ardour and ambition. However I’ve been doing different stuff on the aspect, corresponding to studying to tattoo, as a result of clearly for an actor, there might be huge intervals between jobs.” She additionally values the next that Outnumbered has given her on socials, the place she will submit about causes she cares about, corresponding to veganism. “Lesbian, vegan and a sober girly,” reads her Instagram bio. Marquez is actually not an impish five-year-old worrying about lethal fairies anymore.
The ‘Outnumbered’ Christmas particular airs at 9.40pm on Boxing Day on BBC One
