Eight year old Ramona Marquez became the first child to be named best female newcomer at the British Comedy Awards for her role as Karen in the BBC sitcom Outnumbered. Outnumbered ran for 5 series between 2007 and 2014. The hit show, which was partly improvised, won a series of awards, including a Royal Television Society Award and three British Comedy Awards. A lot of time has passed since then but it will take you less than a minute to catch up with your favourite child actress once you’ve finished our list.
Ramona Marquez: 10 Unbelievable Facts That Are True
Ramona Marquez became the first 8 year old to beat adults to an award:
At the time, this little blonde beauty was Britain’s hottest new comedy actress who improvised(yes, no joke) most of her own material. Back then the young actress also found time to attend Brownies and learn to ride a bike. Therefore it goes with any surprise that in 2009, Ramona Marquez became the first child to win the British Comedy Award for ‘Best Female Comedy Newcomer. Watch the video here:
It was three years ago when the wife of the show’s creator Guy Jenkins spotted five-year old Ramona at a birthday party acting in a very confident and mature manner. Starring Hugh Dennis and Claire Skinner as harassed middle-class parents with three unruly children, Outnumbered also won two other comedy awards on the night, including ‘Best TV Comedy’ that night. Interestingly, the children’s performances are mostly improvised to make them more realistic.
At the family home in Wandsworth, south-west London, Ramona’s father Martin Marquez said: ‘We are naturally delighted and very pleased and proud.’ Martin Marquez, is also an actor and has starred in Murder Most Horrid, The Bill, EastEnders and rather recently Hotel Babylon.
The show’s other 2 stars Daniel Roche, ten, and Tyger Drew-Honey were also nominated for the best male newcomer. Daniel (who plays the naughty brother Ben), then 13, said:
‘Ramona, Tyger and I are all really good friends and we do feel like brother and sister…’It was fantastic at the awards ceremony as people were asking for our autographs so Ramona and I were signing them like proper pop stars…Dawn French and David Tennant came to speak to us to tell us how much they liked our show and how good we were, which was a fantastic surprise.’
Ramona Marquez is now studying at the University of Manchester:
You know her as the kid who played Karen in BBC show Outnumbered, upwards of the year 2007 but today, Ramona Marquez, is currently a fresher at the University of Manchester. She isn’t the first one to pursue this path, as the other kids from the cast have also started to show up at universities. In 2018, it was reported that Daniel Roche, Ramona’s on-screen brother, had begun his education as a fresher at King’s College London.
Just a year ago, the actress was living the college life as she was spotted by many around campus and on nights out. One student told The Manchester Tab: “I saw her at a flat party in Beech Court.” Another said: “My flatmate knows someone who lives with her in halls. She’s in Squirrels all the time and my flatmate has seen her in Fallow Sainsbury’s.”
Ramona Marquez has taken up Spanish and Mandarin, and although she doesn’t appear to be a member of the university’s Drama Society, she seems to be making the most of the opportunity to explore the city of Manchester instead. She had been posting about her excavations to various the pub and club bathrooms in Manchester’s Gay Village and Piccadilly Gardens through her Instagram.
Her Instagram boasts upwards of 100,000 followers:
Ramona Marquez often offers her 102,000 followers a glimpse into her life since her show ended, revealing in an Instagram post that she’s got a boyfriend, called Olly. She posted a photo of the two of them together captioned:
“Happy 18th to my man child, I love you sm, Im so proud to be your girlfriend ❤️ hope our day together today is amazing! 😘❤️”.
Ramona has also used the platform to reflect on her childhood, sharing adorable pictures of herself where she looks much closer to the Karen fans know and love. Other than this, Ramona and her fellow Outnumbered stars Tyger Drew-Honey who played Jake, and Daniel Roche who played her brother Ben, regularly delight fans by posting photos of them having reunions.
On her 18th birthday, she shares several cheeky pictures from her nights out with pals.
Ramona Marquez shocked a fan when she turned up at his house to retrieve her lost phone:
Her Instagram at one point was full of her at festivals like Rototom and Boomtown. As we know she uses her phone to film these events, but did you know that she famously lost her phone at Boomtown, only to have it returned to her by someone else who went to the same festival? In 2017, the blonde star suffered a major mishap when she lost her mobile phone at the event – but wasted no time in calling her phone to reunite with it again.
According to one festival-goer Connor Parkinson, the young actress showed up at his front door, asking for her phone which he had found after she dropped it. Out of gratitude, Ramona posed for a picture with Connor which was uploaded to his Twitter by his sister Kerri-Rose.
‘Brother found a phone at boomtown, the owner came to pick it up and turned out to be Karen from outnumbered hahahaha [sic],’ she captioned.
Ramona Marquez marked her 18th birthday with giant dragon tattoo:
Fans of Outnumbered are often surprised when they realise how much the brown eyed beauty has changed since she starred as little Karen. The then 18 year old revealed she’d got a tattoo on her arm soon after her birthday, posting a picture of the inking captioned: “Chillin…Thanks for all the lovely messages about my tattoo by the way ❤️🌱🐲🐉 lov u all”.
The English actress inked a huge dragon on her upper arm, which she got to celebrate her 18th birthday. Ramona initially teased the inking on her own page of the photo sharing site, before later sharing the finished results with her fans.
Ramona Marquez has her own sense of style:
The British actress has transformed from her former blonde tousled locks to much darker longer hair, which she styles into plaits and a large fringe. These days she wears more black clothing on her Instagram, donning a heavy swipe of metallic glittery eyeshadow and big black eyelashes.
One student who’s seen her said: “She has a cleopatra haircut and dresses a bit punky. She fits the Fallow girl stereotype to a ‘T’.”
Ramona looked a far cry from her former angelic blonde curls, but that’s the difference between an improvised yet scripted show and an 18 year old enjoying the realities of life.
Ramona Marquez was the target of internet trolls for alleged drugs:
The Boomtown festival wasn’t Ramona’s only festival; she was forced to defend herself as she was accused of using drugs at the Reading Festival. In August 2016, she soon found herself the target of online trolls who accused her of being on drugs at the music event.
Some witnesses snapped photos of her and claimed she was “off her nut” on some substance as she partied with friends. She posted a picture of Karen on her friend’s shoulders, captioning it, ‘Karen from outnumbered was in front of me at stormzy off her nut how peakkk???? [sic].’
Another tweet read, ‘Reading was all good until I saw Karen from outnumbered pinging out of her nut????’, while a third said, ‘Amy and i saw karen from outnumbered off her face at reading lool [sic].’
Meanwhile, her on-screen brother Daniel Roche was also faced with similar allegations – at the same Boomtown concert as Ramona. In September 2016, a video surfaced online of the English actor then aged 16, appearing a little bleary-eyed after seemingly drinking from a beer bong at Reading festival.
Footage shows the high-spirited teen partying up a storm at the event, looking worlds apart from his on-screen alter-ego. With a flower garland around his neck, it was reported that he was courteous to fans who recognised him from the popular television show. And the video continues, with Daniel singing along to the name of the class B drug along with the crowds.
Meanwhile, Ramona was quick to defend herself by taking to social media to hit back at her critics, questioning why they would be so nasty and denied that she had taken drugs:
‘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 Im doing drugs and really horrible things like that??
‘I just don’t understand why people feel the need to being a**holes, it’s such a p**s take. But apart from that everyone was so lovely [sic].’
Ramona Marquez is constantly reminded of the things that Karen said at age 5:
It goes without saying that if you bump into any of the show’s former child stars in the supermarket, it’s probably best not to mention how much they’ve grown, as Tyger Drew-Honey in particular, is a bit sick of it.
“We age at exactly the same rate as everyone else on the planet,” the actor, who played Jake in the sitcom, told Digital Spy. “It does seem slightly absurd that people don’t acknowledge that.
“I’ve always been a bit weirded out when people say, ‘I thought you were about 12!’ And I say, ‘Yeah, eight years ago – how old were you?’ ’16……”‘And how old are you now?’ ’24.’ ‘Yeah, that’s how that works.'”
Ramona on the other hand, seems to take it a little more lighthearted. In 2016, she revealed that she is constantly reminded of the things her TV alias Karen said when she began the role at the age of 5.
The then 15-years-old, had said that GIFs and memes remind her constantly about how “brutal” her character was. Revealing to Buzzfeed, she admitted: “I’ve definitely stumbled across a GIF of Karen saying funny things.
“I don’t know at the time when I was filming it, the things I was saying. I guess that when you’re a kid you do sort of say things, the brutal reality of things, and that’s why Karen is funny, because she says it like it is.” The actress added: “I guess I find it weird because I never thought of it at the time as being significant to anyone, so it is a bit strange, but I do think it is really nice and funny.”
Ramona Marquez’s Outnumbered days are over after posing with a cigarette:
The English actress looked far from her Outnumbered childhood as she pulled us into the reality of growing up, pictured lighting a rolled up cigarette on Instagram. The actress who celebrated her 18th birthday was seen in a bedroom as she leaned towards a flame with the cigarette in hand and flashing a smile.
Smiling to herself, looking pleasantly into the flame from her lighter, Ramona sported a more mature look compared to her younger character Karen. She posed in glitzy eyeshadow, with her dark hair styled into two plaits, she sure is growing up, but did it come at a cost?
The image was posted on Instagram by one of her friends in celebration of her 18th birthday and we’re sure Ramona enjoyed plenty of partying for the big day, as her Instagram account was loaded with pictures of her sipping on drinks and dancing with friends that week.
Ramona also shared a snap of herself getting a tattoo later in the week. It seems the young star is making more friends away from her hit show, and making much more memories along the way too.
One friend of hers stated: “Ramona is a really lovely girl, everyone likes her. She’s got loads of friends. “She’s very sweet but she also likes to party. She knows how to have a good time.”
Ramona’s been acting since childhood:
- When she was six years old, the young English actress landed the breakout role of Karen Brockman in the BBC comedy series Outnumbered. Parts of the show are improvised and while the adult actors learn the scripts. This is because the 3 child stars were given last-minute instructions by the writers on the day of filming, to run with the latest story.
- In 2009, Ramona became the first child to win the British Comedy Award for Best Female Comedy Newcomer, at the age of 8.
- Ramona Marquez also starred as the quizzical and chatty Karen from 2007 to 2014.
- In 2009, Ramona Marquez starred as Imogen Pollock in the made-for-TV movie Enid which detailed the life of children’s author Enid Blyton and starred Helena Bonham Carter in the lead role.
- The following year Ramona Marquez starred as Princess Margaret in The King’s Speech alongside Colin Firth and Helena Bonham Carter again.
- In 2011, Ramona Marquez provided the voice of Gwen in Arthur Christmas for which she was nominated for a Young Artist Award, and played a grandchild of one of the lead stars in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.