“My life doesn’t revolve around my job anymore”: Fallout’s Ella Purnell on finding her feet after 20 years

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“My life doesn't revolve around my job anymore”: Fallout’s Ella Purnell on finding her feet after 20 years

“Happy Fallout Day!” Ella Purnell exclaims as she tucks into the piece of carrot cake she has been eyeing up throughout her Cosmopolitan shoot. A shoot which coincidentally took place on the day sacred to fans of the gaming series Fallout. The video game turned Prime Video TV series stars Purnell as the show’s lead Lucy MacLean, a young naive woman who ventures out of the safety of her post-apocalyptic vault to find her father in the dangerous wasteland above. And today, 23rd October (2077) is the date the aforementioned apocalypse takes place.

Luckily, things feel decidedly less dramatic today. 29-year-old Purnell is sitting curled up on a blue velvet sofa, her dark smoky eye make-up an odd juxtaposition to the laidback striped jumper and brown Adidas trackpants she arrived wearing earlier today, now complete with a mug of tea in her hands. She’s in between night shoots for Sweetpea season two, the Sky drama series she stars in and executive produces, but right now she’s focused on telling me about the fox that lives in her garden. “She doesn’t like vegetables. But she loves a Garibaldi and Jammie Dodgers, but only the strawberry flavoured Jammie Dodgers, not the raspberry ones.” Purnell is also currently debating what to watch on TV with her flatmate this evening, “I had to have a [reality TV] intervention in 2019. I would be up for nine hours catching up on Love Island, and it ruined my life.”

With over two decades in the industry, the Ella Purnell sitting in front of me today has the relaxed confidence of someone who consciously chooses to focus on the small joys in life, like guilty pleasure TV and biscuit-eating animals.

T-shirt and hot pants: Agro Studio; Shoes: Christian Louboutin; Necklace: Bleue Burnham; Bracelet: Ferian; Ring, left hand: Dauphin; Ring, right hand: Maria Black; Earrings: Dévé

“I enjoy my little life. The other versions of who I could be attempting to be are fun to try on for a day or two – you get all dressed up and go to the Emmys and that’s so exciting – but I do know now that’s not who I am,” she reflects. “My life doesn’t revolve around my job anymore. It took me a long time to realise that this is not my life, it’s my work, and making that separation has been quite important for me.”

Growing Up On The Big Screen

From birth, the lines of Purnell’s personal and professional lives have been blurred. The native east Londoner began life as a baby model, working from six months to age seven in front of the camera, “I remember some photo shoots, but I was quite young. I did my first commercial when I was eight.” Then came a role in Oliver on the West End, which she balanced with school and time at Sylvia Young Theatre School, where she did weekly acting classes.

After that it was parts in blockbusters Never Let Me Go, Kick Ass 2, Maleficent, The Legend of Tarzan and her first major role alongside Asa Butterfield in Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.

In 2017 she made the move to New York and TV shows, where she led in the Brad Pitt produced series Sweetbitter about a woman working in a restaurant, before going onto voice lead characters in Arcane and Star Trek: Prodigy.

And then came Yellowjackets, the Showtime series about a high school girls football team who have a plane crash over the Canadian wilderness and spend the next few years learning to survive. Purnell plays Jackie, the team captain, who [SPOILER] eventually dies and is eaten by her fellow teammates (lovely). After her death in season one, she has returned in a guest capacity featuring in her teammates’ dreams.

Jacket: Issy Brightmore; Dress: Frances O; Boots: Lili Curia; Necklace: Maria Black; Ring, left hand: Dauphin; Rings, right hand: both Maria Black

Does she ever think about what would happen if Jackie had survived the wilderness? Would she have married her high school boyfriend Jeff? “There’s two versions of it. There’s the version where she comes back from the wilderness and is so desperate to return to how she was that she would have just married him right away and then probably had some sort of nervous breakdown 20 years later. Or there’s the version where she is changed forever,” she ruminates.

Fallout’s Return

It’s her role in Fallout, though, that Purnell considers to have catapulted her to fame. The Prime Video series debuted in April 2024 and became the streamer’s second most watched series of all time, after Lord of The Rings: The Rings of Power, with 100million viewers and counting. It’s inspired by, but not a direct adaption of the video game series, and Purnell’s character Lucy, along with Walton Goggins’ Ghoul, Kyle MacLachlan’s Hank and co-star Aaron Moten’s Maximus are all original characters.

“I think the creators [Graham Wagner and Geneva Robertson-Dworet] probably feel that [pressure] much more than the actors, especially because our characters aren’t from the game. It’s not like The Last of Us, where it’s almost frame by frame. We had a little bit more autonomy and creative license,” Purnell explains of the pressure to keep the millions of game fans happy with their adaptation.

Purnell, who had never played the game before the series, received the script in 2022 and was immediately hooked by the character of Lucy. “The way they described her was with a little bit of a comedy edge, like somebody who would star in a toothpaste commercial but could also kill you. And I was like, ‘oh, that sounds right up my street’,” she reflects.

Coat, shirt, bag, shoes, socks: all Miu Miu; Earrings: Completedworks

Fast forward three years, and she’s spent a lot of time in Lucy’s world. Does she see any similarities between herself and Lucy? “I do actually. I’m not as naive as her. I’ve obviously lived a lot. I’ve grown up in this industry, and you learn a lot having that experience. I think we’ve come at it in different ways, but arrived at the same place, which is – I tend to see the good in people and have quite a positive outlook.

“My thing is solutions and making the best of a bad situation. That is where me and Lucy really meet. She’s very obviously gullible. She doesn’t have any life experience. She’s like an alien who’s just landed on the Earth.”

That may have been the case at the start of season one, when, after her community’s vault and home is pillaged by raiders, Lucy takes it upon herself to venture into the world above, completely clueless as to what would meet her. But now, as the first episodes of the second season air on 17th December, Lucy is in a remarkably different space. Yes, she still has that school girl-esque, wide-eyed optimism, but there’s an edge to her after uncovering the truth about her father and his role in the nuclear war.

This season she begins an unconventional road trip with the Ghoul (Goggins) to New Vegas. It’s a relationship of polar opposites, and one the internet has tried to turn romantic. Does Purnell find it frustrating to see that platonic relationship made into something more? “No, it’s just people,” she sighs. “I’ve grown up in this industry. I think what’s more surprising to me is that people find the Ghoul hot, and that’s been there since day one. To me, he’s terrifying.”

One thing Purnell is keen for the audience to see in this new season is the development of the pair’s relationship and how their differing outlooks impact each other, “They want the same thing. They want answers, and to find Hank. But their big confounding difference is, what are they going to do when they find him? Because their versions of justice are obviously not similar. And so it’s about how they influence each other on this journey they’re on.”

The show was renewed for a third (and likely final) season back in May. Filming is yet to begin and so Purnell, like the rest of us, is none the wiser as to Lucy’s future story arc. In the world of Fallout, the options are bleak and show no sign of changing any time soon. Is a happy ending even possible for Lucy?

Jacket: George Trochopoulos; Dress: Issy Brightmore; Earrings: Bleue Burnham; Rings: Dauphin; Shoes: Amina Muaddi; Knickers: Stylist’s own

“I’m excited for season three,” Purnell says, her eyes lighting up at the prospect. “What does she do next? Who is she going to be? Is she going to go back to the Vault? Is she going to lead a revolution? Is she going to get shot? Is she going to survive? Is she going to just shack up somewhere in the Wasteland and cut hair for a living? I don’t know. I don’t know what they’ve got in store, but I do know that with all she’s seen, all she’s learned, she will not be the same Lucy.”

A Bloody Career

Fallout season three isn’t the only thing Purnell will have coming up next year, with the second season of Sweetpea due for release. The Sky dark-comedy series, based on CJ Skuse’s novel of the same name, came out last year and stars Purnell as Rhiannon, a meek newspaper receptionist who turns into a cold-blooded killer following her dad’s death.

The season ended on a major cliff-hanger, and while Purnell is bound to secrecy for what is to come for Rhiannon, she teases “it’s very different from season one. We have so many huge pieces, production elements, gorgeous sets, really fun new characters and Rhiannon is also, you know, murder aside, growing and learning.”

Ah yes, murder. For the last five years Purnell herself admits that despite not wanting to be typecast she has found herself covered in blood in all her roles lately. “I’m definitely drawn to complexity,” she says when I ask about the common threads that link these women. “People aren’t good or bad. There’s so much more. And I love the layers, I mean, God, [give me] like 50 of them. I’ve always loved psychology, and I love to psychoanalyse people and psychoanalyse myself constantly. I’m like, ‘Oh, I picked up that apple, weird. I wonder why?’ That’s why I love acting so much. I love the prep period where you’re just going in, like, ‘why does she drive this beaten up old car if she’s got a lot of money? Well, that’s interesting. Let’s think about it. Why would she do that?’”

Jacket: Issy Brightmore; Dress: Frances O; Boots: Lili Curia; Necklace: Maria Black; Ring, left hand: Dauphin; Rings, right hand: both Maria Black

Purnell now has the freedom to choose the roles that really speak to her and also produce on some projects such as Sweetpea. But she acknowledges it wasn’t always this way, “When you’re self employed and you don’t work a regular nine to five and there’s no guarantee of your next job, that’s a really scary place to live. For most of my life, that has been the reality. You muddy your own boundaries because you want to ensure you’re going to work again. You want to ensure you can be likeable. You want to ensure you can be hireable. You’ve got this scarcity mindset around securing a job or securing your income. And I feel very grateful that I don’t feel that pressure anymore.”

And even now she admits, being a producer doesn’t always give the control we think it may do, “I have control over smaller things like what my character wears, but I don’t control the schedule. I wish I could be like, ‘No, I don’t work on Tuesday. Sadly, not for me.’”

There’s a scene in episode six of Fallout season one where Cooper Howard hangs out with his actor buddy Sebastian (Matt Berry), who exclaims the pair are no longer actors, but products for the end of the world. While we’re not quite in dystopian territory yet, has there been a time Purnell has felt like a product in Hollywood?

She ponders the question before answering, “I feel quite lucky that I have found my feet now. I’ve been doing this for 20 years, and that’s not nothing, and it seems crazy because I am so young, and a lot of people are surprised when they hear that. Or for some reason, my young age discredits my years of experience.

“I experienced profound confusion and grappled with my sense of identity as a teenager growing up in this industry at a time where all young women are trying on all these different versions of who they want to be. I was doing that in the public eye, and I was also doing that whilst my job was literally to be other people. You are a product trying to sell another product.”

Purnell adds: “I feel lucky that my newfound success off the back of Fallout has happened at a place where I do actually feel quite stable and quite sure about who I am.”

The Real Ella

So who is Ella Purnell? “I’m very organised. I’m a complete perfectionist. I’m really A1 Virgo, but at the same time, incredibly chaotic. I’ve had three separate squirrel attacks. I am Mama Bear protective and I love handbags,” she laughs.

She’s also a born and bred east Londoner, who grew up with three half-siblings. She lives where the work is (“that sounds really w**ky and pretentious” she notes), but Hackney is home. A dream London weekend involves walks around Victoria Park, stopping for a “silly little cake”, a visit to Colombia Road Flower Market on a Sunday morning and eating Bone Daddies ramen, with a cinema trip chucked in for good measure. There’s also the discussion bowl. “Throughout the week if we [my roommate and I] have things we feel we need to talk about, we put it in the discussion bowl,” she explains. “For example, should I start wearing glasses? We need to talk about these things. What is our go-to karaoke duet? We need to lock that in, in case [the situation] ever arises.”

The duet may not be decided but Purnell does reveal they spend many evenings doing karaoke on SingStar ABBA, ‘The Winner Takes it All’ is her current favourite. Would she want to be part of Mamma Mia 3? “Yes! Has it been confirmed?” she asks. “Just let me know, I’m free.”

Through our conversation it becomes clear her friends are her life. This Christmas she and her flatmate are planning to create their own Christmas cards, “It’s an awkward photo shoot, and it’s just you and your best mate in matching outfits doing really cringe couple poses.” She’ll also be spending all of the big day in her pyjamas.

Coat, shirt, bag, shoes, socks: all Miu Miu; Earrings: Completedworks

It’s unlikely we’ll see any of this. In the last year Purnell has withdrawn more from social media. At the beginning of 2025 she turned off all comments on her Instagram, aside from promotional posts, after her followers thought she was eating the turtles she had shared on her feed.

“I posted some pictures of baby turtles, and all the commenters thought I was eating them for some reason,” she explains. “And anyway that was turtlegate, and after turtlegate, I was like, ‘I can’t be doing this’ I can’t be fighting with people on the internet about eating turtles. So I don’t have my comments on and it actually was so freeing.”

As we head into a new year, while her career may still be on the bloody side, Purnell is looking for more laughs. “I’d love to do a comedy. I’d love to do some weird s**t. Maybe a musical. I’d have to practice my singing, but we could get there,” she explains. “One of my dreams is to play Nancy in Oliver on the West End, because I think it would be a really nice full circle moment. And she has the best song in the musical.”

In the spirit of full circle moments, should the ‘real’ Fallout Day occur in 52 years, what does Purnell hope her life will be like by then?

“I hope I have a huge family, yeah, and they all like me and come to see me,” she says. “And there’s lots of babies for me to hold. And I hope I’ve lived all of the lives that I’ve wanted to and I hope some of them were the lives I wanted to live, and that I did all the things that I think I’m going to do.

“Oh and I hope I’ve worn the right shoes.”

With her feet firmly on the ground, we have no doubt about that.

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Photography: Ryan Saradjola; Styling: Rebecca Jane Hill; Editor in Chief: Claire Hodgson; Art Director: Alex Hambis; Acting Entertainment Director: Nicola Fahey; Make up: Zoe Taylor @ Co Management; Hair: Leigh Keates @ The Wall Group; Manicure: Ami Streets @ The Wall Group; Fashion Assistants: Cordie Watson, Angel Cordova-Todd; Photo Assistant: Jem Rigby; Video Producer: Nick Denisov; Video Assistant Jaaf Shubber-Barton; Production: Beverley Croucher