Ella Purnell reveals the new TV version of Fallout is the most rewarding thing she’s ever done

Ella Purnell, who is poised to take her biggest career step yet with the eagerly anticipated TV adaptation of Fallout, opens up about her connection with the Aussie star.

When Ella Purnell was still in her teens, she played a younger version of Margot Robbie in a big-budget Tarzan movie and it’s fair to say that the Aussie A-lister left quite an impression.

At the time, not having gone to drama school in her native England, she said that shadowing actors like Robbie not only helped her learn the craft of acting but also highlighted the importance of treating others well.

Years later, they met again with the Barbie star well on her way to becoming one of the hottest actors in Hollywood and Purnell was chuffed that her former co-star not only recognised her but was also even lovelier than she’d remembered.

“I didn’t think she’d remember me, but she did because she’s just the nicest person ever,” says Purnell over Zoom call from Los Angeles in the middle of this year’s pink-powered awards season.

“It feels weird to be proud of someone that you don’t know that well, but really it’s the best feeling when good things happen to someone who is just great person. She’s so smart and cool. I want to be Margot Robbie when I grow up.”

Purnell had already been acting for more than five years by the time she appeared in The Legend Of Tarzan (she also played a younger version of Keira Knightley in Never Let Me Go and a younger version of Angelina Jolie in Maleficent), having made her acting debut in a West End production of Oliver! as a 12-year-old.

Ella Purnell as the resilient but naive Lucy in Fallout.

Now 27, and with movie credits including Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children and Churchill and TV roles on Belgravia and Yellowjackets, she’s about to take her biggest career step yet with the eagerly anticipated adaptation of video game Fallout.

Following the recent successes of The Last Of Us and Halo on the small screen and Super Mario Bros in cinemas, adaptations of video games have hit a bit of a purple patch after years of substandard efforts and Fallout is one of the biggest and most ambitious yet.

The original game – set in a post-Apocalyptic world beset by mutant monsters and the blasted remains of humanity – was released in 1997 and has spawned three sequels (with a fourth in the pipeline) and six spin-offs, for combined sales of nearly 40 million copies.

The eight-part TV series, which drops on Amazon Prime today, is overseen by Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan, the Emmy-winning team behind sci-fi hit Westworld and is set on an alternate timeline Earth centuries after a devastating nuclear conflict.

It focuses on Purnell’s character Lucy, a young woman in the sheltered, orderly environment of a fallout Vault, who ventures into the violent, lawless Wasteland to find her father.

Purnell says the gruelling, ten-month shoot, which took her from New York to the deserts of Utah and Namibia was “was the hardest, yet most rewarding thing I’ve ever done” and admits that while she had never been so sore after the first week, she’d also never been so sad once it was done.

With its huge action set pieces and array of fearsome creatures and weapons taken from the game, Purnell says it was a big step up for her in terms of stunt work – and she wasn’t sure she was ready when she started.

Ella Purnell and Aaron Moten at the UK Special Screening of Fallout. Picture: Kate Green/Getty Images

“Previous to Fallout I would not consider myself a fit or athletic person,” she says with a laugh.

“I would trip over my own feet – I have done it twice today. I am very clumsy and I was nervous about the stunts because I never done stunts before. However the stunt team are phenomenal. My stunt double Hannah was just fantastic – very talented and would empower me and made me confident. And now I’m like ‘all right – what are we doing? I can do that’.”

The other thing that freaked her out was the passionate following the game has built up over the years and whether they would be able to live up to their expectations by doing justice to “decades of lore and history”.

“You want them to like the show that you also want to do your job and make something entertaining and heartfelt and relatable,” she says.

“So yeah, I was definitely daunted by this big project, but I’ve watched the few episodes and it looks cool. It’s exciting.”

Purnell already had some experience with outspoken video game fans thanks to her voice role in the animated Netflix series Arcane, which is based on League of Legends.

She says was “taken aback” by the overwhelmingly positive reaction from the fans and hopes that Fallout will follow suit, but says she learned long ago never to look online for validation – and has a few words of warning for fans.

“I just never felt like I wanted to or really like I needed to because it’s already done,” she explains.

“You’re only going to harm yourself or you’re going to get a really big ego, because everyone is telling you how great and wonderful and pretty you are.

James Altham, Director Jonathan Nolan, Ella Purnell, Kyle MacLachlan, Aaron Moten and Executive Producer Todd Howard at the Fallout Photocall during the 7th Canneseries International Festival on April 06, 2024 in Cannes, France. Picture: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images

“But you’ve done the job. You can’t go back and change. It is already out there in the world. And so if people like it, and they stop me on the street, and they say ‘I really like that show’ then great, I’m glad that you like that show and I like to hear that. But don’t stop me and tell me if you don’t like it. There’s nothing I can do about it.”

Purnell knows that the survival aspect of Fallout will draw comparisons with her high-profile role on Yellowjackets, in which she played mean girl Jackie Taylor, who was stranded in the wilderness with her school mates after a plane crash.

While the relentlessly optimistic, Lucy in Fallout wants to see the best in the desperate and devious people she meets in the nuclear Wasteland and use her privilege for good, the similarly privileged Jackie from Yellowjackets becomes “nihilistic and bitter and cynical” when put in an extreme situation.

Purnell says she’s not sure which way she’d go, but she embraces the similarities and wonders why she’s drawn to those kind of roles.

Ella Purnell says the stunt work in Fallout was hard.

“Who is to say whether that question preoccupied me before I took the roles or if that’s a product of me taking those kinds of roles,” she ponders.

“It’s not a conscious choice that I’m drawn to those types of stories, but clearly there is something that subconsciously attracts me to them because I’ve done a few of them.”

“The question of human limit, of the extremities of human emotion, of capacity – that is fascinating to me. I’ve always been interested in psychology and that’s probably why I started acting and why I’m still acting. What makes a person tick? Why are you doing that? Are you doing that because that’s how you were raised or is it a product of your environment or because you’re over compensating or under-compensating? There’s a hundred different ways to play one line, and I love that.”

Fallout, Prime Video.

Originally published as Ella Purnell reveals the new TV version of Fallout is the most rewarding thing she’s ever done