Ella Purnell tackles her most gruesome role to date in Sweetpea

Ella Purnell, who was scared of the baddies as a child actor, is no longer afraid to take on a dark character – even a baby Dexter.

From teen Maleficent to a baby Dexter, Ella Purnell isn’t afraid to take on a dark character. So, it’s surprising the 28-year-old says she was scared of the baddies as a child actor.

“I was a very sensitive child and I was really scared of the villains – always looking through my fingers,” says the East-London-born actor, who appeared on the West End stage as a child, then went on to make movies including Maleficent with Angelina Jolie and Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children.

Now one of Hollywood’s rising talents, she starred in Yellowjackets and Fallout, but Purnell is tackling her most gruesome role to date in the new TV drama Sweetpea.

Like a female Dexter, it’s safe to say Sweetpea’s protagonist, Rhiannon, is anything but sweet. Dowdy, bullied and seemingly invisible to everyone, Rhiannon goes from wallflower to serial killer in this dark “coming-of-rage” comedy.

Debuting on Binge on Thursday, it’s a laugh-then-scream-out-loud series, which is exactly what appealed to her, she says.

Sweetpea follows Rhiannon (Ella Purnell) on a journey from put-upon newspaper receptionist to deadly assassin.

“That’s what the show does really well – you’re laughing when you really shouldn’t be laughing,” she says, chatting on Zoom from London, adding the, “dry, dark, twisted humour” is what makes it work.

“There’s obviously a lot of murder and a lot of death. As is the way in life, when there’s a lot of trauma, we tend to make a joke in the worst of times,” she says. It was the challenge of playing such a difficult character, which sold the role to her.

Ella Purnell in the Binge drama. “There’s obviously a lot of murder and a lot of death.”

“I knew it would be hard and didn’t know if I could do it, and that was exciting to me,” she says.

“The challenge of playing a female serial killer who is conflicting the audience in the same way that Dexter does – you’re trying to get the audience to relate to her emotions and motivations, but not her actions, and make them feel empathy in this push and pull that happens throughout the season.”

She also got to come on as executive producer, meaning she had input into the direction her character took. Which is a pretty gruesome one, it has to be said.

The series is based on the popular Young Adult novels by CJ Skuse but, while the books have Rhiannon living as an average “girl next door” with boyfriend and dog, director Ella Jones and the writers set Rhiannon’s story as a prequel, following her journey from put-upon newspaper receptionist to deadly assassin.

“I am much more interested in playing complicated people who, when you finish the movie, you still don’t really know where you stand with them,” Purnell says.

It has a very British sense of humour, something Purnell, who is dating musician Max Bennett Kelly, says she misses when she’s working in the US.

“British humour is my favourite thing in the world – is the thing I miss the most when I’ve been away for a long time,” she says.

Sweetpea has “this very distinctly British feel to it. I don’t know how they achieved that, but I feel like you could freeze any frame of the show and know where it was set”, she says.

Co-starring Bridgerton’s Calam Lynch, without giving away any spoilers, the series goes to extremes – expect Dexter-like murders and mayhem, where no-one is spared.

Ella Purnell at Milan Fashion Week. Picture: Victor Boyko/Getty Images

Ella Purnell as Lucy in Fallout.

So, was there anything she couldn’t handle, when filming?

“The first few takes of the first murder, I knew I wasn’t there,” she says, “I wasn’t getting it, because I was holding back. It’s embarrassing to be so raw and uninhibited and terrifying – there’s a lot of self-consciousness.

“Also, there’s the actual holding of the knife and stabbing … it’s so unnatural, so uncomfortable, and it’s quite upsetting.

“But the crew and the cast were so wonderful. And Ella Jones is an incredible director. She’s a powerhouse of a human being and it’s such a joy to work with her. Even when the scenes were heavy and very difficult to portray, the team was there. We really became a very close family in-between takes.”

Considering the show goes to extremes, were there any murders she baulked at? No, she says, despite being, “a deeply-afraid person”.

“I think that those things that scare you are the things that you absolutely have to do,” she says, even though she admits many of the scenes left her feeling “quite disgusted”.

And a word of warning – the finale is Shakespearean.

“It’s heartbreaking,” she says.

Sweetpea is showing now on Binge