What is Ella Purnell famous for? The actress’ biggest TV and movie roles

Actress Ella Purnell is once again playing a role that she knows well: a woman trying to survive in a dystopian world. Purnell, 27, is set to star in the new Fallout series, the show based on the popular video game of the same name created by Bethesda.

The show is set in the year 2296, almost 200 years since our human civilisation was wiped out by a nuclear apocalypse. It tells the story of three protagonists, among which are Maximus and The Ghoul, who are trying to survive in an apocalyptic world filled with destruction, where even the water is contaminated with nuclear waste.

Fallout series ‘stressful and definitely intimidating’

Ella Purnell plays Lucy in Fallout, a Vault Dweller who has spent her life in an underground community. Sounds delightful. “Coming into anything that is an adaptation is stressful and definitely intimidating,” Purnell told Refinery29 Australia.

“Coming into anything that is well-loved and already very firmly established is hard. You want to treat the source material with respect, especially when it’s something as good as Fallout. You really want to do justice to the people who work so hard on the games and the fans who are so passionate about the games.”

What shows and movies has Ella Purnell starred in?

After moving on from being a stage actress, most notably in Oliver!, Purnell appeared in the film Kick-Ass Two before also starring as a younger version of Angelina Jolie’s character in Maleficent. After that she was cast as Emma Bloom in Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, which was released in 2016.

You may also recognise Purnell as Jackie Taylor in the hugely popular series Yellowjackets, a story that followed a New Jersey high school girls’ soccer team whose plane crashes in the wilderness, leaving them stranded for months. As you can see, blood, guys and gore is a speciality of the actress.

The London-born star also voiced Jinx in the Netflix series Arcane and was also behind the voice of Gwyn in the Star Trek: Prodigy series that were both released in 2021.

Purnell resides in Los Angeles, and later in the year she will also feature in two more projects: Army of the Dead: Lost Vegas, where she will perform once again as a voice actor, and Sweetpea, a show which will see her try her hand as an executive producer as well as an increasingly promising actress.

She will be a guest star on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, along with the lead singer of Grammy-winning band Maroon 5 Adam Levine and Benson Boone, a singer-songwriter best known for his debut hit single “Ghost Town”.