Fallout: Why Lucy Looks So Familiar
"Fallout" is one of the biggest video game franchises in recent memory, so it's definitely not surprising that the popular game series is getting its own television adaptation — decades after the first game was launched by Interplay in 1997. Since the first game, "Fallout" has spawned sequel after sequel ... and now, Amazon Studios is making the first-ever on-screen version after years and years of potential "Fallout" movies didn't end up happening (for various reasons). Not only that, but the series is spearheaded by "Westworld" creator Jonathan Nolan, so fans have plenty of reasons to get excited.
The central plot of "Fallout," for the uninitiated, focuses on a dystopian, post-apocalyptic world where people are forced to live in underground vaults rather than try to exist in a vaste wasteland. Eventually, a girl named Lucy, known as a "vault dweller," emerges from her home in Vault 33 to explore what was once the city of Los Angeles, encountering countless dangerous obstacles along the way. So who plays Lucy?
That would be Ella Purnell, a British-born actress who got her start at a young age who's been taking both the big and small screen by storm lately. Here's where you've seen Ella Purnell from "Fallout" before.
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2016)
Based on the novel of the same name by Ransom Riggs, Tim Burton's take on "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children" is characteristically whimsical ... and Ella Purnell plays a significant role as a young student at the school named Emma. The film's cast is anchored by Eva Green as Miss Alfa Lamay Peregrine, the magical school's proprietor, and the story kicks off when "peculiar" adult Abe Portman (Terence Stamp) tells his grandson Jake (Asa Butterfield) a fantastical story about her school located on a private island. Ultimately, Jake sets out to find the school — and when he does, he meets Purnell's Emma Bloom.
Emma possesses powers of aerokinesis, which means that she has power over the air (a power that even allows her to breathe underwater), and before long, Jake starts falling for her. (This situation is complicated quite a bit by the fact that Emma is actually from the 1940s and hasn't been aging thanks to various time loops ... and as a young man, Abe was also in love with her.) Purnell is wonderfully charming as Emma, and her performance in "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children" is uniformly excellent.
Sweetbitter (2018-2019)
Anyone who's ever worked in the restaurant industry knows that it can be grueling and all-consuming — and that idea gets a seductive twist in the Starz original series "Sweetbitter," based on Stephanie Danler's novel of the same name. Ella Purnell leads the series as Tess, a young woman who moves to New York and ends up getting a job as a "backwaiter" at an unnamed high-end restaurant where she's pushed to the breaking point. While there, she meets Simone (Caitlin Fitzgerald), an older server who takes her under the wing and shows her the ropes ... as well as Jake (Tom Sturridge), a bartender and bad boy who catches Ella's eye, and Will (Evan Jonigkeit), another server, who falls for Ella.
Tess ends up getting involved in some of the seedier aspects of the industry, including late nights and hard partying, which subsequently leads to Tess losing her grip on her job and struggling with the intense day-to-day operations of the restaurant. "Sweetbitter" ran for two seasons and was ultimately canceled by Starz, which is a shame, because the show was a great showcase for Purnell.
Army of the Dead (2021)
"Fallout" won't be Ella Purnell's first brush with a post-apocalyptic story. In 2021, the actress played one of the main roles in Zack Snyder's "Army of the Dead," an original concept by the idiosyncratic director. Purnell plays Kate Ward, the daughter of Dave Bautista's Scott Ward, though the two begin the story estranged from one another — but the father and daughter reunite a few years after a truck heading to Area 51 crashes and unleashes a zombie that infects most of Las Vegas. When Scott is asked to help get $200 million out of an old casino vault and transport it, it turns out that Kate has some contacts that can help on the mission, and though Scott argues against it, she joins his team.
Together, the Wards fight their way through hordes of zombies — including one tiger — and realize that the mission is only partly about the money when the casino's owner, Bly Tanaka (Hiroyuki Sanada) reveals that he's actually trying to get an isolated zombie head to give to the government (so that they can create their own army of zombies). Purnell's chemistry with Bautista is great, and she really sells Kate's journey in "Army of the Dead."
Yellowjackets (2021-2023)
"Yellowjackets" is one of the most unique television shows in recent memory, and throughout the first season (and some of the second), Ella Purnell plays Jackie Taylor, captain of the high school soccer team that gives the show its name. When the girls board a private jet courtesy of one of their wealthy fathers and head out for nationals, disaster strikes and the plane crashes in a remote forest, leaving Jackie and her teammates stranded. Not only that, but as a very different drama repeatedly said, "winter is coming."
During the first season of "Yellowjackets," it becomes more and more conspicuous that while other characters like Jackie's best friend Shauna Shipman have adult counterparts (the young Shauna is played by Sophie Nélisse and Melanie Lynskey in adulthood), Jackie doesn't ... which is for a good reason. Out in the wilderness, Jackie feels distant from her team; she's not particularly skilled out in the woods, and she's no longer the queen bee. This all gets markedly worse when she realizes that Shauna is pregnant — and the father is Jackie's boyfriend Jeff Sadecki (Jack DePew & Owen Gates as a teen and Warren Kole as an adult). Jackie and Shauna argue and Jackie storms out of the cabin where the team found shelter ... only for Shauna to find her frozen to death the next morning. Season 1 marks the end of Purnell's role as a series regular, but she does show up briefly in Season 2 as Shauna's hallucination and as her own corpse, leading to one of the season's most shocking moments.