Fallout star Ella Purnell has spoken candidly about the moment she made the “terrifying” decision to stop doing nude scenes and how she almost quit acting altogether to avoid being sexualised on screen.
The 27-year-old London actress, who began her career as a child, revealed that she began setting boundaries as a teenager. In a candid chat with her agent, she swore off nudity and love stories.
It was a choice she had to make shortly after she had a disturbing first kiss on a film set, when she was just 15 or 16.
The idea of becoming an object of desire even caused Purnell to consider quitting acting for good five years later, at the age of 21.
But Purnell has now admitted she did not take this decision lightly.
Ella Purnell has revealed she renounced nudity and love stories early in her career after a candid conversation with her agent
The 27-year-old British actress plays the role of ‘vault dweller’ Lucy MacLean in the hit Amazon Prime series Fallout, which premiered in April
“You realize you don’t want to be naked — or you don’t want to write a love story — and you feel a little bit ashamed because you think, ‘Am I less good at acting or less professional?’” she said.
“But it was like my agent really validated my feelings and said, ‘No, it’s okay to not feel comfortable with this or that.’”
‘My first kiss was on screen in a movie and I think it took me a few years to realize that and be able to say, “No, I think I need to take a break.”
“And when someone appreciates that opinion and preference, it really gives a child actor a boost.”
Purnell said she feared her stance would cost her job.
‘You have to keep working because you never know when you’re going to get your next job. And what if I never work again?
‘If I say no, I’ll never get hired again and that’s terrifying.
“It’s really hard to know your worth and say, ‘I actually don’t want to do that job because I want to do this.’
“It’s hard for anyone who’s self-employed and it’s hard for women. It’s hard to navigate this industry sometimes.”
Ella now stars as ‘vault dweller’ Lucy MacLean in the hit Amazon Prime series Fallout, which premiered in April and is based on the video game series.
The drama, set in post-nuclear apocalypse Los Angeles, is the most-streamed original series this year, with more than 34 million subscribers.
Purnell’s television credits include her role as Jackie Taylor on the Showtime series Yellowjackets
The actress began her career as a child, playing the younger version of Keira Knightley’s character in the 2010 film Never Let Me Go.
Purnell and former co-star Keira Knightley attended the 2016 Harper’s Bazaar Women of the Year Awards
It’s done so well that Amazon’s daily viewing figures have increased by eight percent, with 80 percent of viewers binge-watching the series in just five days.
It’s no wonder then that Ella – who also starred as a tragedy-stricken teen in the Showtime survival drama Yellowjackets – is being tipped as the next big hit.
Along with two thirty-somethings, Olivia Cooke (House of the Dragon) and Aimee Lou Wood (White Lotus), she is part of a new trio of female stars who have the industry at their feet.
Sky Production Chief Cecile Frot-Coutaz said of them: ‘This past year it’s been great to see a new generation of young British actresses taking charge in Hollywood.’
Ella attended the Sylvia Young Theatre School in London at the age of nine, where she had filmed her first commercial the year before.
She doesn’t mention which film she had her first kiss in, but one of the contenders is 2014’s Maleficent, in which she was hired to play the role of the young Angelina Jolie, 49.
Early in her career, she also played the younger version of Margot Robbie’s character in the 2016 adventure film The Legend of Tarzan and that of 39-year-old Keira Knightley in the 2010 romantic drama thriller Never Let Me Go.
In the Collider Ladies Night podcast, she said, “It’s funny because with young Margot and young Angelina, (my role) isn’t in the movie.
‘Either it was cut out or I was a doppelganger, as I was to young Margot.
‘But everything happens for a reason and I think it happened so I could learn from it.
“You literally take a young actor who is a little aimless and you say to him, ‘Imitate this professional, successful, handsome, talented person, watch him and learn from him.’”
Incredibly, it wasn’t until she was 18, when she landed a role in the Tim Burton-directed film Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, that she began taking acting seriously.
Was Angelina Jolie’s 2014 film Maleficent the film where Ella had her first kiss?
Co-stars Kyle MacLachlan, Aaron Moten, Ella Purnell, Walton Goggins and Xelia Mendes-Jones attend the special UK screening of Fallout in London in April
The drama, set in a post-nuclear apocalypse Los Angeles, is the most-streamed original series released this year and has more than 34 million subscribers on Amazon Prime.
She said: ‘I don’t think I really knew I wanted to be an actor. It certainly wasn’t a dream of mine. It was more of a curiosity.
“I loved watching movies growing up. I watched Spy Kids (the movie) and thought it was the coolest. My best friend and I would pretend to be spies.
‘I was the girly girl and she was the boyy girl and we all had these gadgets – imaginary gadgets.
“But I guess I never really saw acting as a long-term career. It was always something I did for the moment – and I don’t think kids can think that far into the future.
“I was 18 when I got the part in the Tim Burton movie and I loved him growing up and watched all of his movies religiously. I thought, ‘Wow, I actually get to be in a Tim Burton movie.’
‘I didn’t think that was possible for someone like me. On set, experiencing so many firsts.
“It was a real pinch-me moment. I had no idea how this happened and I thought, wow – this is so cheesy – but dreams really do come true.”
But at the age of 21, she suffered her first serious setback, which almost caused her to quit acting for good.
She was afraid of being seen as a sex object and wanted to go to university, like her friends from school.
But she decided to persevere when she landed the lead role in the TV series Sweetbitter in 2018, in which she agreed to a short nude scene in which she took off her towel to reveal her upper body in a sauna.
The part where main character Tess learns to let go of her inhibitions mirrors what happens in real life.
Ella said: ‘When I did Sweetbitter it was the first time I had done anything for television.
Purnell considered quitting acting at age 21 after struggling with the prospect of being typecast as a “sex object” before landing the lead role as Tess in the Starz show Sweetbitter in 2018
She agreed to do a short nude scene in the series where her character bares her breast in the sauna, as well as some steamy but mild love scenes
‘It was the first time I worked in America, spoke with an American accent, and lived in America.
‘I lived in Williamsburg and I was really lucky. I made four wonderful friends who weren’t in film or TV, but who I met through a friend.
“They became my best friends. I met them very early, I knew nothing about the city and the States and they introduced me to New York and it was crazy.
“I found my Sex and the City crew. I thought, I’m living my dream now. I couldn’t believe it.”
She later moved to Los Angeles to film Yellowjackets and seems to have settled down there now, living with her musician boyfriend Max Bennett Kelly and their dog.
With 1.2 million followers on Instagram, Ella is already being tipped as Britain’s answer to 26-year-old actress Sydney Sweeney. But she’s still not sure whether the industry is her first priority.
She said, ‘I was recently asked, ‘Do you think you made it?’
‘It was really a thought provoking question.
‘What is it? What made? It’s a personal definition.
For some it might be winning an Oscar.
‘My life has been so hectic and there is a lack of stability. I need to redefine what happiness means to me.
‘When I was younger I saw it as a matter of career success, but now I see it as balance.
‘Of course I want to be successful.
‘But to me, being successful doesn’t mean being rich or famous or having won awards.
“It’s about doing work that I’m proud of and that challenges me. And if I can find a way to do that and still have a balance with my family, friends, and wealth in my life, then that’s not just my work, that’s contentment.
“But maybe in a year I’ll be in the Oscars and that’ll be all I care about.”