On a flight not too long ago, Ella Purnell managed to scare the woman sitting next to her by accidentally showing her her recent viewing history on her laptop.
“It was basically 50 shows about serial killers,” she says over coffee at a cafe near her East London apartment (which she admits she rarely does these days because she travels so much). ). “But especially because female serial killers are very different from male serial killers.”
As Parnell points out, a concerned neighbor had the baby in her arms, but then “literally took the baby away from her.”
“So I had to explain, ‘Sorry, I’m actually doing research, that’s part of the job…I promise, I’m not a monster,'” she recalled. “But I don’t know how convincing I was.”
Thankfully, the Englishman told me the truth. A year later, she stars in the darkly comic “Sweet Pea,” starring her as Rhiannon, an unassuming but underappreciated young woman who finally snaps and takes it upon herself to murder those who have wronged her. It lands on Starz and Sky on Thursday. .
While the research may have led Parnell to “some crazy places,” the six-part series also marks the next chapter for the 28-year-old, who has already spent more than half her life in the industry. be.
Currently, she is best known for her role as the wide-eyed, blue-suited, frequently blood-splattered Vault Dweller Lucy in Amazon Prime Video’s acclaimed video game version of Fallout. He is the main character who played. She said the role was originally described to her as “meets Ned Flanders.” “Leslie Knope in the Apocalypse” — Parnell was also part of the ensemble cast of Showtime’s ratings hit “Yellowjackets,” where she played Jackie, the hapless soccer team captain (spoiler alert: not too good for her) It wasn’t the ending).
But these are just the latest hits in a career that began in 2008. When Parnell was just 12 years old, he was chosen from hundreds of candidates for the role of “Oliver!” At the Theater Royal in London. From this early start, she made her screen debut a few years later playing a young Keira Knightley in Never Let Me Go, and went on to appear in films such as Kick-Ass 2 and Maleficent. Masu. (playing the teenage Maleficent), Tim Burton’s Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (playing a strange child who can control air), and most recently Army of the Dead (playing Dave).・She has appeared in roles such as Bautista’s estranged daughter.
On the small screen, she has starred in the BBC’s Agatha Christie miniseries “Trial of Innocence” (playing Bill Nighy as an aristocratic alcoholic daughter), Julian Fellowes “Belgravia” (playing another aristocratic heiress); Star Trek: Prodigy” (where he voiced a teenage alien on TV). board an abandoned Starfleet ship) and the animated video game Arcane: League of Legends (where he voices the insane archenemy Jinx).
But with “Sweet Pea,” while leading a show that rarely strays from the frame, Parnell took his first big steps behind the camera, serving as an executive producer on the series and enjoying a hands-on role in development. I’m here.
“I really put everything into this project. It’s the biggest thing I’ve ever put into a project,” she says, adding that what people think of “Sweet Pea” is more important than anything she’s ever done. He added that he was much more worried about this. “I’m nervous about this work coming out into the world, but I’ve never done anything like this before, so I’m also looking forward to it.”
Parnell said he had just directed his first short, “Junk Male,” starring musician Max Bennett Kelly as a boxer, and was looking for something more creative to work on, so he held various meetings with that in mind. It is said that he was One of these was working with Patrick Walters, executive producer of the Netflix hit Heartstoppers, on his own Fanboy label, which is part of leading British producer Seesaw Films. Ta.
“It was just a general meeting, and I was actually like, ‘Hi, I’m Ella, and I want to make things,'” she explains. “He had suggested a few things to me, but ‘Sweet Pea’ really stood out.”
Thankfully, Walters was open to Parnell not only leading the series as the main murderous protagonist, but also as an executive producer on the project, which was initially pitched as “Fleabag” meets “Dexter.” Ta.
“And it was very important to me that it wasn’t just a vanity feat,” she said, adding, “They knew that, so they made it special for the actors to participate in that way.” “I think it was really important to be inside this woman’s head to tell this kind of story,” she added. ”
As such, Parnell joined the project a full year before filming, was involved in the writers’ room, and had a say in hair, makeup, costumes, set design, and especially Rhiannon’s bedroom.
“If you’re telling a story from just one character, and that character happens to be friendless and very lonely, unless you’re using a Dear Diary or some other way of telling the story, you’re telling her inner story. “The story can be very difficult to explain,” she explains. “So her room became a place to make that happen. I wanted to express how innocent she is and how stuck she is in the past, like she stopped growing when the first trauma happened. So she has pictures of boy bands on the walls, lip gloss, old scrunchies, and dolls.”
Regarding Rhiannon’s appearance, Parnell said it was important to add voice in developing her look and feel, “emphasizing her transparency” and making her seem “lonely, hopeless, and ruined.” He emphasized that. Therefore, she was given black clothes, mouse-like hair, and dark circles under her eyes. “What I wanted for her is to be someone who doesn’t make other people feel uncomfortable, not because of anything she did or said, although she can actually be very kind. , because the feeling of hopelessness and disconnection there makes you anxious.”
Parnell admitted that he was very excited to not only be able to play “definitely” the most extreme character on his resume to date, but also to be involved in such a creative process for the first time. Ta.
Perhaps influenced by her upbringing as a child actor on set, Parnell says she has always had a “deep appreciation” for film crews (she describes the term “below the line” as “shithole”). “I didn’t have many people my age, so I started always being closer to the crew than the actors,” she says.
That said, like many performers who step in front of the camera for the first time, making “Sweet Pea” was still a revelatory experience.
“When I went into the pre-production meeting and laid out everyone’s faces and names and thought, ‘Okay, how many lights do I need to get this crane shot?'” “The blood washed away in the rain. How many rain bars do you need to sell that you can do it?’ When you really get to the nitty-gritty, as actors, you realize, God, we’re really stupid,” she says. “All we do is come on set and complain that it’s cold and wet and it’s 3 a.m.”
Using “Sweet Pea” as a starting point, Parnell’s ultimate goal is to expand his horizons on the other side of the camera. She plans to start a production company and is writing something called “Don’t Ask Me When,” while also looking for the next short film to direct. “I also want to find a creative community in London,” she says. “I don’t know that many DPs, so I’d like to meet my creative soulmate in the form of a DP, someone I can work with for a really long time.”
But Parnell is also juggling the demands of becoming a highly sought-after and increasingly high-profile global screen star.
Once the press coverage for Sweet Pea wraps up, she’ll be gearing up to film Season 2 of Fallout next year, although there’s no telling where the story will go. “I haven’t read anything. I’m so unprepared,” she says. “My only preparation so far is trying to work out, knowing that in six months I’ll be running uphill 500 times and trying not to have an asthma attack. I just exist.”
She recently filmed Craig Roberts’ new film, The Scully, a wild-sounding comedy-horror about a pack of murderous squirrels, but she hasn’t seen any. “I think it was all CGI… There were no trained squirrels on set, just a bunch of green dots running around.”
“Sweet Pea” may even continue beyond its first season. “I hope so, because I don’t think we’re done telling Rhiannon’s story,” she says. “But given how it ended, I don’t know how we’re going to continue. But when we get there, we’ll figure it out.”
Parnell’s celebrity status has grown, with more than 1.4 million followers on Instagram and counting, and her work has spread in other ways. Last month, she attended the Venice Film Festival as a guest of Armani Beauty, eagerly awaiting the world premiere of the much-hyped “Baby Girl.” Unfortunately, a “wardrobe malfunction” prevented her from crossing the red carpet. “I won’t go into details, but it was a small incident with such big consequences that I had to leave to change and get on a boat back home,” she says. “And Nicole Kidman is probably one of my top five actresses, so I was very disappointed. Watered down. I have no choice.”
It looks like there will be more trips to Venice in the future (though I did remember to bring safety pins this time). Meanwhile, her first major credit as a “very active” executive producer is about to launch, plus a return to the lead role on one of TV’s biggest shows is on the horizon. There will also be a small featurette to keep the indie fire burning – Parnell I’m so happy to be able to enjoy this potentially career-changing moment while looking to future opportunities.
“Making Sweat Pea was a really great experience,” she says. “It was really like, ‘Oh my god, yeah, this is what I’m supposed to do.'”