If you know the 1997 video game Fallout set in a post-apocalyptic, futuristic world, then you’ll understand why its TV adaptation took the world by storm. The post-apocalyptic series is one of Prime Video’s biggest hits of 2024, and a large part of that success is thanks to Ella Purnell’s magnetic performance as Lucy MacLean.
For anyone unfamiliar with its origins, Fallout started life as a 1997 role-playing video game set hundreds of years after nuclear war wipes out most of humanity. Players stepped into a dystopian version of America, filled with mutated creatures, scavenger gangs, and remnants of old-world technology. It’s a world where survival depends on luck, resourcefulness, and a bit of moral flexibility.
The TV adaptation stays true to that atmosphere. It follows Lucy, a bright and idealistic young woman raised inside one of the underground vaults built to protect people from radiation. When she’s forced to venture out onto the surface for the first time, she discovers a world that’s far more dangerous and far less civilised than she ever imagined.
With eight thrilling episodes (and a second season on the way this December), Fallout cements Ella Purnell as one of today’s most exciting rising stars, and her career before Fallout is just as impressive. From animated anti-heroes to wilderness survival, she’s consistently chosen roles that challenge expectations and showcase her range. I
f you loved her as Lucy MacLean, here are six other Ella Purnell performances you’ll definitely want to check out.
1. Yellowjackets — Jackie Taylor
Before she was fighting to survive the wasteland, Ella Purnell was surviving something arguably just as terrifying: teenage politics and wilderness isolation.
Yellowjackets tells the story of a high-school girls’ football team whose plane crashes in the Canadian wilderness. Cut off from civilisation, they must find ways to survive, and as weeks turn into months, the line between friendship and feral survival blurs.
Ella plays Jackie Taylor, the team captain and queen bee, who is confident, popular, and used to being in control. When the team crash-lands, her leadership is challenged, and she struggles to adapt to the brutal new reality. Jackie’s inability to let go of the old world contrasts with the others’ survival instincts, leading to one of the most haunting arcs in the series. Like Lucy in Fallout, Jackie starts idealistic but faces the grim truth of what survival really means.
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2. Arcane — Jinx (voice)
Switching from live action to animation, Ella’s voice acting in Netflix’s Arcane proves she can deliver emotional depth in any format.
Arcane, set in the universe of League of Legends, explores the divide between the utopian city of Piltover and the oppressed undercity of Zaun. It follows sisters Vi and Jinx as their bond shatters amidst revolution, invention, and chaos.
Ella voices Jinx, who is a chaotic, tragic character whose trauma turns her into one of the most complex anti-heroes in animation. Through her voice alone, it’s one of her most emotionally charged performances, which shows that she doesn’t need to be on-screen to steal the show.
3. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children — Emma Bloom
From Tim Burton’s imagination to Ella’s captivating screen presence, this fantasy adventure was one of her early breakout roles. The film follows a teenager who discovers a hidden home for children with supernatural abilities, led by the mysterious Miss Peregrine. The home exists in a time loop, shielding its residents from monstrous creatures that hunt them.
Ella plays Emma Bloom, a girl with the ability to control air. She’s graceful yet strong, with a quiet sadness that makes her instantly intriguing. Her role in guiding the protagonist through this strange world mirrors Lucy’s own dynamic in Fallout, which is a capable young woman navigating the unfamiliar, while balancing strength and compassion.
4. Wildlike — MacKenzie
In this indie drama, Ella sheds the sci-fi glamour for something raw, emotional, and human. Wildlike follows MacKenzie, a troubled teenager sent to live with her uncle in Alaska.
After things take a dark turn, she runs away and builds an unlikely friendship with a kind stranger as they journey through the Alaskan wilderness. As MacKenzie, Ella carries the film with a powerful performance that’s vulnerable and fierce. The way she portrays survival is emotional rather than physical.
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5. Army of the Dead — Kate Ward
From the frozen Alaskan tundra to a zombie-infested Las Vegas, Ella shows that she can handle any apocalypse thrown her way.
Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead follows a group of mercenaries who venture into quarantine-zoned Las Vegas to pull off a daring heist during a zombie outbreak. Naturally, chaos ensues. Ella plays Kate Ward, the estranged daughter of the team leader, Scott (played by Dave Bautista). Her character is brave, resourceful, and moral to a fault as she risks everything to save others.
