Fallout season 2 will see Lucy's moral compass "eroding" amid surprising choices, reveals Ella Purnell

This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine.

Fallout is one of those shows that lays waste to your sleep schedule; a big-budget, post-apocalyptic adventure that’s far more fun than the end of the world has any right to be, and almost impossible to turn off. But as you’re halfway through a late-night binge, watching Lucy MacLean fight mutants and dodge bullets, the woman who plays her, Ella Purnell, will already be asleep. “I’m like an old lady who’s in bed at nine o’clock every night,” the 29-year-old actor laughs. “If you’d told me that ten years ago, I’d have said, ‘No way.’ But now, it’s a foam roller and a cup of tea. That’s all I need.”

It’s a far cry from her on-screen antics, but Purnell could be forgiven for wanting to slow down after filming Amazon’s high-profile adaptation of the video game franchise Fallout. Since 1997, that game has seen more than 50 million players explore a post-nuclear-war America, trading bottle caps for currency, fighting off irradiated monsters and aligning with – or avoiding – the warring factions formed by survivors.

But for all its fanfare, the TV version of Fallout landed in Purnell’s inbox like any other role. She’d never wandered its wastelands, strapped on a Pip-Boy computer or even heard of the game. “I really didn’t know much about the project,” she admits. “I was bad, and didn’t even google it, because I was busy filming [the US survival drama] Yellowjackets.”

So what convinced her wasn’t Fallout’s mythos or millions of fans, but the human nature of Lucy MacLean, the show’s sheltered yet spirited lead, exploring this wild new world after growing up in an underground bunker (called a Vault). “They said to me she’s the kind of person that could star in a toothpaste commercial, but also could maybe kill you,” says Purnell. “And I was, like, yeah, that sounds like me.”

Of course, once she signed on, everything became real. “It wasn’t until I got the job, and I started doing my research and my prep for the character, that I really understood exactly what I was getting myself into. That actually, this was quite a big deal and you really want to do that justice.”

It paid off: despite telling an all-new story with new characters not before seen in the games, season one aired to critical acclaim from longtime fans and new audiences alike. And Purnell, suddenly a breakout star, faced an outpouring of affection for her endearing portrayal of Lucy.

“It’s really touching to me that people love this character,” she says, smiling. “She’s so naive because she’s literally lived in a bubble her whole life. She’s never felt the wind before. She’s never looked at long distances before. I found a lot of enjoyment thinking about all the things that we take for granted, that she would have been like, ‘Wow!’”

In many ways, Lucy’s sheltered life reflects Purnell’s own childhood. Growing up in London, she began her career as a baby model – “so ridiculous,” she interjects with a laugh – after a friend of the family needed a baby for a clothing shoot, and Purnell’s mum simply volunteered her “cute kid”. From there, photoshoots became commercials, commercials became theatre, and before long, Purnell was a successful teenage actor in films like Kick-Ass 2 and Maleficent.

It’s an environment with clear parallels to the Vault: both carefully controlled, make-believe worlds, shielded from real life. But Purnell sees it another way. “I feel more like a child now than I did when I was a child,” she says. “Now, in the space between ‘action’ and ‘cut’, I’m free, and I’m completely playful. But as a child working, I didn’t feel like that. I was terrified, I was nervous and I didn’t know what was going on or what I was doing.

“As an adult, I love these people. I love this set. I feel like I can speak my mind. I feel like I’m protected. That’s how Lucy feels in the Vault: she has a purpose, she has structure. When she leaves the Vault and all of that falls away, and she’s in completely unfamiliar surroundings and she doesn’t know the rules – that’s how I felt as a child actor.”

It’s an interesting inversion. As Purnell’s celebrity has grown – with the Paramount+ series Yellowjackets, animated Netflix series Arcane and now Fallout – her world has become smaller, safer, more intimate. “In the last couple years, I’ve come home to myself a little bit more. The bigger work gets, the smaller my life gets, and that feels right for me. I still live in the same flat, I still drive the same car, I have my friends, my family, my garden. I knit. And I like that.”

“I think if I was one of those people, like Justin Bieber, who became an overnight success, it would’ve really messed with me, and I’m glad that I got a longer, slower build over the course of 20 years.”

That long arc has yielded a new kind of confidence – “I have a little bit more trust and faith that as long as I keep picking projects that I really care about, that’s going to come out in the performance” – as well as an appetite for morally ambiguous characters, like the murderous Rhiannon in Sweetpea, which aired on Sky Atlantic last year.

“In my real life, I need things to be black and white. So I’ve noticed in my work, I’m really drawn to the grey area, and I wonder if it’s my safe, exploratory way of figuring that out, and becoming OK with it in my real life. I love when I can’t say whether a character is good or bad.”

If anything, Fallout is the perfect sandbox for that exploration; in a world where everyone fights to survive, monsters are a matter of perspective. Take Lucy, Purnell says. “Yes, she has a good heart, and she cares about doing the right thing. But she’s spoilt and she’s privileged, and she can be very ignorant and stubborn. And that’s life.”

So what can we expect from, and for, Lucy in season 2? Purnell grins. “Oh my God, there’s so much in store. You’re going to see sides of Lucy that I did not see coming. She makes some very surprising choices, and her moral compass is just eroding. The entire fabric of her being is suddenly unravelling. Everything she thought she knew is now coming into question. What does that do to a person?”

And if Ella Purnell were to find herself at the end of the world? “I like to think I’d be Lara Croft, all the gear and great arms, but in reality, that just wouldn’t be me. I am very non-confrontational, I’m very organised, I’m very Type A.” She smiles mischievously. “I’d organise everything instead. You know, if I have access to an Excel spreadsheet, it’s game over for you. I’m going to conquer the world.”

The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here.

Season one of Fallout is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video. Season 2 will premiere on Wednesday 17th December.

Add Fallout to your watchlist on the Radio Times: What to Watch app – download now for daily TV recommendations, features and more.

Check out more of our Sci-fi coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.