With the desire to turn Lucy into an iconic character, Ella Purnell purposefully ditched Jonathan Nolan’s advice.

Actress Ella Purnell who recently appeared in Jonathan Nolan’s Prime Video show Fallout, opened up about the challenges she faced while shooting her character Lucy. Since the show is a video game adaptation, there appeared the challenge of incorporating the Fallout gameplay loop into the onscreen characters.

Ella Purnell in a still from Fallout

Therefore, speaking with Collider, Ella Purnell shared the little nuances and backstories she developed for her character Lucy. Trying to be true to the gameplay, where players become more adept survivors as they progress through the wasteland of the games, Purnell admitted playing the video game to understand it better, despite the creators insisting that she didn’t need to.

Ella Purnell Developed Backstories for Her Fallout Character

Every actor faces the common challenge of meeting the physical demands of their roles in their respective projects. But the one thing that actors associated with video game adaptations face is translating the world and the characters into a medium that no longer allows player control. Take, for example, Prime Video’s Fallout series starring Walton Goggins, Ella Purnell, and others, the show faced some hurdles with bringing the post-apocalyptic, retro-futuristic reality to life.

However, while this was certainly a challenge faced by the creators of the show, the actors associated with the project struggled with their respective challenges. Like Ella Purnell opened up about the problems she faced while incorporating the Fallout gameplay loop into her performance. Facing the issue of transitioning her evolving video game character into an onscreen role, Purnell shared the process she incorporated to develop her character, Lucy.

Ella Purnell as Lucy in Amazon’s Fallout

During a Collider Ladies Night interview with Perri Nemiroff, Ella Purnell addressed the challenging aspect of her role. Asked about how the actress brought the video game character of Lucy to life, Purnell admitted developing little nuances and backstories for her character. While preparing for her role in Fallout, Purnell spoke about the extensive preparation process that went into her role.

Purnell Turned Lucy into an Icon by Ignoring Jonathan Nolan’s Advice

While in the game, players could determine the character’s survival skills and their fate, while progressing through the game and completing a variety of side quests; in the show, it was on the actors to bring out the authenticity of the video game characters. Therefore, it was certainly important to play the game and understand the personality of the characters and how they function during different scenarios.

Therefore, Ella Purnell admitted doing her research and even playing the game, to make her Fallout role infinitely better. Although the actress mentioned how she was insisted by the creators of the show and even producer Jonathan Nolan, that she didn’t need to play the game to understand her character, Purnell played it anyway. Playing no heed to the advice and requests of her bosses, the actress mentioned diving deep into her role.

Purnell in Jonathan Nolan’s Amazon Prime show“I love research. It’s probably my second favorite thing… I guess that was playing the game for me. Jonah, Geneva, and Graham, they all told me, ‘You don’t have to play the game. You really don’t need to. It’s not mandatory by any means.’ And I did anyway because I wanted to feel the full weight of what all of this meant.”

Explaining why she decided to ignore Jonathan Nolan’s advice, Ella Purnell stated that she wanted to tap into Lucy’s emotional vulnerability and resilience. Willing to get to the core of Lucy, Purnell mentioned playing the game and considering her life from her character’s perspective.

Walton Goggins’ The Ghoul in Fallout

“I wanted to feel the gravitas of that moment when I first tried on the vault suit, and knowing how special this was, and what a big deal, what an honor it was to be able to do that.”
Since viewers had no control over Lucy’s choices and decisions in the series, Ella Purnell wanted to incorporate those small choices that players experience, through her role. Therefore, the actress played the game and picked up little details about her character as she wanted to do justice to the video game fans.

Fallout is available on Prime Video.