Ella Purnell Isn’t Interested in the Fast Track to Fame

With her huge doll-like eyes, Ella Purnell doesn’t exactly have the face of a killer. But that fact was exactly what drew her to Starz’s Sweetpea, an adaptation of CJ Skuse’s 2017 novel about a murderous wallflower, Rhiannon, whose social invisibility cloaks her crimes.

The 28-year-old London-born actor likes to keep fans on their toes: After breaking through as Jackie, the doomed queen bee in Yellowjackets, she went on to star in the postapolcalyptic action drama Fallout. “There’s a lot of stuff that doesn’t feel challenging to me because I feel like I’ve done it, or I feel like I could do it easily,” she says of other roles she’s been approached to play since Yellowjackets. “I don’t want to do anything that I’ve done before. I want to do things that scare me, and I want to take risks.” For her latest project, she knew she wanted to up the ante.

Sweetpea premieres on Starz on Friday, October 10.

Not only does Purnell take the leading role in Sweetpea, but she also serves as an executive producer. A big-picture thinker, she was thrilled to have a hand in everything from Rhiannon’s bedroom set to her makeup. “As the series progresses and she develops this confidence, there’s very subtle changes that I hope the audience won’t even perceive,” she says. “She built up a little bit of blusher, started using a warmer foundation, wearing brighter colors—things that should subconsciously influence the way you perceive that character as she becomes more attractive; sort of like in Jennifer’s Body, when she gets more vibrant [and] more full of life as she kills.”

For all her big breaks, Purnell is in no rush to ascend to the upper echelons of Hollywood. “It has very much been a marathon, not a sprint,” she says of her acting career, which she began as a child. “There’s no end goal for me that revolves around success. It revolves around my personal growth and personal challenges.”

Below, Purnell tells Vogue about adding “executive producer” to her résumé, failing publicly, and choosing her groovy Rabanne Emmys look.

Vogue: What drew you to the project?

Ella Purnell: Initially I sat down with Patrick Walters, an executive producer at See-Saw [Films], and we were talking about all the different projects that he had on his slate. Sweetpea really stood out to me, knowing that it was going to be a dark comedy about a female serial killer, but from her point of view. In my mind, it was sort of like Fleabag meets Dexter. It’s definitely taken on a different life from that, but that was really interesting to me. I really wanted to take on the challenges that I knew would come with that—trying to make the audience feel torn, having them relate to this character’s emotions but not necessarily her actions—and building on all of that complexity. Naturally that’s harder to sell with a woman. Dexter would be a different show if Dexter was a woman.

This was definitely the most challenging role I’ve ever done—having to completely lose my inhibition, [take] on a different physicality, and completely transforming the way I look.

Ella Purnell in Sweetpea

Photo: Sophie Mutevelian

How did you shed that inhibition?

It’s pulling back. It can be really embarrassing to let that inner animal out when you are aware of the cameras, your marks, your eyeline, and all of your friends standing around you. As humans, we’re not supposed to let that animal out. We’re supposed to be—especially as women—very constricted, very polished, very together. We always have to be very careful of our emotions—more so, I think, than men. To let out that raw, primal scream, you have to bring yourself to a place where you are completely in touch with yourself—all of the stuff that you have in there, deep down. It’s very therapeutic.

The other side of it is the presentation. Rhiannon is a complete wallflower at the start of the series. Nobody sees her; she’s invisible. I wanted to show that, physically, she wants to hide. She wears darker clothes. Her hair is very long. She doesn’t have any friends. She doesn’t have any maternal figure in her life. She doesn’t know how to use makeup. She looks a bit shit! I wanted to use a foundation that was slightly lighter than my skin tone to make me washed-out and accentuate the bags under my eyes, and feel like someone who doesn’t have much self-confidence. [Rihannon] is different from somebody who chooses not to wear makeup. It’s somebody who’s afraid to wear makeup—somebody who’s afraid to be looked at, to be perceived.

There is a certain fear about deliberately trying to look unattractive. It goes against what we all want to do. We all want to look good, but it really just helps for the character. It changes the way you stand. It changes the way you talk when you’re a bit embarrassed.

Purnell in Sweetpea

Photo: Sophie Mutevelian

You served as both an actor and an executive producer on Sweetpea. How did you approach the project from those different perspectives?

Being an EP is something that I’ve always wanted to do. I was waiting for the right project, something that I felt like I really could contribute [to]. It’s like a weird cosmic feeling. I really felt like I knew this character; I was excited to collaborate and contribute those ideas. It really was a wonderful, serendipitous thing, where they were looking for somebody to play Rhiannon who would be a producer on it. The whole story is told through Rhiannon’s eyes, so they wanted to have somebody whose sole purpose was looking at Rhiannon’s storyline, monitoring her every emotion, her every line—making sure it feels as authentic as possible, to try to get the audience as close inside her mind as they can. I really felt like I could do that, and somehow it all worked out. I got so much say in how we were going to design Rhiannon’s bedroom, and what she was going to look like, and what she was going to wear—all of those things. I was able to do auditions and chemistry tests with all of our cast and play with that. As we knew who we were casting, we would rewrite the scenes and the scripts to pull from things that we thought those actors brought to those characters. It’s just incredible to see what goes into it and actually be a part of those decisions.

What else do you see for yourself?

I have been [acting] for such a long time, and I love what I do. It has very much been a marathon, not a sprint. I’m not interested in any sort of fast track. There’s no end goal for me that revolves around success. It revolves around my personal growth and personal challenges. I’ve been incredibly lucky that the projects I’ve been a part of have done well. Of course, there’s a certain level of strategy involved, definitely more owed to my team than to me. I’m just really attracted to roles that feel new and feel different. I don’t want to do anything that I’ve done before. I want to do things that scare me, and I want to take risks. Whether that’s with acting or producing or directing or writing, it is not always going to be a win. I’m going to do shit films. My first thing that I write is probably not going to be very good, and that’s fine. I think one of the benefits of being a child actor is you fail publicly—and early—and then you lose that fear that I think can hold you back sometimes. My philosophy is to work with people [and] scripts that you like. If I don’t come out the other end of a job feeling like I’ve changed as a person, or I’ve grown as a person, or I’ve become a better actor, a better writer, a better friend, a better daughter—whatever it is—it’s not satisfying for me.

Purnell in Rabanne at the 2024 Emmys

Photo: Getty Images

I loved your Emmys look. How did you wind up committing to the whole ’70s bit?

I have just such a wonderful team of people around me. It’s really that. I have been starting to have more fun with fashion. As you get older, you get a bit more confident, and you just stop caring as much. I used to overthink events so much, and now I’ve just started to embrace it and really lean into looks and time periods that I love. With that dress, we tried it on, and we all knew it was the right dress. It was obviously a gorgeous dress, but relatively simple. I knew there was a bit more freedom to get creative. I make either a Pinterest page or a PDF, and I put loads of different inspirations, and we play with those different things.

I knew a dark lip would look good, because that purple-y wine color and silver is one of my favorite color combinations. Hair, I really wasn’t sold on. My hairstylist, Erica, pulled out all of these extensions that matched my hair color perfectly, and I was like, Wait a minute. One of the inspirations was Kaia Gerber at The Met, when she had this long, beautiful hair. That was one of the hair inspirations, or I was going to go with ’40s finger curls. On the day, I was kind of tired, and I didn’t really want to do a slicked-back look. I wanted to feel free. It all just came together. I would love to pretend that we knew it was going to work, but we didn’t. You just put it together and then you’re like, Oh shit, that looks kind of good. Sometimes you win, sometimes you miss.

This conversation has been edited and condensed.