‘Fallout’s Ella Purnell On Lucy’s Drug Trip, Unleashing Her Killer Instinct: “I Felt So Scandalous”
SPOILERS: This post contains details about the Fallout, Season 2 episode ‘The Demon in the Snow’
As Ella Purnell reprises her role as Lucy MacLean in Season 2 of Fallout, fans of the video game will be pleased with the character’s killer evolution.
While speaking with Deadline about this week’s episode ‘The Demon in the Snow’, now available to stream on Prime Video, the actress said her “favorite part of Season 2” was getting to unleash Lucy’s lethal moves during a drug trip, which compromises her usual resistance to violence and killing.
“I couldn’t believe it. I felt so scandalous. Coming from any other character, you’d be like, ‘Yeah, it’s just Fallout,’ but just something about it being Lucy, it feels scandalous. I couldn’t believe it. It’s like when you’re like little sister goes out and gets a little wild—it’s crazy,” she said. “Very fun to see that side of her, to play that side of her, and also, a new experience for me. I haven’t done that a lot in my career. I didn’t know how it was gonna turn out. It turned out good, thank God, I think.”
Lucy’s drug-induced killing spree comes as a result of a life-saving Buffout steroid drip after she nearly died in the previous episode. Under the influence for the first time, the drug trip alters her sense of morals to deadly, comedic proportions.
Purnell added, “But yeah, very fun to play a side of Lucy that is fearless for once. And she’s very tough, she’s very brave, I think much braver than I would be, given the circumstances. But to play a character who truly doesn’t conceive the notion of death for just five minutes of the day, that suddenly there’s no stakes, it changes all the tension in the scene, changes all the tension that drives the character. And I get to play with some comedy in there, it was really fun.”
With the sophomore of her Sky Atlantic/Starz series Sweetpea also coming up, Purnell discussed the duality of playing the show’s mousey serial killer Rhiannon Lewis after portraying the upbeat peacemonger in Fallout.
“It’s a weird switch to make actually. I was watching Fallout today, and when Lucy does even the slightest thing bad that’s like so new for her, I’m like, ‘Rhiannon would do that in a heartbeat.’ I’m like, ‘Rhiannon can do that,’” said Purnell.
