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  • 5/27/2025
Ella Purnell shares how acting was apart of her life from a young age and why she decided to pursue it as a career.

Actor Ella Purnell grew up too fast: "You shouldn't really have to ask yourself about your career and your taxes when you’re 15," jokes the 28-year-old Brit. She landed her first film at just 13, playing the young Keira Knightley in the sci-fi "Never Let Me Go." From there, Purnell quickly gained recognition as the child star who could pull off action-packed features in "Kick-Ass 2" or enchant the screen with roles with fantasy films "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children." But it wasn’t until her 20s that she truly hit her stride, breaking into television with shows like suspense-filled series "Yellowjackets."

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Transcript
00:00I think in all honesty I didn't you know I was a kid I did baby modeling when I
00:07was like two years old and probably couldn't form thoughts and started I did
00:12an advert when I was eight years old I don't think I ever really knew what was
00:17going on I didn't you know I loved singing I loved dancing I loved I was a
00:20musical theatre brat and I loved doing that it wasn't you know I didn't think
00:25of it as a career I didn't think of it as like something that I could do the
00:29rest of my life it was just something I did for fun I don't even think I
00:33really knew I was getting paid like I just didn't have like you don't like up
00:36your child it wasn't really until as a teenager and I started to meet these
00:41incredible you know actresses who were older than me and they started to give
00:46me advice that I started to really think that I could do this long term but it's
00:50been you know it's been a long journey and I've had to sort of reckon with it
00:55many many times to get to where I am now and it's what's a really cool being
01:00here and the kind of like I've always wanted to do the force that I was younger
01:0330 and I finally got here and I'm you know and I get to sort of look back and
01:07it's I feel really at peace and happy and proud and they're grateful to my mom and
01:11my agents and all the people that supported me when I was that young acting

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