TV. vs. Movies, how Ella Purnell decides on what projects to audition for and longevity in Hollywood.
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."
00:00Do TV versus movies, does that matter for actors, you know, these days, or is it like a good project's a good project, and, you know, we don't think about what we like, or, I mean, I'm a big movie fan, I know that that's maybe just me, you know, and I feel like people around my age who I talk to, like my friends and stuff, they don't care about that as much, but on that creative side of things, do you think about that, that sort of thing?
00:21I don't really anymore, I used to, I mean, I remember when, you know, pre-streamers, TV wasn't as exciting to me personally as movies were, for me, creatively, a good story, a good character is compelling enough for me to want to take the part, but there are some other things that factor into it, I love doing TV, I mean, I've done a lot of TV, considering it in a short amount of time,
00:47what I love about it is the chaos of it, really, you know, with films, you get a script, and the script will change, for sure, but you generally know where you start and where you finish, TV, it's like, I could read a script next week, it would tell me to, like, dress up as a bird, and run down a catwalk, and I'd have to do it, you don't have any real control, or say, a little bit, but not really, and you get to play this character, inhabit this character, and then just sort of jump, and hope that the writers will guide you to where you need to go, even if you don't necessarily
01:17understand it, trust in them that they have this end goal, and sometimes they don't even have an end goal, by the way, and they are making it up as they go, and that's fun as well, you know, it's, that's where, for me, it's sort of almost got this, like, improvisational quality to it, sort of long-term improv, where you just sort of, you know, you might have a plan, and then you, it's like life, you might have a plan, and then something else comes along, and you just have to pivot, that's exciting to me, I think at this point, right now, I'm now leaning back towards
01:47movies, I've had enough of the chaos, and I'd like to go back to something slightly more
01:51controlled, but, you know, like I said, it's more about the character, and the story, for me, than anything else.
