How Filming Fallout Led To Ella Purnell Being Surprised By Her Own Burnt Corpse On Yellowjackets: 'It Was Weird'

Ella Purnell smiling as Lucy in Fallout
(Image credit: Prime Video)

Actress Ella Purnell has been super busy lately, thanks to her role in acclaimed streaming series like Fallout (which is available with an Amazon Prime subscription) and Showtime's Yellowjackets. There was some overlap in filming the two shows, which led to Purnell being surprised by her own burnt corpse on Yellowjackets. And as she put it "it was weird."

Fans are currently waiting for Fallout Season 2, as well as Yellowjackets Season 3. The latter series saw the titular soccer team finally result to cannibalism while surviving in the wilderness, and the scene where they chowed down on Punell's Jackie was a wild one. It even shocked the actress herself, who spoke at Fan Expo about her reaction to the edible replica of her burnt corpse. In her words:

Yeah, it was weird. I knew it was gonna happen, I kind of put two and two together. But I was filming Fallout, and the schedule was very, very demanding. I was exhausted. And I was getting the scripts for Season 2 [of Yellowjackets] but I wasn’t maybe reading them as quickly as I should have been, because I had a lot going on.

While Yellowjackets fans would kill for a chance to read scripts, Ella Purnell was simply too busy working on Fallout to keep up with the pages for Season 2. She had a huge role in the video game adaptation, so who can blame her? Unfortunately that meant she was caught off guard when Jackie became food for the rest of the cast.

Unfortunately, Ella Purnell being behind on Yellowjackets Season 2 scripts led her to be confronted by a prop of her burnt corpse. Purnell's Jackie returned as a ghost, but it was seeing what her character's burnt body looked like that was particularly disturbing. As she shared:

And I just woke up one morning, and I had all these pictures from my Yellowjackets castmates of them taking selfies with my charred corpse. You know when you wake up and you don’t know where you are? It was like that but on steroids, because I woke up and I was like, ‘Am I dead? What’s happened?’ So, it was a little bit disconcerting.

Talk about a shock. And even if Purnell was keeping up on exactly when Jackie was going to end up being eaten, seeing her character's dead body still likely would have been quite off putting.

It remains to be seen if Jackie gets to appear in Season 3, but her presence will likely continue looming over the show regardless. For her part, Ella Purnell hasn't watched the episode where her co-stars eat her, as she explained:

I’m gonna tell you a secret: I actually haven’t watched that episode because I don’t know what it’s gonna do to my mental health. I don’t really want to risk it, so I haven’t seen it.

Understandable. Of course, Purnell's gig as Lucy in Fallout also has plenty of disturbing imagery. I mean, there was a whole plot revolving around a severed head. Still, being greeted by photos of your own corpse first thing in the morning is understandably weird.

Fallout's first season is streaming now on Amazon, and the first two season of Yellowjackets are on Showtime. For now, check the TV premiere list to plan your next binge watch.

Corey Chichizola
Movies Editor

Corey was born and raised in New Jersey. Graduated with degrees theater and literature from Ramapo College of New Jersey. After working in administrative theater for a year in New York, he started as the Weekend Editor at CinemaBlend. He's since been able to work himself up to reviews, phoners, and press junkets-- and is now able to appear on camera with some of his favorite actors... just not as he would have predicted as a kid. He's particularly proud of covering horror franchises like Scream and Halloween, as well as movie musicals like West Side Story. Favorite interviews include Steven Spielberg, Spike Lee, Jamie Lee Curtis, and more.