The “number one director” Ella Purnell always wanted to work with: “I tried to act really cool”

Posted On February 15, 2026February 15, 2026

As the second season of Prime Video’s live-action video game adaptation Fallout comes to an end and a third season is confirmed, there’s no question who the star of the smash hit has been: the UK’s very own Ella Purnell. 

The 29-year-old has been putting in years of quality work now, especially on the big-budget TV front with leading roles in not just the post-nuclear Fallout but teen horror Yellowjackets too, so convincingly in fact that many would probably be surprised to learn that she’s British in the first place. 

But she is indeed, having grown up in East London, studying at theatre school and was off to university before Hollywood intervened in a way that she previously could only have dreamt of. In 2016, the king of all things gothic, Tim Burton, was casting for his film Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, and Purnell was someone who got the call. 

This worked out rather well for Purnell, who had long worshipped at the altar of Burton as a youngster, and she jumped at the chance, telling Miss Vogue: “Whenever anybody asked me ‘who is your number one director to work with’ I would always say ‘Tim Burton‘”.

She elaborated on the level of her obsession, revealing, “I had articles and posters of his movies on my wall, but when I found out I had the job, I took them down because he technically became my boss, and that was a little bit creepy. I tried to act really cool when I met him, but I think he definitely knew that I was freaking out inside.”

Based on a popular novel, Miss Peregrine’s told the tale of a child trying to solve a mystery and stumbling upon a home populated by other kids with special powers and starred former Bond girl Eva Green and Samuel L Jackson. Despite some mixed reviews from critics, it was hugely successful, bringing in $300million on a budget just a third of that, and set Purnell on the way to landing her first US TV series, Starz’s Sweetbitter in 2018. 

In the years that followed, she made herself a regular favourite of American TV casting directors, with major roles in the animated hits Arcane and Star Trek Prodigy and soon another voice-over on a kids movie called Viqueens. She’s also filming a comedy opposite Notting Hill star Rhys Ifans called The Scurry and will appear as a lead in a romantic sci-fi film called That Time We Met with SNL’s Pete Davidson. 

As for whether or not there may one day be a sequel to Miss Peregrine’s and therefore another film for Burton to direct, there’s nothing concrete currently planned, although the original book does have a follow-up called Hollow City, and a third in the series named Library of Souls. 

Burton has been busy of late working on another hit TV series, Netflix’s Wednesday and having released the sequel to the 1980s Michael Keaton blockbuster Beetlejuice, as well as his latest project, reported to be a remake of the cult 1950’s film Attack of the 50-foot Woman with Margot Robbie could push his career box office earnings north of $5bn, making him one of the top ten highest-grossing directors in movie history.

Currently leading that list is Steven Spielberg, with Avatar supremo James Cameron second and The Avengers director Anthony Russo in third place.