Fallout fans shocked to discover Ella Purnell’s real voice

Following her turn as Lucy MacLean in the Fallout TV series, Ella Purnell has caught the attention of fans who have been left shocked by her real voice. 

Though Purnell has had a long career on screen, her fame has stepped up a notch in recent years thanks to her role as Jackie in Yellowjackets. 

Now, she’s earning praise for her portrayal of Lucy, the wide-eyed, idealistic “Vaultie” in Amazon Prime Video’s TV show adaptation of the famed video game Fallout. 

Given she speaks with a perfect American accent in both of these titles, it was assumed that this was her natural voice — but when she appeared on a recent episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, many learned for the first time that she’s British. 

Fallon himself pointed it out, saying, “I’m amazed by your British accent… I’ve known you and I’ve watched you and I’m a big fan, but you do a great American accent.”

After thanking him, Purnell credits her dialect coach Coley. When asked if people get surprised by her UK origins, she replies, “They do sometimes, which is the highest compliment ever. 

“I remember when I did my first American accent in a film. I was 15 or 16, and I thought, ‘I’m going to do what the real actors do. I’m going to stay in the accent the whole time’… I was 15, I was figuring it out.”

After around three weeks of this, she was tired and decided to start speaking in her natural accent. The only problem? Her co-star didn’t believe she was British. 

“I had to prove to him I was English,” she quips. “At first it was so nice and by the end I was like making him cups of tea, I was listening to Kings & Queens.”

Clearly her American is convincing, as a number of fans have taken to social media to express their shock at finding out her real voice. 

“Wait, Ella Purnell is British?!” said one, while another wrote, “Ella Purnell being English really caught me off guard.”

A third added, “Ella Purnell is English??????” And a fourth chimed in, “I genuinely can’t get my head around Ella Purnell being English. Her American accent is always so good.”

Fallout is available to stream on Prime Video now. You can check out our review, more details about its cast, and its incredible soundtrack. And you can find new TV shows coming to streaming this month here.