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From Child Star to Successful Actress: Our Top 5 Ella Purnell Films

 

Happy 21st Birthday, Ella Purnell! Since beginning her acting career in 2010, Ella Purnell has starred in over 10 films and shows before her 21st birthday. With her breakout roles in Never Let Me Go and Ways To Live Forever in 2010, Ella has launched herself into the movie spotlight. From heartfelt dramas to whimsical fantasies and horror, Ella proves that she is capable of playing a wide assortment of roles in both British and American films.

  1. Ways To Live Forever (2010)

Ella Purnell plays Robbie Kay’s romantic interest in Ways To Live Forever as she helps her cousin and friend complete a “bucket list” for their terminal illnesses. Ella is charismatic and open-minded in the film as she watches and helps her friends through their leukemia and entering their teenage years.  

  1. Intruders (2011)

Ella Purnell stars in Intruders, a horror film, and early on shows her versatility as an actor. As a creature named Hollow Face torments her and her family, Ella’s mental state and sanity go out with a bang. Ella breaks out of her typical teen and adolescent roles after her performance in Intruders.

  1. Wildlike (2014)

Wildlike is an amazing drama showcasing the emotional turmoil of a broken home and sexual abuse. As Ella’s character, Mackenzie, tries to run away from her abusive uncle, she joins Bruce Greenwood's character as he travels across Alaska. With her ultimate goal of reaching her mother in Seattle, Ella showcases her skills in a mature drama; bringing her character and traumatic experiences to the big screen.

  1. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (2016)

In Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, Ella Purnell plays the mischievous and eccentric Emma Bloom. With the ability to manipulate air and breathe underwater, Ella helps her fellow orphan “peculiars” to fight against the evil forces hunting them down. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children was directed by Tim Burton and is an exhilarating dark fantasy film.

  1. Churchill (2017)

Ella Purnell plays Winston Churchill’s secretary in Churchill. Based on Churchill’s experiences during World War II, the film goes in-depth to portray Churchill’s private moments and mental sanity during the war. Ella’s strong character, Helen, brings courage and insight to Churchill’s sensitivity in the war room during the war.

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Where are Robbie Kay and Ella Purnell now?

 

Back in 2010, actors Robbie Kay and Ella Purnell became more visible to American audiences with the release of the film Ways to Live Forever, but now, they are both well-established actors with their careers expanding further than anyone could ever dream for them!

Since Ways to Live Forever, Robbie Kay has worked on many projects on the big screens and on television. Robbie was the Cabin Boy in 2011 for Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, assisting Captain Jack Sparrow find the fountain of youth. He then moved on to the 2013 release of Rita, a television movie about a private-school teacher struggling to raise her three children, along with becoming Peter Pan on Freeform’s (formerly ABC Family) hit television series Once Upon a Time. Playing Rumplestiltskin's father in the series along with being the main antagonist for nearly an entire season, Kay has taken the hearts of many across America. If being the main antagonist on Once Upon a Time wasn’t enough for Kay, he soon became the main protagonist in Heroes Reborn, playing Tommy Clark, the son of Claire from the beloved Heroes series. The spinoff of Heroes showcased Kay learning to use his powers and attempting to save the world with his character’s sister.

Although most of his appearances on television are coming to an end in early 2016, he has a new film coming out this year called Cold Moon where he plays Ben Redfield. Not much is known about the film currently, but with an all-star cast including Josh Stewart, Candy Clark, Frank Whaley, and Christopher Lloyd alongside with Robbie Kay, the film is sure to be a success!

Ella Purnell, unlike Robbie, started her career in 2010 with Ways to Live Forever and Never Let Me Go playing Kaleigh and Young Ruth, respectively. Her career slowly started with these two films as she continued her career with Candy, a short, and Intruders in 2011. It wasn’t until 2013 where she made her appearance in Kick-Ass 2, as Dolce, when her career started to pick up. After that appearance, she took a turn and played the teenage Maleficent in Disney’s Maleficent in 2014, the tragic backstory of the “evil” queen. She ended her 2014 year as the main lead in Wildlike, a drama about a teenage girl running away from home. Entering the 2015 year, Ella starred in Cyberbully, a television movie about a girl being blackmailed into doing an anonymous hacker’s bidding. Her next project was no surprise after her appearance in Disney’s Maleficent, as she starred in The Legend of Tarzan, as young Jane alongside with Ways to Live Forever’s Ben Chaplin, who played Robbie Kay’s father in the film. However, the 2016 year is not over for Purnell as she has four featured films coming up in late 2016 - early 2017.

The most anticipated film Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children showcases Ella as Emma Bloom. Her other three films that do not have a release date yet are Access All Areas, Churchill, and The Journey is the Destination. Not much is known about these three films either, but after Miss Peregine’s, Ella’s expected to be a big star in the film industry!

Congratulations to the Ways to Live Forever stars; they both have gone a long way since 2010, when the film was first released in the United States. Six years later and they have established their names into films, shorts, and television. We can’t wait to see how far they will go.

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Ella Purnell Stars in Best Feature Film WILDLIKE

 

 

This year’s Richmond International Film Festival featured Ella Purnell’s new film Wildlike on the homepage and it was declared Best Feature Film of the festival. The film follows a troubled teen girl, Mackenzie (Ella Purnell), who was sent to live with her inappropriate uncle (Brian Geraghty) by her unstable mother. Rene Bartlett (Greenwood) is a hiker wanting nothing more than to be alone; however, an unlikely friendship bonds the girl and the hiker as they both explore Alaska’s beautiful terrain. While traveling together, their friendship helps them heal their past. The film is a multi award-winner, having also garnered six Best Narrative awards and two awards for Best Director.

Justin Lowe from The Hollywood Reporter stated, “By turns both tough and vulnerable, [Purnell] conveys Mackenzie’s inner turmoil and frequent desperation with both empathy and economy, skirting the ever-present pitfalls of over-emoting.” It’s no surprise that Purnell is a rising star in the movie business.

Ella Purnell has played minor roles in other major films and they have garnered several awards and nominations, including the recent Maleficent, where she played the evil queen from Sleeping Beauty as a teenager. The movie won Best Original Score for a Fantasy/Science Fiction/Horror Film at the International Film Music Critics Award (IFMCA). Maleficent was also nominated for Best Achievement in Costume Design at the Academy Awards and Best Feature Film at BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts). In Ways To Live Forever, distributed by World Wide Motion Pictures, a film about a young boy named Sam who is discovering and searching for information about his battle with leukemia. Kayleigh (Purnell), Sam’s love interest, helps him complete items on his bucket list off and find the answers he looks for. The film won Best Picture at the Toledo Film Festival and Audience Award at the Heartland Film Festival. If these awards and nominations continue for Purnell, it will undoubtedly help her film career and we’ll likely see her more on the big screen.