Ella Purnell Talks “Murder Week” on the Set of ‘Sweetpea’ and Trying Not to Judge Her Character
[This story contains spoilers from episode five of Sweetpea.]
Rhiannon Lewis is immediately introduced as a ticking timebomb of a character in Starz’s Sweetpea. The series opens with the inner dialogue of the protagonist, played by Ella Purnell, rattling off a list of people she’d like to kill as she feigns a smile in her interactions with said individuals that suggests she might one day make her sadistic wish come true.
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Audiences don’t have to wait long. By the end of the first episode, she’s found her first victim in a random man she crosses paths with in the park late at night. His inability to watch where he drunkenly pees is the final tipping point for Rhiannon who’s just come from confronting the woman she blames for all of problems at a club nearby: high school bully Julia Blenkinsopp (Nic?le Lecky).
Rhiannon’s last words to the man whom she later finds out is a not-so-innocent bystander — “Do you see me now?”— underscore her motives for murder. Having spent her childhood only receiving attention from her peers to be picked on makes Rhiannon’s desire to no longer be invisible relatable to viewers. But the way she goes about it is difficult to justify, even for the show’s lead star.
“I know actors are never supposed to judge their characters and I try hard not to judge my character,” the Fallout and former Yellowjackets star tells The Hollywood Reporter in the chat below. “I can never justify murder, and I can never understand how you can take someone’s life. I can’t. But what I can get on board with — and what I can relate to — is the feeling of being seen and having impact. And, what could be more permanent and impactful than ending someone’s life?”
Interestingly, Julia, one of the first names placed on Rhiannon’s mental kill list, manages to escape her bloody wrath, albeit bruised and traumatized after the unassuming novice serial killer takes her captive. But in the the fifth episode of the six-episode limited series, the duo executes a plan to blame Julia’s fiancé Marcus (Dino Kelly) for the kidnapping and, unsurprisingly, he doesn’t make it out of the setup alive, adding a dose of validity to Julia’s claim that Rhiannon is no different from her abusive ex-partner.
“That victim mindset Marcus and Rhiannon both have is this mindset that they’re the good guy and everyone else is the bad guy,” Purnell explains. “[But in a way] they’re different, because Rhiannon can never admit she’s done something wrong. Because that would mean facing the fact that she might be a monster.”
Below, Purnell talks about turning into a serial killer onscreen, including executing all of the show’s kills back-to-back in what was dubbed “murder week” on set, and what’s at the root of Rhiannon’s dysfunctional relationships with Julia and co-worker AJ (Calam Lynch) heading into the finale.
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How did the opportunity for you to be the lead and an executive producer on Sweetpea come about?
I met Patrick Walters, who is one of our lovely executive producers, and he worked at See-Saw Films and I was a really big fan of what See-Saw was making. So we kind of sat down just generally to speak about if they had anything. He pitched a few different things and Sweetpea really stood out to me. I really wanted to play the villain. I hadn’t really acknowledged that out loud, but as soon as he said “female serial killer,” that seemed interesting and like something I’ve never done before. And it scared me, honestly, because I didn’t know if I could do it the way they wanted to do it. To try make the audience feel conflicted morally, and getting the audience to relate to her emotions, her motivations, without necessarily relating, obviously, to her actions.
In terms of executive producing, I had produced a couple shorts. I directed a short, I’ve been writing. I’ve always wanted to be on the other side of the camera, and the last few years I’ve actually achieved that and I love it. I wanted to do it on a larger scale. I was just waiting for the right project, because I wanted to do a good job. I didn’t want to do it unless I felt like it was a character that I really, really understood and loved but also, tonally, for the whole show I needed it to be a genre that I felt experienced in and comfortable with. I wanted to be able to contribute properly and fully, and get the most experience out of it. I knew this was going to be a learning curve — and it definitely was a learning curve, a really good learning curve, but a challenging one nonetheless, and they were super open to it and welcomed me with open arms. I really couldn’t be more grateful for the opportunity.
There are multiple versions of Rhiannon: the wallflower we see in the beginning of the series, the murderer, and then the sexually and professionally in-charge woman she becomes. How did you find all of those iterations of her?
When I came on, we only had the pilot and I’d read the books. So I kind of knew a) how different the book and the show were going to be, and b) where I wanted to end up with her. I wanted episode six Rhiannon in the show to be sort of “chapter one Rhiannon” in the book, but I didn’t know exactly how it was gonna go in between. It was very important to me that I was able to beat out very, very subtle shifts. Every single scene should feel like one percent of change or one percent of growth. She is developing so quickly in real time.
That’s another reason why it was such a great thing to be able to be an executive producer. I was in the writers room, I was mapping out the series outline and when we were figuring out the plot, my mind was always working; I was always in Rhiannon’s mindset with even very small things. I had this idea when I first met [the director] Ella Jones to subconsciously influence the way we view this character by making her more quote-unquote attractive or healthy looking. So it’s kind of like a Jennifer’s Body thing of when she kills people she becomes more beautiful and youthful, but for Rhiannon I wanted her to feel more alive, not necessarily more beautiful. So we started with a very cool foundation tone that would kind of wash you out with frizzy [hair] and dark circles under the eyes, and then as the series progresses there’s very subtle changes of a warmer foundation with more blush, curling the eyelashes — you know, the girls’ tricks — as well as the costumes and the way she holds herself, when her shoulders go back and she holds herself with more confidence. That would change the way your voice sounds, you’ve got more projection, more volume, things like that aren’t choices Rhiannon is making consciously, but perhaps somewhere deep down, she’s not afraid of wearing yellow today because she [now] wants to be seen.
I recently chatted with another actor who said for an actor, everything their character does is justified. Do you feel that’s true with Rhiannon?
I struggle with it. I know actors are never supposed to judge their characters and I try hard not to judge my character. It’s difficult when I am a very, very empathetic person. I can get inside anyone’s head, and I can justify anything. And it’s hard in a situation like this to do it. I think what I choose to focus on is her emotional motivations. I can never justify murder, and I can never understand how you can take someone’s life. I can’t. But what I can get on board with, and what I can relate to, is the feeling of being seen and having impact. And, what could be more permanent and impactful than ending someone’s life? Focusing on what happens to her as a child and the ways that she carries that into her adult life, this sort of victim mentality that she has, which is flawed — just because these horrible things have happened to her, it doesn’t justify what she does — it makes you understand why she’s doing it.
In episode five, Julia tells Rhiannon she’s no different from Marcus, her abusive boyfriend. Do you agree with that?
I wouldn’t say they’re no different. I would say they have similarities, and they have differences. And I think what Julia is picking up on is an inability to face one’s self. I think that Rhiannon finds a way to blame everyone else for everything, and there are definitely reasons for that and there are definitely cases where she’s completely justified. She should never have gone through the things she has gone through. It’s very difficult to watch somebody suffer and struggle in that way, and Julia was awful to her.
But I also think that Rhiannon has gotten older, but hasn’t been able to move on from her trauma because she’s attached to the victim mindset. The sad thing is, had Rhiannon maybe gone to therapy and journaled a little bit and kind of just sat with uncomfortable emotions and processed things, she probably would have ended up in a similar confident place. But the reality is that when people go through childhood trauma and they’re so young and they don’t have the emotional understanding or the vocabulary to understand what has happened to them and why that’s happened to them, they develop, sometimes, as a trauma response, a very black and white way of thinking, where people are good or bad. And obviously the truth is that it’s much more nuanced and complicated.
But that victim mindset Marcus and Rhiannon both have is this mindset that they’re the good guy and everyone else is the bad guy. What’s interesting, though, is Marcus does, as a lot of abusers do, flip that narrative and then go, “I’m a terrible person,” “I’m so awful,” “I’m sorry,” which is an incredibly manipulative, narcissistic thing to do. And it’s really just a way to emotionally manipulate the victim. And in that way, they’re different because Rhiannon can never admit that she’s done something wrong, because that would mean facing the fact that she might be a monster.
In the episode prior when Rhiannon first captures Julia, she has the opportunity to kill her but she doesn’t. Why do you think that is?
Oh God, that’s such a good question. I think it’s partly what I said earlier about how she can’t let go of her trauma. Her trauma has become a part of her identity. There’s a strange sort of phenomenon in psychology about how our brains will always prefer a familiar hell than an unfamiliar heaven. It’s this thing our brains do to keep us safe. And they do that by trying to predict what’s going to happen so that we can prepare for the worst. So if you’ve been struggling a lot, and you hold on to this, this trauma is part of your identity. It’s “that’s the reason why I am the way I am,” instead of processing, healing and moving on from it. This is very common and it’s nobody’s fault.
I think in that moment when she can’t kill Julia, it’s because if she kills Julia, she has no one else to blame for her life being shitty. If she kills Julia, that means she actually has to do better and get better. And I don’t think she can do that. She doesn’t know who she is without Julia. As much as she hates Julia and resents her for making her invisible, the truth is, Julia didn’t make Rhiannon invisible. Rhiannon made Rhiannon invisible and she can’t face that. She can’t face the truth. It’s too painful and difficult for her.
How do you think that ties in with AJ and her overlooking the one person who sees her?
This is something me I spoke with our director about. One of my favorite moments in the show is when AJ makes her a cup of tea and she’s like, “Creep.” It’s a thing because Rhiannon, subconsciously, doesn’t like herself. She internalized the way that other people treated her when she was a child. So deep down, she doesn’t like herself or anyone else. She doesn’t believe in herself, she has very low self-esteem, and if someone loves you and you don’t like yourself very much, you can’t let them love you. You start to resent them because they love someone you hate. All she’s ever wanted is to be loved and for someone to see her, and the moment somebody actually does she can’t handle it. And again, it’s because then she has no one else to blame for her problems. Then she has to let go of the victim narrative that she’s carried her whole life.
Did you film the series in order and what was it like for you having to execute the first kill?
Not completely in order. But for the first few weeks, we did film chronologically within The Gazette, which was actually easier for me in many ways because the first few weeks, you’re always finding your footing. It’s always very destabilizing, and I was able to start in this meek and quiet place and build up that one percent in real time. And then two weeks in, I was like, “okay, I got it, I know who she is,” and it was easier to jump around because I’d sort of put down these big markers in her growth.
Filming the first murder scene was like three-quarters of the way through. And this was not deliberate, this just happened because of scheduling and location, but we had murder week. Literally, everybody who dies on the show, all died in that one week. It was the most emotionally exhausting week. I finished that week, and I did not leave my house for the weekend, except to go and get a massage. It was very difficult.
The first day I was incredibly nervous because the whole series really hinged on that first kill at the end of episode one and letting this animal out. In that moment, we need to see something in Rhiannon that is not human, and I’d never done anything like that before. I didn’t even know if I could do it. And I didn’t practice it, because I didn’t want to be in my head and I didn’t want to waste it. It felt like I was shaking up this bottle for about five months and then I was just gonna open it and see what comes out. So I was self-conscious and I was worried, and I was nervous and it was inhibiting my performance. and Ella [Jones] is such a fantastic director that she could see that in me. She really helped me get to the place I needed to get to. She said, “okay, we’re gonna do all the technical stuff first, and then the last scene of the day, when you’re exhausted” — because it was three in the morning in Mile End in London — “we’re gonna roll the camera for five minutes straight and you’re not gonna stop stabbing. You’re just gonna keep going and I’ll put all bits from it.” And, we did that. I got all the technical stuff out the way, hitting the marks and the blood gag, and she was right, I was exhausted. I was emotional, and the first minute I was in my head and I was frustrated and I was angry and then, I don’t know, something happened and I kind of blacked out.
You’ve said you were more nervous putting this series out than any other project. How have you felt about the response so far?
So relieved. I’ve put so much into it, and I probably did put too much pressure on this being the first thing that I’ve produced because I’ve wanted to do it for so many years. I really was holding out for the right project and it’s like a test in a way. It felt like a big experiment. I have no idea if this is gonna work, there were so many different components that all came together, and then having it come out and watching it for the first time and actually being able to track all of those things was like, “oh, it did work.” It came together with the music and the dark comedy, and every location that we picked, every costume that we picked, every cast member, it all came together and made this beautiful song where the harmonies just worked. People’s reception to it, I know that’s not within my control, and I didn’t let any of my inner core get too invested in that, because whether it does well or it doesn’t do well, there’s nothing I can do about it. But how I feel about the show was really important to me. And when I watched it all together in one sitting for the first time, there was such a relief that it all worked. Not necessarily in a way that’s good or bad, because that’s subjective, but in a way that made co-sensitive sense, that felt like a story.
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Sweetpea streams its finale Friday, Nov. 15, on the Starz app, and airs at 8 p.m. on the linear channel.
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