Ella Maisy Purvis on crime drama Patience and why she doesn’t want to be a ‘robotic, asexual drone’

“It was an open-call audition, and they said: ‘We want an autistic actor to play an autistic role.’” Ella Maisy Purvis is recalling the first time she heard about Patience, the new Channel 4 crime drama in which she plays the title role. “So I did a self-tape, got a meeting, thought I fucked it. But clearly I didn’t.” 

The rising star, previously seen on Heartstopper and A Kind of Spark, plays Patience Evans – whose life and work in the Criminal Records Office is disturbed when she reveals her sleuthing and puzzle-solving skills to DI Bea Metcalf, played by Breaking Bad and Lip Service star Laura Fraser. 

Patience is autistic and hyperlexic, meaning she has an incredible memory and ability to take in information. As she files the cases, she memorises them. And as she memorises them, she spots repeating patterns and links between cases that may have escaped detectives. 

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When she quietly mentions a link between a live case and previous unexplained deaths to Bea, this odd couple detective drama – which foregrounds neurodivergence as Patience ventures further from her quiet, ordered world into unpredictable police investigations – sparks into life. 

“My mum’s a massive crime drama fan,” says Purvis. “She reads everything, she watches everything, and she can always tell what’s going to happen. But when I got her to read the script, she didn’t know where it was going. So I was like, OK, cool. I guess I’ll do it then.” 

The crimes and cases are unusual, ranging from a corpse that walks away from the mortuary to a spate of psychologists apparently taking their own lives, after emptying their bank accounts. But what sets Patience apart is the way the title character and her autism is portrayed in lead writer Matt Baker’s script – from her everyday routines and the difficulties she encounters when these are disrupted to the local autistic adults support group and the relationship she forms at work with Bea. 

“It was really important to me that she wasn’t this kind of robotic, asexual drone. Patience is highly empathetic. She cares so much about her job and the people around her. It’s just expressed in a different way,” says Purvis.  

“What I was really excited about was that Patience has a lot of agency. Usually disabled people are infantilised or left to the side, but she goes on a really interesting journey.” 

Patience is joined by a police officer who is receptive to her ideas, if a little flummoxed by the way they are sometimes presented.  

“I’ve played maybe seven detectives now – who all, of course, have problems with their home life,” laughs co-star Fraser. “Because that’s what they do, right?  

“But this one is slightly different. The friendship between Bea and this young woman Patience really grows, and I found that touching. At first my character finds her helpful but slightly annoying. She doesn’t understand or want to understand about neurodiversity because she is in denial about her own son being, we don’t know yet, possibly ADHD. And this girl affronts her sometimes. But Patience’s passion for solving these puzzles is so attractive and invigorates Bea’s own interest.” 

A film set, like a police station, can be a chaotic and noisy environment. The producers of Patience were eager to make adaptations to improve accessibility and ensure neurodivergent cast and crew members were able to produce their best work.  

“It was certainly the first set I’ve been on that had an awareness that we were going to try our best to understand and accommodate neurodiverse actors and crew,” says Fraser.  

“It’s hard to maintain. I don’t think there is any way to stop the overwhelm when you’re filming such long hours and you’re up at 5am. But an awareness and a desire to understand is something. 

“Just reading the script increased my understanding somewhat. But actually doing the job and getting to know Ella was like a paradigm shift. Anything that increases understanding and empathy is a good thing.” 

What did this mean for Purvis? 

“If it was noisy or we were in a small space, instead of going, ‘I’ll just sit here and smile,’ I knew I could take five and have a cheeky fag,” she says. 

“That accessibility benefits everyone. Because this is my first big job, I thought I would just do anything they want me to do. ‘I’ll stand where you want and say things.’ But they kept asking if it feels OK. So it was about an everyday check-in, going, ‘Are you all right?’” 

Purvis and Fraser built a beautiful friendship on set of Patience in York, where the drama is set, and Antwerp – where most of it was actually filmed.  

“We would pass notes to each other like, creepy little boyfriends or girlfriends,” says Purvis. “We’d put them under each other’s doors in hotels we were staying in. They took on the style of Victorian love letters: ‘I traveled many, many seas to see the sunshine beam off your gorgeous face’ or whatever. It was very comforting!” 

The debate around authentic casting is moving quickly. And it can be a complex one. But Purvis’s performance in Patience will likely lead to louder calls for neurodivergent roles to be taken by neurodivergent actors. Purvis backs the idea. 

“Authentic casting is not black and white,” she says. “But, certainly in terms of disability, why wouldn’t you want the person with the most experience to play someone or embody someone based on experience? It’s something no one really understands unless they’ve lived with it.”  

Fraser agrees – with the caveat that part of the actor’s armoury is their ability to imagine themselves into the mindset of different characters.  

“With each project, the right person for the part should get the part,” she says. “I do value the imagination. Actors can draw on experience of one thing to use for another. But it’s very important that if there are autistic people who are brilliant for a part, they should play it. And the best person for this part was Ella.” 

Purvis doesn’t miss a beat. “I use my imagination a lot for this project,” she says. “Because I am not a criminologist. I am not a person with mice.  

“But there are so few roles that actually honour someone’s identity like this. So in terms of neurodivergence, I think it’s important to cast authentically and I think the person with the lived experience would always be the best person for the job.” 

Patience is on Channel 4 on Wednesday and Thursday nights from 8 January and available to stream as a boxset.

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