‘It’s much harder to play than it looks’: Keele graduate Ellie Buckley on The Traitors

She spent years studying the human brain, human behaviour and the way people think. Then psychologist Ellie Buckley found herself sitting around the famous round table on BBC's The Traitors, trying to work out which of her fellow contestants was lying.

The Keele University graduate entered the latest series as a Faithful, hoping her background in psychology - combined with her love of the show - would give her an edge.

"I was a huge fan of the show," Ellie said. "We used to talk about it at work, and I remember thinking, I want to go and play that. And I had all this psychological knowledge - surely that would come in handy."

One evening, Ellie was sitting on the sofa at home when she decided to apply.

"Then I turned to my boyfriend, Ross, and said, 'Let’s do it together. It'll be so much more fun as a pair.'"

When the couple were accepted, the reality of taking part quickly began to sink in.

"You eventually get to the castle in the Scottish Highlands and suddenly you're in the cast and you go, 'Oh my goodness. I can't believe I'm inside my TV.' It’s incredibly surreal."

The nerves were greater than Ellie had anticipated, as was the scale of the production.

"I don't think I understood how nervous you could be. You're going into a huge production. There are so many staff and it's such a major operation, and in the back of your mind you’re thinking you don’t want to be the first person to go home!

"And the moment when Claudia Winkleman selects the Traitors is just as it appears on screen. She has a fantastic walk, the sound of her footsteps is timed perfectly, and you genuinely have no idea who has been chosen. It’s a nerve-wracking moment."

But once inside the castle, Ellie quickly discovered that putting psychological theory into practice was harder than it looked from the sofa. She had arrived with a strategy, but forming bonds with the other contestants soon made it difficult to separate friendship from gameplay.

"It's much harder to use psychological thinking or knowledge than it looks like, because you don’t have time to sit back and analyse what’s happening," she said. "When you're in the game, there is so much information flying at you all the time.

"I think I underestimated how hard it was going to be to go into that group and focus just on my own game plan. It's a lot more emotional than you think it’s going to be because you start to bond with people from day one. You don't really consider that before you go in, or the impact it will have.

"You're sitting at home planning what you're going to do and you're like, yeah, I'm just going to focus on myself, and then you go, 'Oh God, this is actually really difficult.'

"With The Traitors, someone has to fail for someone else to succeed, and that's actually quite difficult. You go in thinking it's just a game, but very quickly you're dealing with real people and real emotions. That makes every decision much harder than it looks on screen."

Ellie with some of the cast of The Traitors series four, including winners Rachel Duffy and Stephen Libby. Credit: Ellie Buckley.

After four degrees and years of academic study, Ellie was accustomed to gathering evidence, weighing up arguments and making carefully considered decisions. But The Traitors presented a very different challenge.

"I think maybe because I've spent a lot of time in academia and a lot of time studying, I'm quite slow to make a decision," Ellie said. "I like to weigh up the evidence and balance an argument. And in that game, that's not very useful. You need to work on your intuition. You need to make fast decisions."

The contestants' days were packed with breakfast, missions, conversations and round tables, leaving little time to step back and analyse what was happening.

"Those round tables are a lot longer than they look, I’ll tell you," Ellie laughed. "Obviously, you only see a small part of them on screen, but when you’re actually there, they go on for a long time and there’s so much happening."

The experience also gave Ellie a new perspective on what it meant to be a Traitor. Although she had initially thought being chosen as a Traitor would be the more powerful and enjoyable position, she soon changed her mind.

"Actually, the reality of the experience was, I think I would find it way too stressful to lie to everyone. I didn't enjoy lying to people about my relationship with Ross and it made me feel really tense.

"I just thought, wow, if I was a Traitor, I think I would have just been crying every day. So, yeah, it was probably right that I was a Faithful."

Ellie made it around three-quarters of the way through the competition before being banished in episode nine, receiving four votes - two of which came from Traitors.

"I like to think it wasn't that it was a terrible game that I played. It's just that the Traitors decided it was my time," she said.

Despite making it deep into the competition, Ellie says there are things she would do differently if she had the chance to go back.

"I think I'd be bolder. I was overthinking it at times, and I know that I appeared very quiet on the screen, which wasn't the case in the castle. I’d flesh out my arguments a bit more and try and trust my intuition a bit more, rather than waiting to try and evaluate everything."

Watching the series back with friends and family gave Ellie another opportunity to reflect on the experience, seeing events unfold from the perspective of the viewer rather than a contestant inside the castle.

Ellie's ability to combine careful analysis with an understanding of the human mind was something she had been developing since her time at Keele.

She graduated from Keele in 2014 with a first-class degree in Neuroscience and Psychology, having been drawn to the opportunity to study both the physical workings of the brain and the psychology of the mind.

Ellie graduating from Keele, in 2014. Credit: Ellie Buckley.

"I'd always loved psychology, the brain and the mind, so the ability to do dual honours at Keele and explore both sides was really appealing," she said.

Growing up in a small village in Oxfordshire, Ellie says Keele quickly felt like home.

Her university experience combined academic focus with a healthy dose of the dramatic. She joined the drama society at Keele and took part in plays, while also enjoying nights out at the Students' Union and making use of the quieter spots around campus to concentrate on her studies.

"I had a lot of fun at Keele, she said. "I joined the drama society and got involved in some plays, which was really fun and showed my flair for the dramatic. Living in Hawthorns Hall, there was always something going on, and I had a part-time job behind the bar in the Sneyd Arms in Keele village."

But for Ellie, Keele was also an opportunity to prove to herself that she could achieve academically.

"I didn't do too well in my A-Levels, due to things I had going on in my life, so when I came to Keele, I was really focused on proving to myself that I could succeed in an academic environment."

She quickly found herself thriving in her studies, with her final-year psychology dissertation focusing on autism - a subject that would go on to become an important part of her academic and professional career.

"I did my final year psychology dissertation focusing on autism, which is ultimately what I ended up doing my PhD on, so my time at Keele really set the foundation for a lot of what I did in my career afterwards."

After graduating from Keele, Ellie went on to study a Master's in Cognitive Neuroscience and then a PhD in Psychology and Human Development. Her doctoral research focused on autistic people's experiences of working in the performing arts.

She subsequently worked as an assistant psychologist in the NHS and privately, before becoming a postdoctoral research fellow and continuing her research into autism. Eventually, Ellie moved away from academia and into user research - a field she has worked in ever since.

Today, she works as a senior user researcher for a consultancy in London, helping clients understand what people need from digital services and ensuring systems are usable, accessible and inclusive. She has also completed a further Master's in Occupational and Organisational Psychology.

"I love learning," Ellie said. "I've got four degrees now, and my friends are probably rolling their eyes at this point. But my boyfriend knows I can’t help myself, and I definitely can't rule out studying for a fifth degree."

Ellie and her boyfriend Ross, who appeared alongside her in series four. Credit: Ellie Buckley.

The thread running through Ellie's career has remained the same - understanding people.

"It's the people. I love chatting to people, so being a researcher is a perfect role for me, learning what someone needs and then being able to advocate for them. It's just very satisfying as a job.

"I think the foundational knowledge of autism and neurodivergence that I gained at Keele still helps me to this day. It means I naturally build inclusive thinking into my work and consider the different needs of the people I’m designing for."

For Ellie, the journey from at Keele to appearing on one of television’s biggest reality shows has been impossible to predict.

And while The Traitors may have taught her that psychology doesn't always provide the answers, her curiosity about people continues to shape both her career and the way she approaches new challenges.

Looking ahead to the second series of Celebrity Traitors, Ellie already knows who she'll be supporting.  

"I'm Team Hannah Fry all the way," she said.