[1] Russell originally attended Holy Spirit School of Pequannock Township, New Jersey.
It was there, Russell performed in school plays and then transitioned to online homeschooling to pursue modeling and acting.
[4] While working on the set of Legacies, Russell pursued higher education at Berkeley College via their online program.
[5] Russell's first role was in the film A Walk Among the Tombstones (2014),[1] playing the 14-year-old daughter of a Russian drug dealer.
In July 2017, she was cast as the teenage Hope Mikaelson in the fifth and final season of The CW television series The Originals.