“I’m Making Up For Lost Time”
When Wentworth actor Leah Purcell was in high school, she tuned out of geography class. “I remember thinking, ‘I don’t need to know any of these places because I’m never going to get there.’” It was less of a reflection of her ambition than her circumstance: growing up in a single-parent household with nine children, money was tight and opportunity scarce. Yet here she is, at 49, having visited the most glamorous of destinations for work, including the Cannes Film Festival in Nice and the Tribeca Film Festival in New York. “When [my husband and I] found ourselves on a yacht in Cannes, we just started laughing, because he had come from a tough upbringing, too.”
If you believe in making your own luck, Purcell is the head of her own fortune factory. She’s jumped so many hurdles, she might as well add Olympic athlete to her résumé of credits. As an actor, she’s been starring in the award-winning prison drama Wentworth for three seasons, has appeared films such as Lantana and TV series such as Police Rescue, and has won a Helpmann Award.
She wears other hats, including songwriting, singing and writing. She co-wrote and performed the one-woman show Box the Pony which has been produced in London and Edinburgh and is now on the high school curriculum in several states. Her latest project, The Drover’s Wife: The Legend of Molly Johnson (based on the Henry Lawson short story), is being made into a movie with Leah as writer, director, co-producer and star. “I’m making up for lost time in school,” she says. “I was a bit of a ratbag and didn’t do my best, so making up for it now.”
Purcell was a performer from a young age. “There’s a photo of me around four years old, playing my brother’s guitar on my little fold-out chair that my mother got from a dump and fixed up. I would demand that the family listen to me, and after the fifth time they’d go, ‘Leah, please go to bed’.
“Growing up in [the Queensland country town of] Murgon, there were no dance classes or anything, but I grew up around performers. My mum was a bit of performer, even though it might just have been around barbecues and parties. I had an aunt that would sing and write her own music. I had uncles and aunts who could tell a joke that would put [professional comedians] to shame.
“I tried a few other jobs and thought about other things, but always at the back of my mind, when it got tough and life threw a few curveballs at me, this little voice would just pipe up and say, ‘Remember, you wanted to act.’ I had no idea how I was going to do it, but I just put one foot in front of the other and took on the challenge.”
Leah’s life could have turned out very differently. She gave birth to her daughter Amanda at 18; a month later, her mother – a woman she describes as “amazing” – died. She credits her partner and manager, Bain Stewart, with encouraging her to stay on her path.
“It’s very cliché, but it’s such a family vibe, and when you step on set you feel safe. Everyone is there to be better than they were yesterday, so the challenge is there – which is thrilling.”
“Without him, I don’t know where I’d be. He comes up with all the ideas. If I say, ‘I’m going to write a play’ he will say, ‘Great, I can see a film and a play and a novel and a TV show.’ He believes in me.
“We had been together for a month and a half when he heard me singing in the shower and said, ‘You know you’ve got a really great singing voice.’ I said, ‘I’m already sleeping with you, it’s okay, you don’t have to say that.’ But he meant it. Another time, he saw a yellow piece of paper blowing in the street, and it was about an Indigenous music workshop where you made a cassette at the end. He said, ‘You should go to this,’ and I did and it was amazing. I think I might have gone down a different path [if it wasn’t for him].”
Leah says she literally gives thanks each day for her fortune. “Every time I go for a walk, I give thanks. If something is troubling me, I put it up there. I’m into meditation and where I can, I reach out to my elders for a chat. It gives me strength. It’s my ancestry and it’s a way to stay connected to something so ancient.
“Here’s an example: my mother had read The Drover’s Wife to me since I was a four-year-old girl, so that’s a story I’ve had with me for over 40 years. Then I do Jindabyne with [director] Ray Lawrence and I go for a walk around Mount Kosciuszko [with my partner]. We’re just marvelling at the environment, saying we don’t utilise the landscape enough on screen. And we get to the top and I yell. I give thanks to the ancestors on the land that we’re on and I yell out, ‘I’m going to do a movie up here! I think it’s going to be The Drover’s Wife and I think I’m going to be in it!’ Jump to 2019 and I’m there doing it. That’s a true story.”
Apart from finishing up The Drover’s Wife, she is promoting the eighth season of Wentworth in which she plays Rita Connors, and which is based on the show she watched as a young girl, Prisoner.
“It’s very cliché, but it’s such a family vibe, and when you step on set you feel safe. Everyone is there to be better than they were yesterday, so the challenge is there – which is thrilling. And it’s the ultimate: a number one drama, massive all over the world, female storylines and then you get a bit of biffo and crying – what more could you want?”
It’s telling that when Purcell did find herself on the world’s stage – at the Tribeca Film Festival, which was founded by Robert De Niro – she didn’t necessarily care about mixing with the uber-famous. She did, however, have one fangirl moment. “Bain was there, pointing out all these people, and the fellow who played Bailey on Party of Five – Scott Wolf! – was there! Bain said, ‘You’ve just walked past Steven Spielberg and you’re losing your shit over Scott Wolf!’ But yeah, every now and then, the corny fangirl in me comes out.”
Watch Wentworth season eight on Fox Showcase and Foxtel Now.
Words_ Rachelle Unreich
Photo_ Narelle Portanier