LEAH PURCELL

A play, then novel exploring race, gender, violence and inheritance is now a movie

What has it been like adapting The Drover’s Wife from a play to a film? Awesome. I had so much fun dreaming up other characters and continuing the story and the challenge of writing it for film.

When you first wrote the play, did you imagine it becoming a novel and now a film?

Yes. That is how Bain (Bain Stewart), my partner, manager, lead producer of the film and managing director of our company Oombarra, and I work. Get all we can get out of an idea that we believe has a reach across many platforms and an audience.

What are you working on now?

Many things across acting, writing, directing, mentoring. With Oombarra Productions, our primary focus is The Drover’s Wife, The Legend of Molly Johnson Limited TV series. That’s its working title at present. We are just putting together the episode outlines, and then we will look to shop it around to broadcasters and streamers. It’s very exciting to focus on the young children from the film now as adults in the TV version. It’s a drama, a family generational piece starting in 2020 with the great, great, great, greatgranddaughter of Molly Johnson, an offspring of Delphi. You also meet Molly Johnson’s five-year-old daughter in the film. The characters’ backstories in the novel have also inspired the Limited TV series. And I have also just finished working alongside Sigourney Weaver on The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart – Made Up Stories and Amazon Original.

Is there a book or play that made you love writing? It was on the TV show Fallen Angels for the ABC in 1996/97. I was acting in it and watching the experienced actors and director go through a script, dissecting it, discussing character journey, etc. That made me say to myself, “I could be a writer.”

What’s the best book you’ve read? Is That You, Ruthie? by Ruth Hegarty. I know of the writer and her story, which touched me profoundly, and Aunty Ruthie became a mentor. She started her writing career as a mature person, and we are also tribally connected. She is such a great inspiration.

A book you wish you had read but haven’t got to? The Power of One.

What books are on your bedside table? Honey Blood by Kirsty Everett, which I finished last year but have meant to email the writer to say how much I loved the book. Through her clever writing, I had all the feels and only cried when the lead character did. It is the writer’s story, and you are really with her on the journey. I also have Lies, Damned Lies by Claire G. Coleman, which I have just started, really enjoying the poetic injections in her writing.

I am also nearly finished The Boy from The Mish by Gary Lonesborough. Enjoying his journey, of his youth, being gay and on the mish. And Because I Love Him by Ashlee Donohue is a very personal insight into a woman and her experience of domestic violence.

The Drover’s Wife in cinemas on May 5