That’s it there, mate.” Purcell’s boxing days and Wentworth-era fight training are coming to the fore as she stars in and directs her first feature film. Purcell, her face pressed to the ground, shouts “Cut!” and then says: “I shouldn’t take that left-hander so hard, because it’s a backhander.”īetween takes, Purcell tells Klarie: “Get your stance right, bruh … You lunge. “Shamed me manhood in front of a whore,” yells Matt Klarie, who plays drover Joe Johnson, brandishing the shard of a broken bottle as Purcell grabs a rifle. She is playing the fierce frontierswoman Molly Johnson, who is prepared to shoot any predatory man and bury him where he falls if it keeps her four children from harm.
Leah Purcell is throwing herself onto the dusty ground on top of a steep mountain. It’s a 35-degree day in November 2019, five weeks into a six-week shoot for The Drover’s Wife: The Legend of Molly Johnson.
