Leah Purcell

Multi talented Leah Purcell is a Theatre, Film and Television Actress, Singer, Director, Playwright and Author. She is the youngest of seven children of Aboriginal Australian descent. Her father was a butcher and a boxing trainer. After a difficult adolescence, looking after her sick mother who died while Leah was in her late teens, problems with alcohol and teenage motherhood, Purcell left Murgon mission and moved to Brisbane and became involved with community theatre. In 1996 she moved to Sydney to become presenter on a music video cable television station, RED Music Channel. This was followed by roles in the ABC television series Police Rescue and Fallen Angels and the excellent Australian Drama starring Gabriel Byrne and Laura Linney, Jindabyne. She co-wrote and starred in a play called Box the Pony, which played at Sydney's Belvoir Street Theatre, the Sydney Opera House, the Queensland Performing Arts Complex (QPAC), the 1999 Edinburgh Festival and in 2000 at the Barbican Theatre in London. She then wrote and directed the documentary Black Chicks Talking, which won a 2002 Inside Film (IF) award. She appeared in the acclaimed Australian film Lantana and on stage in The Vagina Monologues. She went on to appear in three 2004 films including Somersault (starring Abbie Cornish) and The Proposition as well as playing the role of Condoleeza Rice in David Hare's play, Stuff Happens in Sydney and Melbourne.