MEG FRASER – QUIET STRENGTH

Meg Fraser steps into John Wayne’s Western with a heroine who needs no gun, and keeps a little of every role she plays.

The first film education Meg Fraser received came from her mother, and it was not exactly age-appropriate. A ten-year-old Fraser sat through The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile, “totally in awe of what I was seeing.” Not long after, she told her mum she wanted to be an actor.

Now based in Sydney, Fraser has carried that childhood awe all the way to a New Mexico winter, a snowstorm, a horse, and a remake of a John Wayne classic. In Angel and the Badman, she plays Penny, a Quaker pacifist at the heart of a Western, a woman whose strength has nothing to do with a gun.

A Pinch-Me Set

Fraser is candid that every milestone, large or small, brings a little “wow, this is happening.” But the Western was something else: her first time working in the US, and a set where she met heroes, Tommy Lee Jones among them.

Sharing scenes with Jones and Neal McDonough was, in her words, incredible. “They are so kind and respectful. And watching them work, you can’t help but up your game.”

Then there was the weight of the title itself. The 1947 original starred John Wayne, an actor Fraser says she and her family have admired for a long time. Her grandfather is a devoted fan. “It didn’t feel like a huge deal” would be the wrong takeaway: she admits reimagining a Wayne film felt enormous. The balancing act, she explains, was holding respect for the original alongside the thrill of introducing such a classic to a modern audience.

Penny, Reimagined

Fraser has seen the original, and she calls Gail Russell, who played Penny in 1947, an icon. But she is clear about what has changed since the 1940s: a greater effort to see women as three-dimensional. The writers’ Penny doesn’t simply fall for the outlaw. She challenges him and disagrees with him, and she knows, at the end of the day, that she can rely on herself.

That self-reliance has roots in the story. In this version, Penny has no father figure or male relative at the center of the family, so she steps into a role that, in that era, would have been considered masculine. Fraser relished exploring what that shaped: independence, practicality, protectiveness, the ability to hold her own.

“Those qualities may have been seen as masculine then, but to me they’re really just the qualities of an incredibly strong woman,” she says. “I wanted her sweetness and femininity to exist alongside that strength, rather than one diminishing the other.”

The harder trick was building a Western heroine who never reaches for a weapon. Fraser locates Penny’s power in conviction: her belief in herself, her resolute commitment to non-violence, and her fundamental faith in the goodness of people. “There’s something incredibly strong about holding onto that in a world where violence is often the easiest answer.” Penny is still, Fraser stresses, more than capable in many moments of the story, something that mattered a great deal to her.

Chemistry, Trust and a Snowstorm

Opposite Zachary Levi’s Quirt, Fraser found common ground quickly through humor. The characters trade fast-paced, funny dialogue, and the chemistry began with the two actors as people before it moved to the characters. Her view of screen romance is refreshingly simple: it comes down to trusting your scene partner. “Zach had my back throughout the whole process.”

Director Julio Quintana, working alongside his brother Alex as cinematographer, fostered the same trust. Fraser describes a natural, human approach to actors and camera, where nothing felt overly structured and performers were free to bring their own instincts. “That kind of freedom is rare and fun to explore.”

The shoot had its tests. Fraser won’t call any day hard, since in retrospect it’s a great memory, but she recalls a snowstorm rolling in while she filmed her horse scenes outdoors. What fascinated her was the way a body shivering one moment can disappear into a scene the next. “You can forget it entirely and hide all those shakes and shivers.”

Horses, in fact, have left a mark. Having now made two films with them, Fraser says they demand calm and a kind of dominance that seeps into everyday life. “It makes you more clear and confident in environments when nerves might want to take over.”

Dressing the Part

For Fraser, the character arrives through the wardrobe. From the very first fitting she had an instant sense of Penny, and the practical reality of ranch work in layers, skirts and dresses changed how she walked and talked. “I rely on costumes so heavily when creating a character.”

Hair and makeup followed the same philosophy of restraint. Makeup artist Lauren Chemin kept things minimal, mindful that little would have been worn in that era, while caring for Fraser’s skin against the dryness of the New Mexico winter desert. Hair designer Claudia Breckenridge gave Penny a natural look that the production let the elements affect as they shot.

Fraser also left with a keepsake. She learned from the horse wranglers what a “wild rag” is: the blue scarf Penny wears at her neck, which shields against weather and doubles for wiping sweat. She kept it. Taking something small from every character’s wardrobe or props is a habit.

Finding the Character

Fraser doesn’t describe a rigid method. She is intuitive with characters, and says great scripts, with a coherent sense of who a person is on the page, make her job easier. From there she becomes what she calls a detective, asking why this person does what they do, how they walk, how they breathe, “uncovering every juicy piece of information about them.”

There’s no ritual for stepping in or out, either. Shaking off a role simply takes time. The tell-tale sign is her accent, which lingers after shoot days. Her family laughs at her on the phone when she’s still speaking in a southern twang.

Why Westerns, Why Now

Asked why audiences are returning to the genre, Fraser points to its heart. Westerns, she says, tend to carry a true moral while borrowing from romance, action and other genres, and their settings offer an escapism people love to be absorbed in.

What does she hope viewers take from Penny? “We could all lead with a little bit more love and light in this world.”

Off Duty, On Style

Away from the set, Fraser’s look is as uncomplicated as her philosophy. She sums up her style in three words: simple, classic and comfortable. Her touchstones come from two worlds: the effortless 1990s polish of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy and Gwyneth Paltrow, and the silhouettes and femininity of Old Hollywood icons Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly. Her red carpet philosophy is a single word: “Classic always.”

On beauty, skin comes first. She loves a day without makeup after long stretches of filming, and prefers skin that still looks and feels like skin. Her one indispensable product is lip balm, which she carries everywhere and, somehow, keeps losing. Her current scent is DedCool Xtra Milk, she’ll choose boots over heels, and her most recent purchase was a suede skirt from a vintage shop in Santa Fe. Penny’s influence, it seems, has a way of following her.

She admits she gets few chances to show her inner cowgirl in Sydney. What carries over is a rule she shares with Penny: keep it simple, and be comfortable, because it makes it much easier to move through life.

What’s Next

Fraser’s slate is already turning. In early 2027 she appears in a new installment of the Australian horror franchise Wolf Creek, a sharp contrast to Penny’s frontier. She is also looking forward to more US projects. Her wish list leans toward period pieces, “any chance I get to be transported by a character into a different time,” and the fantasy genre.

In the meantime, she is heading to South Korea within weeks, a believer in travelling for food. Her advice for anyone chasing a creative career is as plain as her style: “Want it with all of your being. But have a beautiful big life outside of it too.”

Asked to finish the sentence “Right now, I feel most like myself when…” her answer needs no polish: “I’m at home at the beach with my family.” Decompressing after a long shoot means tea and something on TV that makes her laugh. Lately she’s reading The Nightingale alongside Jane Eyre: “A classic for a reason.”