For millions of Australians, Bridie Carter and Lisa Chappell will forever be remembered as Tess and Claire McLeod. But 25 years after McLeod’s Daughters first arrived on television, Bridie has reflected on a relationship that became just as meaningful away from Drover’s Run.
When McLeod’s Daughters premiered in August 2001, few involved could have known how deeply the series would become woven into Australian television history.
At its heart were two very different sisters: Claire McLeod, played by Lisa Chappell, and Tess Silverman McLeod, played by Bridie Carter.
Their relationship was complicated from the beginning. Yet as Tess and Claire slowly found their way towards each other, their bond became one of the emotional foundations of the series.
What audiences could not see was that something meaningful was also developing between the two women playing them.
A friendship growing behind the cameras
Bridie has reflected on how important her real-life friendship with Lisa became to what audiences ultimately saw on screen.
The connection between Tess and Claire had to feel believable despite the characters beginning their story with tension, grief and very different views of life.
For Bridie, the friendship she developed with Lisa became an important part of making that relationship work.
“If that friendship wasn’t there, I don’t think the show would have worked,” Bridie told TV WEEK.
It is a revealing thought 25 years later.
What viewers saw as the bond between two fictional sisters was being supported by a genuine connection developing away from the cameras.
It started during uncertain early days at Drover’s Run
Those early years were not accompanied by any certainty that McLeod’s Daughters would become the phenomenon it eventually did.
Bridie still remembers the nerves surrounding her first scenes.
She was filming alongside Lisa, Rachael Carpani, Jessica Napier and Sonia Todd near the shearing sheds, where the women were attempting to move sheep while trying to look far more experienced than they actually felt.
There was excitement and adrenaline, Bridie recalled, but no one yet understood exactly what they were beginning.
That uncertainty makes what followed even more remarkable.
The women were finding their characters, adapting to the physical demands of filming in the South Australian countryside and creating relationships that would eventually become familiar to audiences far beyond Australia.
For Bridie and Lisa, those days also marked the beginning of a friendship that would continue long after their time together at Drover’s Run.
The relationship went beyond the good memories
Looking back now, Bridie does not describe the experience as one made entirely of happy memories.
She has acknowledged there were genuinely challenging periods during their McLeod’s Daughters journey.
But through them, she says, she and Lisa supported one another.
“We always had each other’s backs,” Bridie recalled.
She also spoke of a shared experience between them that outsiders could never completely understand.
The actress did not spell out every detail of those difficult periods — and perhaps that is what gives her reflection so much weight.
After years spent working closely together on a demanding production and carrying two characters whose relationship became central to the series, some parts of their story remained uniquely theirs.
Tess and Claire became something bigger than television
On screen, Tess and Claire’s relationship developed from uncertainty and conflict into a deeply loving sisterhood.
For Bridie, that emotional connection became the heart of the show.
That made Claire’s departure in 2003 particularly powerful.
Lisa’s character was written out in one of the series’ most memorable episodes, leaving Tess and the rest of Drover’s Run facing an enormous change.
Bridie has since spoken about the care that went into giving Claire a farewell worthy of the character.
But while Tess and Claire’s time together on screen came to an end, the relationship between the women behind them did not.
Years passed. Their careers moved in different directions. Yet the friendship remained.
Twenty-five years later, they call each other sisters
Perhaps the most moving part of Bridie’s recent reflection is how simply she describes their relationship today.
She and Lisa no longer talk about their connection merely as two former co-stars remembering an important television job.
“We are each other’s sister,” Bridie said.
Lisa has expressed the same feeling, saying she gained “another sister for life” through Bridie.
It gives a different perspective to a friendship that began while the two actresses were portraying sisters for Australian audiences.
The fictional relationship may have brought them together, but what remained after the cameras stopped became something of its own.
A recent reunion brought those memories back
Bridie and Lisa have recently spent time together again while taking part in a television special celebrating 70 years of Australian TV.
For Bridie, it meant more than simply appearing alongside an old colleague.
She recalled sharing a night in Melbourne with Lisa, filming together, going to dinner and talking long into the evening.
It was a small reunion compared with the scale of the series they once made together, yet it also demonstrated how much of their connection survived the years between them.
There was no Drover’s Run around them and no Tess or Claire to play.
The friendship was still there.
A bond that became part of the show’s legacy
Lisa has said that despite a career spanning decades, nothing else has created the same impact or legacy for her as McLeod’s Daughters.
Even now, people continue to tell her what Claire — and the series itself — meant to them.
Bridie shares a similar appreciation for what the show gave them, while also acknowledging that its most important memories were not always the ones audiences saw.
Twenty-five years after Tess and Claire first appeared together, that may be one of the most touching parts of the McLeod’s Daughters story.
Millions watched two sisters slowly learn to love and trust one another at Drover’s Run.
Away from the cameras, Bridie Carter and Lisa Chappell were building a relationship of their own — one strengthened by the good years, tested during difficult ones and still meaningful more than two decades later.
And some parts of that journey, as Bridie herself has suggested, may always belong only to the two of them.
Source: TV WEEK / Now To Love