PRODUCTION INFORMATION

Set in a slightly seedy Sydney in the late 60s with gambling, crime, police 
corruption, adultery, betrayal, Chicago hoods, and a shot of Australia's 
breathtaking outback, DIRTY DEEDS is an enticing combination.

It's no surprise then that DIRTY DEEDS - written and directed by David Caesar 
("Mullet", "Idiot Box") and the first feature to be backed by Nine Films & 
Television in association with Macquarie Film Corporation and the Australian 
Film Finance Corporation, supported by the NSW Film & Television Office - 
attracted a stellar cast of Australian and internationally renowned talents.

"I think that probably half of the job that counts when you are directing a film 
is getting the right cast," David says. "For every role in this film, we managed 
to get the best person we could. Every character is believable and has a life on 
the screen."
 
Iconic Australian actor Bryan Brown heads the all-star cast which also includes 
Toni Collette ("Muriel's Wedding", "Sixth Sense", "About A Boy"), John Goodman 
("Roseanne", "Oh Brother Where Art Thou") and Sam Neill ("Jurassic Park III", 
"The Piano").

DIRTY DEEDS is produced by Bryan Brown of New Town Films and Deborah Balderstone 
of Haystack Productions. 

"When I read the script it jumped off the page," Deborah Balderstone says of her 
immediate attraction to the project. "The characters were real and funny and the 
dialogue was so hilarious. I just read it and thought 'oh my God'. I've read so 
many scripts over the years and normally they just fall into a certain mould and 
there's nothing special about them. This script - apart from being a really big 
Australian story and having obvious commercial potential - had something 
absolutely hilarious about the way it was written and all of these ridiculously 
fantastic characters coming together to tell this amazing Australian story."

Her faith in the project, and in David tackling the dual director and 
screenwriter roles, was rewarded as soon as initial DIRTY DEEDS footage began to 
be pieced together.

"When we saw the edited footage, it became clear to me what David's been talking 
about ever since we met," she says. "I think it's fantastic that he does both 
(write and direct). He's so visual.. He knows how it's going to look and there's 
no conflict of interest between his version of how it's going to look compared 
to another director's version."

David agrees that for him the combined roles are essential: "When you write and 
direct your own films you have more of an affinity with the material because you 
have spent years working on it and developing it. The benefit of then directing 
your own material is that it gives you a lot of freedom. You can make decisions 
on the day about the script and changes you might want to make - because you've 
written it and you understand it so well.

"DIRTY DEEDS came about the same way that I've written all of my films. I pretty 
much visualise something and then write it down. I always have an image about 
how it's going to look and sound - so I couldn't imagine not directing something 
that I've written."

Hugh Marks of Nine Films & Television and Jennie Hughes of Macquarie Film 
Corporation are co-executive producers. Xavier Marchand of Haystack Productions 
and Kris Noble of Nine Films & Television are executive producers. 

For Bryan Brown, DIRTY DEEDS offered the chance to not only step in front of the 
camera in a role tailored to his talents, but to also work again behind-the-
scenes as producer.

"Some five years ago at the Toronto Film Festival - when David was there with 
"Idiot Box", which he had written and directed, and I was there with "Dead 
Heart", which I had starred in and produced - David came to me with this idea 
for a story based around a legendary incident which had happened in the crime 
world in Sydney in the late-60s," Bryan recalls.

"He told me the story he wanted to tell and asked me to play this character 
(Sydney criminal king-pin Barry Ryan). I asked him who was going to produce it 
and he said he didn't have anyone yet. It was early days. I said 'why don't I 
produce it as well?' And that's how we set out."

Over a period of more than four years Bryan and David worked at honing the story 
and script. As DIRTY DEEDS evolved from a story idea into a fully realised - and 
darkly comic - piece, what remained constant was David's hit list of actors he 
imagined for the all-important key roles.

"David was always interested in Toni Collette playing Sharon, my wife in the 
film," Bryan says. "You need someone (for that role) who can be a really strong 
woman, but who can have a real twinkle to her. 

"Here's this bloke (Barry), who goes out and does all this heavy crime business 
and when he comes home there's still the missus telling him to clean up after 
himself. Toni's a very clever actress and she's known for her comedy roles, but 
she's also known for being real in her roles. In this...she is the power behind 
the throne."

Toni, who read the script while in London and immediately jumped at the chance 
to play Sharon, is equally full of praise for her on-screen husband - noting 
that despite the dual responsibilities of star and producer, he was still true 
to his Aussie larrikin reputation.

"I have never worked with Bryan Brown before, and my God I hope I work with him 
again and again," she says. "The man is amazing. Apart from being an iconic 
Australian figure, he's just such a good person. He cracks me up constantly. The 
first week I was on, I couldn't believe it. My cheeks were constantly aching 
from laughing hysterically all day. The man doesn't stop. He's incredibly 
bright; he's interested in people. He's such a constant person. What you see is 
what you get. I totally adore him."

While Toni - who has spent the past several years making her mark in the US and 
UK - cherished the opportunity to return to Australian soil, David also hit the 
jackpot with in-demand American character actor John Goodman. Unexpectedly his 
schedule allowed him to travel to Australia to play the world-weary Chicago 
mobster Tony Testano.

"Getting John was a real coup for us," Bryan says. "We had to find someone you 
could like, but who you could believe was a heavy. We talked about John Goodman 
way back, but never thought it was possible...anyway John read the script, loved 
it and wanted to do it. It was a very big plus for us because it is a great 
character who has to have a likeability factor that John just has in his 
character."

Deborah Balderstone agrees: "Tony is an incredibly sympathetic character, even 
though he's one of the bad guys. He's a lovely guy who is sick of his life in 
Chicago and wants to move on. When we were thinking about who to cast in that 
role, we really wanted somebody who could portray this level of compassion and 
sensitivity as well as having a big comic presence. 

"You can see it now, when you see the edited footage, that John's such a well-
rounded kind of character actor. He's got the sensitivity and the capacity to be 
bigger than life when the scene calls for it."

And with Sam Neill adding his stellar talent to the small but pivotal role of 
Barry's mate, the corrupt cop Ray, DIRTY DEEDS' star power was further cemented.

"The thing with this film is that we've managed to get good actors for important 
parts," says Bryan, adding that the cast is rounded out by hugely talented local 
actors Felix Williamson, as Chicago mobster Sal Cassela, and up-and-coming 
talents Sam Worthington and Kestie Morassi as the young lovers who turn their 
backs on a world of crime and corruption.

"Sam is our young man love interest in DIRTY DEEDS," Bryan says. "He plays 
Barry's nephew, Darcy. He's a young boy who comes back from Vietnam and who gets 
tied up with his uncle. His journey with the young girl (Kestie, who plays 
Barry's mistress Margaret and ultimately Darcy's love-interest) is the heart of 
the movie.

"He's got a great presence. He's a terrific young actor and has a very good male 
inner-strength, which serves us well."

Finding a young female talent who could convincingly be both a gangster's other 
woman and still be innocent enough to fall for Darcy was one of the greatest 
challenges of the casting process.

"She had to be a bit of a tough cookie, but also someone who could fall in love 
with a young man and see an alternative way of life," Bryan says. "She couldn't 
be that bruised that she couldn't still have an innocence about her that wanted 
something better. But to be my mistress she had to have a lack of innocence too. 
It wasn't an easy thing to do."

The final major players in DIRTY DEEDS are the distinctive major locations of 
Sydney and Broken Hill in remote NSW. While the urban and outback locations are 
as different from each other as it is possible to get just about anywhere on the 
planet, to achieve the film's highly stylised look each location still had to be 
redressed, keeping in mind a distinctly late-60s sensibility.

"It was a real challenge for the location guys, the costume guys and the 
production art department because they have to recreate this whole world, every 
single set," says Deborah Balderstone. "We weren't able to walk in anywhere and 
shoot it as it is.

"Shooting largely in Sydney, there wasn't a lot of original 60s stuff out there, 
so we really had to recreate an entire world. That was anything from dressing 
streets in Kings Cross to completely buying out shops, building signs and 
redressing big clubs to make the whole street look like a 60s street...to having 
to build these interiors, which are full of all this fantastic 60s stuff, which 
reminds us all of our parents' houses.

"The final act takes place in the outback and...we wanted something that was 
really typically Australian with the big open spaces and the big blue skies and 
the red dirt. Broken Hill is so diverse in the kinds of geography that it 
offers, that it was perfect for us."

While the outback location was physically a match for the environment crafted in 
David's imagination, it was also an emotional reminder of how unique and special 
Australia's arid wilderness is for well-travelled Toni.

"It's absolutely stunning," she says of shooting in Broken Hill, which has 
previously been home to films including the fantasy/sci-fi epic Mad Max. "I had 
a moment of driving out there one morning...and I saw the sun rise and I just 
started sobbing. I thought 'I've finally come home'. The place is amazing. We 
are so lucky and privileged. It's stunning and I love it out here. And the 
people are great. I came second in darts one night; I learned to surf on the pub 
floor. I'm going to pubs for a start - I never go to pubs! It's like school 
camp. It's such a great group of people."

DIRTY DEEDS is distributed in Australia and New Zealand by Nine Films & 
Television in association with Hoyts Distribution. Alliance Atlantis are 
handling international sales for the rest of the world.