5 Secrets of ‘Priscilla, Queen of the Desert’ As Drag Classic Turns 30 – The Hollywood Reporter

The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert premiered to a rapturous, midnight-screening reception at Cannes on May 15, 1994. The tart, feel-good comedy follows a trio of Sydney drag queens — Terrence Stamp, Hugo Weaving and Guy Pearce — who travel by bus (that’s Priscilla) to a gig in the Outback, finding their way into hijinks and eye-popping outfits along the way. The film became a crossover sensation and even won an Oscar for its costumes (this despite having a costume budget of approximately $5,000). Its writer-director Stephan Elliott joins THR‘s It Happened in Hollywood podcast this week to reveal all about this making of the comedy classic on the cusp of its 30th birthday. Here are five facinating takeaways from the episode:

Guy Pearce Was Desperate to Shed his Soap Opera Image

Pearce was 26 and well-known to Australian and U.K. audiences at the time as the star of Neighbors, the popular soap, when he auditioned to play Adam. As Elliott tells it, he was desperate to shed his heartthrob image.

“Adam was the one character I thought if I was really wanting to cast a real drag performer, it was going to be Adam. But no [drag queens] showed up to the audition. Then Guy came in and Guy was at that point so desperate to get out of this soap opera, which he dug himself. And I said, ‘Look, Guy, you’re Mike from Neighbors.’ And he said, ‘I want to kill Mike from Neighbors. This is my chance of burying Mike from Neighbors,” Elliott says. On the success of Priscilla, Pearce went on to become a major star in films like Hollywood Confidential and Memento.

Terrence Stamp Saw Himself in Drag — and Got Depressed

Stamp, a legendary British actor who famously played General Zod in 1980’s Superman II, was expecting to look a lot sexier as Bernadette, the one trans member of the troupe.

“Terrence was in so much pain,” Elliott recalls. “He struggled the most because, let’s face it, growing up during the ’60s, Terrence was voted sexiest man alive about 10 times. He was one of the best dressed men I’ve ever met in real life, too. And there he was suddenly, as he saw it, dressed as this “old dog,” was how he saw it. He did not like his makeup and hair test. He got really upset. So then I demanded he could have no mirrors, so he couldn’t see himself. He got more and more depressed every time he saw himself. You can see it on camera — he brought that with him.”

Priscilla‘s Success Was Written in the Stars

“We’re in the [parking lot] of the Alice Springs casino doing the final scene and the light suddenly picked up around us,” he says. “We all went outside — and the biggest moon I’ve ever seen in my life was rising above us over the casino. So we whipped a second camera out and we got a shot. That moon is absolutely real. And Terence, who’s very much into the stars, got his [astrology] book out and had a look at me and said, ‘This is a sign. Film’s gonna work.’ I said, ‘Really?’ And he said, ‘It’s the last shot. Film is gonna work.’ I said, ‘Forget about it. Don’t be ridiculous.’ But he was right.”

A Stroke of Luck Led to the All-Bangers Soundtrack

Polygram Records was getting into the film business at just the right time for Priscilla.

“They picked up the film for no money, buying half the rights from the Australian government. Polygram said, ‘Oh, by the way, you have to use our library. That’s the deal.’ I said, ‘OK, well let’s have a look.’” It turned out Polygram had recently acquired the Motown catalog, which included ABBA. “Talk about a chocolate box that fell from out of nowhere — all those songs!” says Elliott.

The soundtrack went on to include not just ABBA’s “Mama Mia,” but such classics as Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive,” CeCe Peniston’s “Finally” and Charlene’s campy “Never Been to Me.” It infused new life into those hits and helped spark the ABBA revival.

The First Priscilla Audience Was at San Francisco’s Castro Theatre — And They Hated It

Before the Cannes premiere, Elliott hosted a sneak preview to a mostly gay audience in San Francisco. “Oh, that did not go well,” he recalls. “They began to boo, they began to hiss — and I’m sitting there dying thinking, ‘Oh my god, we’re dead in the water.’ I got up on stage for question and answer and they just came at me. They said I was ‘laughing at gay issues.’ I ‘didn’t take on HIV.’ There were ‘no male sex scenes there.’ The crowd was very, very, very, very hostile. I lost my temper on stage and I said, ‘You know what, people? If you want to make that film, you make that film, and you and your 10 mates can go see it. This film was made for a wider audience. I’m sorry, if you don’t like it.’ Basically, ‘You can all go get fucked,’ and I literally stormed off stage.”

Thinking his career was over, he then sat in terrified silence as the film made its official debut to a full house at the Palais in Cannes. “Of course, it went the other way,” he says. “The room exploded — it absolutely exploded. The audience went nuts. And I knew then that I’d made the right decision. I really was not making a gay film full of politics. I was making a celebration of gay life.”