The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert (Extra Frills Edition)

Product Description They came. They conquered. They looked fabulous. This wonderfully inventive, visually stunning and incomparably funny Australian import about three drag performers braving the vast, rugged outback won the 1994 Academy Award(r) for Costume Design. Veteran actor Terence Stamp (Star Wars: The Phantom Menace), Hugo Weaving (The Matrix), Guy Pearce (L.A. Confidential) all give hilarious ? and heartfelt ? performances in a three-fishes-outta-water story that's "one of the wildest movies ever made" (Rex Reed, New York Observer)! With a contract to perform a drag show way out in the Australian desert, Tick (Weaving), Adam (Pearce) and Ralph (Stamp) each has his own reason for wanting to leave the safety of Sydney. Christening their battered pink tour bus "Priscilla," this wickedly funny and high-drama trio head for the Outback...and into crazy adventures in even crazier outfits. You go, girls! Amazon.com A surprise hit in America, this 1994 Australian comedy is anchored by Terence Stamp as a transsexual who, in the company of two drag queens, travels to a remote desert location to put on a lip-synch performance--to the amazement of the locals. Getting there on a pink bus named Priscilla, the trio stop and play for people all over the Outback, getting the same homophobic, bewildered responses. The weak link in the film is dialogue that seems to have been pulled from "Queer Movie Banter for Dummies," all bitchy and clich?idden but fortunately salvaged by strong acting. The most fun comes whenever the three are performing; fans of Abba will be particularly pleased. --Tom Keogh The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert Extras An Interview with Priscilla Costume Designer Tim Chappel How much of costume design is your own inspiration / how much is inspired by the character? I rarely have creative free reign like I had on Priscilla. Priscilla was one of those rare situations where the powers that be said "Go for it". The characters are my babies. All design is meant to build character and help move the story along. Fortunately Mitzi, Felacia, and Bernardette were outrageous drag queens so that was not only easy bit great fun. Hard as it may seem, there are nuances that aren't obvious. For example when the queens are climbing Kings Canyon each of their headdresses are a distillation of their individual personalities. Bernardette is the Evil Queen, Mizti has lipsticks, rollers and pacifiers, and Felecia has Cupie dolls that are staring at themselves in little mirrors. What is the process of physically rendering the costumes? Do you build them by hand? Work with a team? Hit vintage stores? I usually begin by sketching roughs. Then once everyone has had their input - or cocked their leg as it seems more of the time, I do the finished sketches. These get signed off on literally becoming a visual contract. Then they get handed to the Costumier that builds a toile (a practice one). That gets fitted on the talent and we all um and ah--hopefully more ooh and ah if it's working well. Then we have a second fitting to perfect the fit and a final fitting to see the final project. On Priscilla however I simply grabbed whatever I had around or worked out which costume could be sacrificed and started gluing and sewing and hoping for the best. If something started to break there was always the hot glue gun and a handful of glitter to disguise any lumps and bumps. The costumes were literally finished when they would tear them out of my hands. Did any of the actors on Priscilla have any costume concerns? Was anyone concerned the costume would overpower their performance? The actors were all good sports. Terence told us he wanted to look like Holly Golightly but he soon gave up on that idea. He actually looked quite beautiful at times I thought. There was a moment at Kings Canyon when Terrence said that something was bothering his forward and I looked over to see a single drop of blood run down his brow--whoops,