Development The film was based on the lives of three
drag queens who performed as Cindy Pastel (Ritchie Finger), Strykermeyer (Mark Fitzhugh), and Lady Bump (Stuart Garske). The original intention was to have the three play themselves, but this was scrapped once the film attracted a large budget, as it was decided "bankable" actors were needed. This ultimately led to the casting of three
straight men with no background in
drag, and as
The Age wrote, "the people upon whose lives the mega-hit was based were overlooked". The three original queens were profiled in the 1995 documentary,
Ladies Please.
Priscilla, Queen of the Desert had been conceived (mainly out of frustation) by filmmaker
Stephan Elliott while he waited for a response from
Phil Collins about his participation in the film
Frauds. Elliott, in an effort to distract himself, wrote a script in just 10 days, but one which felt at the time to be "tricky" to pull off. Rebel Penfold-Russell, Andrena Finlay and Stuart Quin (the co-founders of the production company Latent Image) pitched
Priscilla to various financiers at the
1991 Cannes Film Festival, without success; however, before Cannes, they had taken the project to Sarah Radclyffe at
Working Title, who took the film's concept to PolyGram with Graeme Mason, who suggested Michael Hamlyn as the British co-producer and, with the backing of the Australian
Film Finance Corporation, were able to begin production of the film on a relatively modest budget of 2.7 million Australian dollars. Elliott and the film's eventual producers, Michael Hamlyn and Al Clark, agreed to work for $50,000 each, a relatively low fee for filmmakers at the time, while the lack of funding meant that the crew agreed to receive takings of the film's eventual profits in compensation for their low salaries. Due to the involvement of the Australian FFC, only one non-Australian actor was allowed to appear in the film, and Clark initially considered
David Bowie, whom he had known back in the 1980s, and later briefly thought of
John Hurt, although neither was available.
Casting The idea of casting the actual drag queens upon whom the story was based was abandoned when the producers decided to seek out "bankable" straight actors without a background in drag instead. However, at a pre-production casting meeting held at Cannes, Everett and Donovan did not get on well with one another and were found to be openly hostile toward the production staff. In light of this, it was readily agreed that they would not be suitable for the parts and the search for their three leading men would resume. However, Donovan would go on to play Tick in the West End
musical adaptation of the film. After unsuccessfully lobbying
Colin Firth to play the role of Tick, producers eventually awarded the part to
Hugo Weaving. Initially considering
Tim Curry for the part of Bernadette, they cast
Terence Stamp, who was initially anxious about the role because it was unlike anything that he had performed previously, although he eventually came on board with the concept. Stamp himself suggested
Bill Hunter for the role of Bob, who accepted the role without even reading the script or being told anything about the greater concept of the film other than the basic character description, while Australian actor
Guy Pearce (who had previously appeared with Donovan in the Australian soap opera
Neighbours in the late 1980s) was hired at the eleventh hour to portray the sassy but spirited Adam.
Filming The Imperial Hotel in
Erskineville,
Sydney was the filming location for the opening and closing scenes. The Imperial Hotel has hosted
drag shows since 1983, and continues to be an icon for
Sydney's LGBT community, with its restaurant renamed "Priscillas" in honour of the film. Many scenes, including one where Bernadette encounters a butch, bigoted woman named Shirley, were filmed at the
outback town of
Broken Hill in
New South Wales, largely in a hotel named Mario's Palace (now simply the
Palace Hotel), which Al Clark believed was "drag queen heaven". Some small scenes were filmed in the All Nations Hotel. They also decided to film at
Coober Pedy, a remote rough-and-tumble
opal mining town in south-central Australia which featured prominently in the film. The executive producer, Rebel Penfold-Russell, appears as the marathon runner. Initially, they tried to get permission to film upon
Uluṟu, but this was rejected by organisations responsible for the monument, such as the Uluṟu Board of Management, as it would have been in violation of Indigenous Australian religious beliefs. Instead, the scene was filmed in
Kings Canyon (Watarrka). Dialogue from the scene was rewritten slightly to accommodate the new location.
Post-production With filming over, the director and producers began editing the footage, repeatedly travelling to both London and to Los Angeles, which had then just been hit by the
1994 Northridge earthquake. Scenes were deleted on the advice of early viewers to shorten the film. ==Release==