"A woman driving, her car breaks down, she makes a series of phone calls and basically ends up talking to an answering machine," is how writer Andrew Bovell describes his first idea from which he developed the stage play Speaking In Tongues, "And I was looking for a contemporary story that would lead me into the whole terrain of marriage and relationships."

Director Ray Lawrence went along to lend support on the opening night of the 1996 season of the play at the Stables Theatre in Sydney and afterwards called Bovell saying, "I think there's a movie in there." Bovell explains that the film was not immediately apparent in the stage play as it was very theatrical and had a very different structure: "But Ray was looking beyond the theatre of it to the people and the stories, and it was there that he recognized the idea for a film."

Bovell: "I think I was quietly hoping that one day this material might become a film and so it was really exciting to hear him say that." Lawrence adds: "The play was really dense and original. And it was a mystery."

Having worked with Bovell on two previous projects producer Jan Chapman was also in the audience that night. When Lawrence mentioned to her that he could see a film within the play she was not immediately convinced: "I actually loved the play but I didn't know that it would be a great film. And so I said 'Well, why don't you see if you can come up with a treatment'." Bovell and Lawrence went ahead and developed a ten page treatment which Chapman immediately responded to: "Suddenly, I could see it could have a real filmic quality."

Bovell, Lawrence, and Chapman had already formed a close working relationship after developing another film idea. Wanting to continue the invigorating collaboration the three had enjoyed they embarked on the three year journey it took to complete the final screenplay for LANTANA. Adapting the stage play to a screenplay presented challenges and required certain departures and changes to the structure of the play.

Bovell: "It seemed to me that with this adaptation I had to re-invent the story, I had to re-tell it. The core elements were there but we had to find a new angle on it. And that happened with characters being dropped, new characters being created, and genders being changed. We had to get beyond the theatrical constructions to the very core emotions of it."

Lawrence: "LANTANA is a mystery, a thriller, but it is also much more than that. As we move through our lives and relationships there is, for most of us, a sense of slowly becoming invisible. I think sexual identity, or the loss of it, plays a big part. It happens at different times for different reasons, but it's safe to say that it starts as we approach middle age.

It's something that for the most part happens to all of us and the audience will recognize the day to day struggle we have with ourselves."

"What attracted me to it was the essence of relationships," Chapman adds, "and the difficulty that all relationships have because there are two individual people who never really understand each other. You try really hard and you have moments where you have epiphanies and you do really see the other person, but most likely you're little islands. I was really interested to explore the universal sense of that through the different relationships in the film."

Once Bovell, Chapman and Lawrence had realized their collaborative interest in the essential themes within the play, the writing of the screenplay began.

Bovell: "The three way relationship between producer, writer and director was very important in this process. They were right with me through the writing period. I would write a draft, bring it to them, and the three of us would sit down and talk it through, and I'd go away and write another draft. During that process a sense of trust builds up."

During the process Bovell's initial idea of a woman breaking down in her car and making a series of phone calls grew into a series of interweaving and tangled stories all connected to the woman's disappearance which ripples through several character's lives.

Bovell: "I started to imagine who picked this woman up, what was his story, and what was the story of his wife who was waiting for him to come home that night. And what was the story of the woman who lived next door and saw him come home. And I realized that this one little story of this woman who disappears kind of reverberated through a whole lot of people's lives."

Bovell: "The more Ray talked about the film, the more I began to incorporate that into the writing process. So actually by the time the screenplay was ready it was a reflection of how he had responded to it, and how he had started to see the film."

With a final draft of the script eventually ready the task of funding the film began which represted another challenging journey in bringing the film to the screen. Lawrence's last feature film had been the acclaimed BLISS which screened in competition fifteen years earlier at the Cannes Film Festival in 1986. The film has been regarded as a landmark in Australian films and despite it's critical success Lawrence had not made another feature film since. While his career as one of Australia's leading commercial directors flourished he never found the right film project.

Lawrence: "People with money don't seem to like the same things I do. It was really difficult for Jan to raise the money for LANTANA, probably the most difficult thing she's ever done. If I'd had a profile as a feature film director it would have been a lot easier, but I didn't, so it was really difficult for her and I think most producers would have just given up."

Chapman elaborates on the details of the financing: "No film is easy to finance and it's true that for a producer the business of financing a film is the hardest part of all. You have to have a steely determination that you will see that film on the screen. The script had a great response, one of the best responses I've come upon, and the investor would say they loved it, but to get them to the point of actually writing a cheque and giving us the money was very difficult."

While there was a great support from the Australian Film Finance Corporation, an Australian government funding body, the funds they were prepared to invest had to be matched by other sources.

Chapman: "So, it was basically a process of getting the script to every distributor I could think of. Eventually, and with the help of Mikael Borglund at Beyond Films, we found Rainer Mockert who has a German company called MBP. He really liked the script and was eventually able to fund the other part of the film. But there was a moment just before we got the money where I honestly thought I can't do it this time, and it was quite traumatic because it's awful to believe that you actually might not be able to do it. For me that's completely devastating."

The central character of Leon is one which all the other characters orbit around in the film's interweaving, twisting, and complex plot , so it was essential that the actor who played this part could embrace it with a deep authenticity. It was a long and sometimes perplexing journey in finding the perfect actor for the part. During the casting process Anthony LaPaglia's name was suggested by the casting agent Susie Maizels and Lawrence Immediately responded to the idea, having met with LaPaglia several years earlier when both had expressed a desire to work together. The script was sent to LaPaglia whose response was immediate and unwavering.

LaPaglia: "From the first ten pages I thought, I love this, I just hope it's the part of Leon. When they said it was I did a little Irish jig around the house because I just felt it was one of the best characters I'd read in a long time. I understand him, exactly what he was thinking and feeling, exactly why he's in the place he's in. I've been in that place myself. I love the restraint, he's not loud, he has episodes of violence, but he holds everything in."

LaPaglia plays Leon, a man in his forties, married with two teenage boys, struggling to stay in control of his life as it quietly slips away from him

LaPaglia: "LATANA is about that moment in life when you wake up and say 'How the hell did this become my life?', when your life isn't what you thought it would be. The dreams that you had have never eventuated and suddenly you're living a life of quiet desperation, a life of suburbia, a life of just getting by. And all thise dreams you had as a young person seem to have gone and suddenly you own a life you don't want. You think there's something more. And I think that's a devastating moment for a lot of people."

Along with LaPaglia, Geoffry Rush was someone whom Chapman and Lawrence had been very enthusiastic to work with. After some initial discussions about the script Rush felt instinctively drawn to the role of John.

Chapman: "We thought Geoffrey could actually play a couple of the roles because we really believed in his versatility. He rang up one day and said he wouldn't mind playing John. And that was absolutely the right thing."

Rush adds: "there was something very special about this script in that Andrew had managed to juggle about ten or twelve characters who come from quite a wide range of different Australian experiences. It observes and dissects about five different Australian experiences. It observes and dissects about five different marriages or relationships. But at the same time it's a thriller, it's a mystery. The combination of the script and Ray Lawrence, who's notorious and legendary for having made BLISS, and Jan Chapman as producer, were major elements combined to lure everyone onto the film."

Rush expands on his attraction to the script: "The film is a very broad and complex and fascinating portrait of Australian life and it has a particular emotional domestic quality in the details of people's lives being so closely and crucially observed. There's a breadth and a depth of connection that all these characters have so that you're going to recognize yourself in the film somewhere. And it's going to be things that you won't feel terribly comfortable wanting to recognize. Andrew's not afraid of revealing that men have very complex interior emotional lives."

Hershey explains her strong reaction to the script: "The thing that makes me respond to scripts is either the story itself and just wanting to be a part of the story because I love it so much, or it's an okay story but it's just such an amazing character that I want to play it. And then there are those few where it's both, and this was the case. And it wasn't just my role I loved, I loved all the roles. I knew all the actors would be stimulated and turned on by it, so I wanted to be part of that tapestry."

Hershey elaborates on her role which gave her the opportunity to play against Rush in a lead role: "Valerie's a psychiatrist and right away that puts up a lot of red flags for me because I often think of that saying 'Doctor heal thyself' where even though in my own life I can understand something intellectually I still can't help myself from going through it. I think the fact that Valerie can help other people is one of the few ways she can stay afloat herself, and as soon as she's not needed in that way anymore she's floundering, because her own life is so bereft. John and Valerie are in their own individual hells. And it's ripped them apart as a couple."

As casting of the large ensemble cast continued, the visual style of the film began to take place during pre-production with production designer Kim Buddee and cinematographer Mandy Walker. The brief from Lawrence was that he envisaged a contemporary story played out in a naturalistic environment with no obvious style or design being evident, and not imposing itself on the characters or the story.

Lawrence: "the style comes out of the authenticity that I'm searching for in the performances. So if that happens, then how they dress, where they live, what they eat, and what sort of light falls on them all has to be authentic. The more things you can get rid of, the simpler I can make it, the better. That's my theory, that's my process."

Production designer Kim Buddee explains the process of interpreting and implementing Lawrence's vision: "Ray's style is a very naturalistic and realistic one. From a production point of view it's a strange situation to be in because if you see what I've done in the film I've failed in a way. The design should look as though nobody has been there, it should look as if you just walked into somebody's house."

Cinematographer Mandy Walker has come from a background of shooting films with very distinctive and highly stylized looks and so the opportunity to work with Lawrence presented her a challenge: "From our very first conversation came Ray's instruction that he wanted to use only natural light, he didn't want things to look lit. He believes in not creating a mood, but in the mood already being there in the location, and so it was about capturing that. We would go into a location and shoot what was there, capture the mood, with the actors free to walk around in the location. We looked at some other films, like Ken Loach's and a lot of the Dogma films, directors who had taken a similar approach, but finally this film doesn't look like any of those. It has it's own mood."

Despite the difficulties in not being able to use artificial lighting Walker observed that this approach enhanced the actors' freedom to deliver natural and believable performances: "A couple of the actors said to me that it felt like they were there in the actual places, they didn't have lighting equipment sitting right next to their faces, or light staring into their faces through a window. It was more real for them."

Buddee adds: "Ray works differently to most other directors who possibly have a very structured approach, in that he doesn't create storyboards or know exactly where the camera is going to be. He tends to work within the given situation so I had to create a 360 degree theatre for actors to work in, and basically give him the freedom to walk into a room and shoot any way he likes within that theatre. He likes to leave himself open to work within the opportunities that are naturally available."

With the vision of the film coming to life Lawrence continued with casting the ensemble cast where he found some of his ideas were challenged. Despite his attachment to a particular actor playing a particular part, it happened that as each actor received the script they would respond immediately to one character and in some cases it was not the character intended for them to play. This in turn lent a deep authenticity to the characters they played.

Within the dark labyrinth of the struggles of relationships in the film we find Leon's wife, Sonja, whose marriage is slowly falling apart and, in an effort to understand what is happening, visits a therapist without Leon's knowledge. Kerry Armstrong was sent the script with a view for testing the role of Sonja and for the role of Jane, with whom her husband has embarked on an affair.

Armstrong: "My agent said they wanted me to read for Sonja and for Jane. I was really thrown by that because I didn't understand it. I didn't have any desire to play some sleazy affair-driven housewife slut. I wanted to play the noble, wonderful wife who gets betrayed, not the betrayer. Because what Andrew wrote had so much force, I wanted to protect the part of the film that I loved and I was trying to protect my desire for Sonja." Once Armstrong completed her gripping screentest for the part of Sonja, Lawrence could see that there was no need to test her for Jane.

The role of Jane was one, in turn, that Rachael Blake immediately owned upon reading the script. Blake's take on the character is in juxtaposition to Armstrong's which in itself lends an authenticity to the roles of the betrayer and the betrayed: "Jane's desperate for something. She's really lonely. She's at a point in her life where she feels she's disappearing, like she's losing something. She's not what she thought she was going to be, she hasn't fulfilled her dreams, she's not as gorgeous as she once was and she feels she has to reinvent herself somehow."

Perhaps one of the more surprising casting choices in the film is that of well know Australian comic Glenn Robbins as Jane's estranged husband Pete. It was important to Lawrence that the audience hold out some hope of Jane and Pete reconciling as we follow their journey through the film. Lawrence observed that Robbins was instantly likeable and familiar to Australian audiences as a comic and thought he could carry that over into a dramatic role. On playing his first dramatic role in a feature film,

Robbins explains the departure from comedy: "I guess it's a bit of a leap but not having to be funny is great. Being funny over and over again in a number of takes can be quite hard."

Blake explains the quiet nature in which Jane and Pete's marriage is falling apart: "You've got a couple who have been together for a long time but there's been so many problems. There's so much scar tissue between them that when they talk to each other they're almost talking in shorthand, like she says 'Pass the salt' and he hears he's just been insulted. It's this kind of shorthand that happens after you've been with someone for too long and they're trying to communicate but they just can't. They really shouldn't be together anymore, they're really just trying to hold on to something, to each other, but they're really lost."

Jane and Pete live next door to Nik and Paula, a young married couple with three children who are lower on the financial ladder to the other characters in the film, yet whose relationship proves to be one with an unbreakable bond even though it is challenged in a way that not many couples could survive during the course of the film. Vince Colosimo plays Nik, a role that he would not normally expect to be considered for: "The last thing I would have expected was for someone to consider me playing the father of three kids. I wasn't the stereotypical father but when Ray took that chance with me I just thought it was fantastic that he had that trust and confidence in me."

Colosimo: "Nik and Paula's relationship is strong and that's got a lot to do with trust. They have a strength that doesn't come out of materialistic or financial things. It comes from two people understanding, knowing and trusting each other. It doesn't matter that the doors are falling off, the kids are running around, the place is a mess, the kitchen's upside down and they can't pay the next bill. Amongst all this, and it might sound a little corny, there's a love that conquers all."

Daniela Farinacci was another of the actors who was pulled very strongly in the direction of another character on first reading the script. The casting agent had told her she was being asked to test for the role of Claudia, Leon's detective off-sider. The role she couldn't look past was that of Nik's wife Paula.

Farinacci: "I liked them both but I had a really strong connection to Paula. I was asked to prepare for both but when I turned up for my screentest Ray asked 'What role do you want to get?' I just said 'Paula. That's the one I want.' And so he said not to worry about the other role."

Farinacci's rightness for the role of Paula was also felt by Colosimo who, upon being cast, was asked to take part in the screentests for the actors up for the role of his wife.

Colosimo: "I read with a few actresses, and they were all great, but when I read with Daniela it felt like it wasn't the first time, there was something else there, and when I looked into her eyes I believed she was the mother of three children. I knew she understood me as Nik and would take on that responsibility. I felt like she was already there. Some sort of lifeline went out to each other."

The actor who did fit the shoes of Leon's detective partner was Leah Purcell. Along with Farinacci this was Purcell's first role in a feature film and one she felt quite daunted by in the beginning.

Purcell: "I'm not a trained actor and so I didn't really know what the guidelines or the rules were. I just had lots of fear of not knowing what could happen to me. Once I knew I had the part and I realized who Anthony was I worried about whether he would be a nice guy, whether he was going to be like all those stories you read in TV Week about American stars. But he was fantastic and he made my job so much easier."

Purcell's character is one she describes as seeking something more than she has while witnessing Leon gamble with his marriage.

Purcell: "Claudia's thirty, she's looking for a relationship. She looks up to Leon, she looks to him for guidance. So when she discovers he's having an affair she's angry with him. She's very loyal to him but she sees his relationship with his wife and his two kids as something she hopes to have. She's there for him but she wants him to know she's really not happy with what he's doing."

As Leon and Claudia investigate the disappearance of a woman which the film orbits around, the come across Patrick, a gay man. Casting against type again, seasoned Australian actor Peter Phelps was asked to play the role.

Phelps: "The role was quite different than what I usually play, and I think there's something about casting against an image, it's not oversold, it seems more real, and also as actors we always want to stretch ourselves." Phelps sees his role as a part of a larger mosaic: "My part is a small jigsaw piece in a large jigsaw, but it's a very important piece of the puzzle. LANTANA is the great metaphor for tangled, messy relationships and every character in the film has a level of entanglement in one way or another."

With casting completed the rehearsal period began in Sydney two weeks prior to production. Given that Lawrence had relied heavily on pure instinct when casting each of the roles he felt the actors could make no mistakes in bringing their characters to life, therefore his approach during the rehearsal period was simply to assist the actors in any way he could to lend authenticity to their roles.

Lawrence: "I try to help the actors in ways such as actually being in their character's houses, stocking the fridge, even cooking a meal. The more details the better. On the other hand, some actors don't use any of those physical tools to get where they need to be. It just depends on who you're working with. Actors will do most of the work themselves. I just need to be there to help in whatever way I can. It's very satisfying to see how things grow from that."

Chapman: "With every role it was eventually clear to us that a certain person was the right person. I think that Ray works on a very intuitive lever and if he feels like the actor has something of the character in them, it informs the way they understand the character and therefore brings them to life in a very real way. What I think Ray does as a director is trust what the actor's give him and not try to transform that, but just trust that those instincts which made them love the character are going to work to bring the right things out in each scene. He has the most amazing capacity to avoid wanting to control it, to just look at what's been given to him and capture it."

Shooting began in Sydney in October 2000 and continued over the winter. With most films there is a certain rhythm that is established in the first couple of weeks of the shoot but with this film the rhythm was jolted as each new story line and set of characters was introduced. In moving from one story to another it felt like starting over again, with new actors and new locations. This was symbolic of the way in which each character's life would suddenly find itself overlapping with another. Despite some actors having crucial and central roles in the film their time with the production would be relatively short.

The film completed shooting just prior to Christmas in 2000 and a new phase of work began in the New Year. With all the scripted scenes and images now on film it was time to reconstruct the film during the editing process with editor Karl Sodersten who had worked extensively with Lawrence for many years on commercials. This was perhaps a more intense period than usual give the multi-layered and interweaving storylines. It was important that the audience not get lost in the central story as each new character and subplot was introduced.

Lawrence: "The task in editing any film is to not confuse the audience but also not to have them too far ahead of you. Everyone wants everything explained and I like to suggest that there are some things we don't need to know everything about."

During the early days of production Lawrence and Chapman had approached songwriter Paul Kelly to write the music score for the film. Lawrence had been a longtime fan of Kelly's songwriting and felt he would be the ideal choice to add the subtle emotional layer the film required.

Lawrence: "When Paul composes his music it is always completely emotionally in sync with the story he's telling so I had always thought it would be interesting to have him do a film score."

Once editing was underway Kelly visited the editing suite and improvised some early ideas he had been working on, and from those ideas grew the musical motif, or theme, that would reoccur through the film. Kelly: "We were just groping towards something without having a hard and fast idea about it. I watched the film a few times and just worked on a couple of short little motifs and played them to Ray and there was one he liked in particular."

After this initial session Kelly returned to Melbourne where he assembled the members of his regular band, including Shane O'Mara who Kelly works with on various projects from time to time.

Kelly: "We thought we would just try and keep things really simple so I got five people together including the drummer, bass player, keyboard player, Shane on guitar and myself. We just had this one little motif that we started with and we improvised for quite a while until we had a kind of rough shape of music."

From her Kelly and his band went into a studio where they were able to set up and play: "We just played all day and we did some really long pieces, not even watching the pictures, just playing around these motifs, trying to play these few little themes in many different ways. We came from that with a couple of hours of music and since then, with Ray and Jan, we've just really been cutting and pasting out of that. We would move stuff around to fit the pictures, sometimes we would also record new stuff over the top. But really, the music we played on that one day has been like our quarry and we have just gone in there and dug out the ore and then made little pieces out of it."

Kelly is well known for his lyrics that resonate deeply with people's lives and communicate pure emotion, and so it is ironic to learn that he was attracted to the idea of writing a film score so that he didn't need to write lyrics.

Kelly: "Words are always the hardest part of songwriting. I always have many more music ideas that never become songs. So it is a relief to be able to just make up music without words."

With a final cut of the film completed in March 2001 a few small screenings took place where it was evident the film resonated with an audience. It conveyed an intimate and confrontational portrait if contemporary life in the context of an urban thriller. Bovell, Lawrence, and Chapman ruminate on what it is they set out to communicate and convey to an audience.

Bovell: "For me it's about a search and a yearning for meaning. On one level it's a mystery, and it's about how that mystery reverberates through a whole lot of people's lives. It's about human vulnerability and about people reaching a particular stage in their lives where they need to question and re-examine how they're living their life, particularly in the nature of love and relationships. I was searching for a title that provided both a literal and metaphoric resonance to the story. It really came out of the opening image; a woman caught within the twisted and entangled vine, a woman who wore a gold ring on her finger, a married woman- the vine itself with its twisted branches covered in tiny thorns that could cut you to shreds as well as lush green leaves, colorful flowers and moments of exquisite beauty."

Chapman: "What I've found with this film is that it makes me think of my own life, special relationships I've had, and my relationship with my friends. It makes me see the way we all muddle about trying to lead our lives and get on with each other. And it kind of gives you some hope that we're all bigger than the little games we play every day of our lives. There's a kind of joy in a way, in the way people are, in the things they can share with one another." I would hope that people feel comforted by the common joys and tragedies and hopes we all feel."

Lawrence: "It's about a time in your life when you start to disappear. It can happen when you're thirty, it can happen when you're fifty. All of a sudden you don't feel that anybody desires you, loves you, and you try to reinvent yourself and that reinvention causes all sorts of problems and turmoil in your life. John Cassavetes said all his films were about love, they were love stories, and this is a love story. It's about people trying to love themselves, people trying to regain their self-esteem and love each other. It's a really difficult thing to cope with somebody else and we all have that problem. And I think that the audience will recognize that. And if it can change your life for a moment, if you can discuss it on the way home, then that's what I'm aiming for."

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