FEARS that a group sex scene would grow into “hardcore porn” had the high-profile cast of a new Aussie film so creeped out that the director had to step in.

IT TOOK a crisis meeting from director Stephan Elliott to convince the petrified stars of Swinging Safari to go through with the film’s central group sex scene.

Elliott said the cast – Guy Pearce, Asher Keddie, Kylie Minogue, Julian McMahon, Radha Mitchell and Jeremy Sims – had let the open room swinging scene grow into “hardcore porn” in their heads.

“Every single one of them came up to me when no one was looking and said ‘I can’t do this’, all six of them,” Elliott said ahead of the Brisbane premiere last night.

“There was a crossline moment, and that was the night before, and I said ‘right, everyone has a problem with this; let’s just lay our cards on the table’. I said ‘we’re not shooting a sex scene, we are shooting a piece of comedy’.

“That was the only way to get it across the line because I realised it was growing in everyone’s heads into hardcore porn with creepy glasses on.”

Keddie said none of the cast had realised the others were nervous about the scene, in which they comically fail to pull it off, sparking a feud between the three families.

“I was just ‘oh my god, I’m a mother, I’m 43. I can’t be taking my clothes off’,” she said. “When we found out that we were all actually petrified, it was fine. I thought ‘I’m doing this; I’m going to get those legs out’.”

Swinging Safari, about three neighbouring families growing up in 1970s Australia, was filmed on the Gold Coast in late 2016.

It was a choice made by Elliott, known for his hit Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, who set his eyes on Snapper Rocks.


“We had seen 300 beaches and we knew in a micro second we had the location,” Elliott said.

Swinging Safari opens in cinemas on Thursday.