None of the models in Sirens has acted a significant part in film before. Elle MacPherson acted as herself in a very short part in a Woody Allen film, but for the others it was an acting debut.
Fischer, who acts as Prue in the film, is daughter of Canberra radio journalist Prue Goward. She went into fashion modelling at an early age, winning a covergirl competition with Dolly. By aged 16 she was in New York doing shoots with Bloomingdales, Glamor magazine and Mademoiselle.
In the film she and Sheela (Elle) gang up in the most lascivious way to undermine the stuffy Anglo-centric Estella — with some success.
Director and writer John Duigan said, “”I was first drawn to Kate by her face. She’s got one of those faces that painters love. She reminds be of the most celebrated model used by the pre-Raphaelite painters in England.”
Fischer has also worked on television commercials, including the Macleans ad.
Fischer says she is comfortable with film. But it is a bit of gamble for the film-maker. The two dimensional don’t necessarily translate easily to the three-dimensional. It is not just a question of lighting, shape and vision. The three-dimensional form has to talk and be a human being, rather than a two-dimensional model.
In the film Fischer and MacPherson are a kind of female equivalent of the bronzed Aussie male. They are taller than the English Estella, less delicate and more tanned. They are also more vivacious and mischievous. As Pamela Rabe (Lindsay’s wife Rose) said, they have a strong physical presence. Some of the bronzed Aussie males in this film, on the other hand, have grime under their finger nails, are inarticulate, graceless and awkward.
The other model, Giddy (Portia de Rossi), has interrupted her law studies at Melbourne University to take the role — far better to act real life to a cinema audience than act in a sterile courtroom.
The film, especially the models, will cause some agonising among the classifiers. This is a completely non-violent film. No hand is raised in anger, though there are some vigorous intellectual arguments. There is no blood. No one is struck by another. There is a lot of nudity and touching.
Clearly it is not an R. Is it to be an M (mature audiences over 15/6 only) or the new classification MA (mature audiences over 15/16, but those under 18 must be accompanied by an adult).
MA was created to lift the huge menu of violent films a little further out of reach. How Sirens fits in the censorship scheme is a matter for conjecture and is yet to be finalised.