Julia Leigh comes to film having established herself as a leading contemporary novelist. Her first novel The Hunter (1999) was internationally shortlisted for many prizes and won a Betty Trask Award (UK), the Prix de L'Astrolabe Etonnants Voyageurs (France), and was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. She was named a Sydney Morning Herald Young Novelist of the Year (Australia) and "one of 21 writers for the 21st century" by The Observer. A film based on the novel, directed by Daniel Nettheim, written by Alice Addison and starring Willem Dafoe, is being released late 2011.
Leigh's novella Disquiet (2008) won the Encore Award (UK), was a France Culture/Télérama rentrée selection (France), was an LA Times Favourite Book, a Kirkus Best Book of the Year (US) and No.7 on Entertainment Weekly (US)'s Top Ten Books of the Year.
In 2008 the script for Sleeping Beauty landed on the Hollywood 'Black List' and she was named one of 25 New Faces of independent cinema by Filmmaker Magazine (US).
Emily Browning is an Australian actress best known for her performance as Violet in the 2004 film Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events which starred Jim Carrey and Meryl Streep, and earned Emily an AFI International Award for Best Actress.
Emily plays the lead role of Baby Doll in Zack Snyder's 2011 fantasy-adventure film Sucker Punch alongside an ensemble female cast that includes fellow Australian actress Abbie Cornish, as well as Vanessa Hudgens and Jena Malone.
Emily won an AFI Young Actor's Award in 2002 and was nominated for Broadcast Film Critics Association Critics' Choice Award for Best Young Performer and Young Artist Awards Best Performance in a Feature Film, Leading Young Actress (both 2005).
Other credits include the Australian films The Man Who Sued God with Billy Connolly and Judy Davis, and Ned Kelly opposite Heath Ledger, and the US horror film, The Uninvited for Paramount, opposite Elizabeth Banks.
Rachael Blake graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Art in 1994 and won a Silver Logie and an Australian Film Institute (AFI) Award for her performance in the television drama Wildside. Rachael's stand out performance in the feature film Lantana, earned her both IF and AFI Awards in 2001. That year Rachael was also awarded the Australian Centenary Medal for services to Australian society and to film production in the Queen's New Years Honours List. In the following decade Rachael spent several years undertaking a range of work in the UK.
Ewen Leslie first appeared on television at the age of 12 and won a scholarship to study acting while still at school. After graduating from the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, Ewen was cast as the lead in Jewboy, which screened in Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival in 2005 and at Sundance. Sleeping Beauty is his third feature after Kokoda and Three Blind Mice, which critics at the London Film Festival judged to be the best film in the World Cinema section. Ewen is popular among theatre directors and in 2007 was invited to join the Actor's Company of the Sydney Theatre Company. Since then Ewen has won prestigious Helpmann Awards for Richard III and War of the Roses. In the latter he played Henry V and also won a Sydney Theatre Award for his performance.
Peter Carroll has been delivering award-winning performances, principally live on the Australian stage, for more than 30 years. In 2009 he was presented with the inaugural award for lifetime achievement from the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance; 20 years earlier local critics bestowed on him the Circle Award for significant contribution to Sydney theatre. He has also won Green Room Awards for Season at Sarsaparilla (2008), Hamlet (1995) and Masterclass (1986); a Helpmann Award for Endgame (2003); MO Awards for The Christian Brothers (2001) and Jesus Christ Superstar (1992); a Variety Club of Australia Award for musical theatre actor of the year for Sweeney Todd (1988); and a Penguin Award for the television drama Rafferty's Rules - Private Lives. He worked on features early in his career but rarely does now, although he did voice the elder in Happy Feet.
Chris Haywood has built up an extraordinary body of work in Australian film and television. He has been presented with Australian Film Institute Awards for the features A Street To Die (1985) and Emerald City (1988), and the drama series Stingers. The Film Critics Circle of Australia also recognized him for Kiss or Kill. In the 1970s and 80s he was in such iconic Australian films as The Cars That Ate Paris, The Removalist, Newsfront, Breaker Morant, Heatwave, The Man From Snowy River, Razorback and Malcolm. Hardly a year has gone by that Chris hasn't appeared in at least one Australian film, and sometimes he works on as many as four. Credits include Beneath Hill 60, The Boys Are Back, Jindabyne, Black Rock, Muriel's Wedding, Shine, most of the films of Paul Cox, and the US mini-series The Starter Wife.
