Carla Cametti PD: articles


Diana Glenn kisses Vince Colosimo for Carla Cametti MD

Playing Carla Cametti is great for Diana Glenn after a stint in Hollywood, but seducing Vince Colosimo on screen was terrifying. Actor Diana Glenn admits she had nightmares before she started filming new Aussie drama series Carla Cametti PD.

The AFI Award-nominated actor was sweating about an intimate "make-out" sequence with co-star Vince Colosimo.

She was terrified of working alongside the seasoned actor who recently starred in Underbelly.

"I was scared to work with Vince because… he just has this larger-than-life persona and is a brilliant actor," Glenn says.

"I have known his work a long time and naturally I was terrified and had horrible nightmares. We have a 'make-out' scene and I had this nightmare that the director was telling me to drive the scene and seduce him (Colosimo). He (Colosimo) just looked like I had violated him and at the end says, 'That was horrible'.

"It was an awful dream and I was freaking out about doing it the next day. But Vince is a generous actor and was very supportive."

Anxiety aside, Glenn is an accomplished actor in her own right, with film and TV credits including sex worker Chloe in Satisfaction, Jemima in The Secret Life Of Us and the female lead in 2004 romantic film Oyster Farmer.

She spent 2 1/2 years in Hollywood before returning here last year to work on Cametti as well as the second series of Satisfaction and Nine's drama flop Canal Road.

Three series at a time when most actors are struggling is impressive. Glenn puts that success down to two tactics -- she writes heartfelt letters to casting directors after auditioning for roles she desperately wants, or edits herself into a tape of an episode of a sought-after program.

To work alongside the likes of Deborah Mailman, Samuel Johnson and Claudia Karvan in The Secret Life Of Us, Glenn did the latter.

"I so desperately wanted that part," Glenn says. "So I cut myself into an episode and sent it off. I've written a couple of letters in my time, but I don't do it often."

The desire to play Carla Cametti brought out the pen.

"When I got the call back and Nicole Da Silva had been cast as Lisa and Vince was there for another call-back I wanted it so badly," Glenn says.

"So I wrote to the producers and said, 'I want you to make the best decision you can because it's a brilliant show, but please let it be me'. I have never read a role that I knew I was made to play. I know it's not an intense role but because it has that detective quality I just love that genre of film and writing. I remember an ex-boyfriend saying if he had to write a role for me it would be a detective who is kind of helpless and sassy. Now I am playing her."

The new drama revolves around Cametti as a street-smart detective navigating her way through personal turmoil and a family of gangsters.

Her mum Angela loves interfering in her love life, her best friend Lisa (Da Silva) is being unfaithful as she plans the wedding of the year, and her uncle Tony has some dark secrets starting to surface.

"There is a sense of playfulness in Carla and I don't get to express that in a lot of my work," Glenn says. "A lot of the work I've done I tend to be psychotic or cry a lot, there's always lots of pain. It was nice to be a bit more playful and have a lightness and sense of fun come through."

After a constant flow of work in Australia, Glenn says there's nothing on the horizon and a move back to Los Angeles is on the cards.

"Having lived in LA for 2 1/2 years I am not frightened of it like I used to be," she says.

By Erin McWhirter
January 08, 2009
Herald Sun