In May 1993, after travelling around the Australian Outback searching for appropriate sites to film in, "Priscilla"s creators attended the Cannes Film Festival and Marche to advertise their project, hoping to capitalise on the selection of Elliot's first film "Frauds", which was "In Competition" at the festival and despite the fact that they had not yet confirmed any actors for the roles. Their primary choice for the role of Bernadette was Tony Curtis, who read and approved of the script, but eventually became unavailable. They then approached John Cleese, who was not interested.