A Nine spokesperson told TV Tonight, "There was a minor incident that occurred at Abbotsford Convent during production of Underbelly: Squizzy. Thankfully, the matter was swiftly resolved. We have a wonderful relationship with the staff at Abbotsford Convent and are very grateful that they made their facilities available for filming."
The sixth installment in the iconic Underbelly crime series chronicles the exploits of legendary gangster Joseph Theodore Leslie Taylor - better known as “Squizzy” - and his quest for power from 1915 to 1927. It is being shot on location around Melbourne and features local actor Jared Daperis in the title role of Squizzy; dubbed Australia's first celebrity gangster and the "small man with a big libido". He takes over the role from Justin Rosniak, who played Squizzy in Underbelly: Razor. "Like most people, I had heard of the legend of Squizzy Taylor, but I didn't know much about his actual life," Daperis said. "He's as iconic as Ned Kelly, but for some reason there hasn't been much done about him until now. I'm really excited to be part of Underbelly. There's no franchise like it anywhere in the world."
Daperis, 22, has previously filmed small roles in Halifax FP, Stingers and The Cup. He will star alongside Susie Porter (Puberty Blues) as matriarch 'Rosie Taylor', Dan Wyllie (Tangle), Diana Glen (The Slap) and comedic actor Peter Moon. Camille Keenan, Elise Jansen and Gracie Gilbert will play the three diverse women who loved, and ultimately lost, this complex man shot by rival gangster Snowy Cutmore in Carlton in 1927. Playing the part of Squizzy's main squeeze, flighty teenager Ida Pender, 20-year-old Gilbert explains: "Ida is so progressive for her time, I feel like I'm playing one of the women who really changed things for females." Not that playing a proto-feminist meant the Perth-raised actress was spared the usual Underbelly requirement of baring it all, though. "There's a bit of nudity, sure, but it's very in keeping with the story," she says. "They're young and in love, there's nothing gratuitous. It's exciting to be playing a girl who's about the same age as me but living a wildly different life. Hugely different, actually, just for the record, Mum and Dad, Nana."
The vertically-challenged crime tsar (standing at just 156 cm tall) certainly had an unquenchable thirst for money, power and fame and cared not who he had to step over to achieve it. He was a master manipulator who courted the press and entertained the masses with his accounts of his criminal exploits. His graduation from petty theft to loftier heists gained him huge media coverage and the attention of women. "He did love his ladies so when you are portraying 12 years of his life and you want to do it accurately, you have to touch on that," Daperis says of Squizzy's weakness for women. Executive chairman of Screentime, Des Monaghan, added: "Squizzy loved women and they loved him, which may explain why he became such a legendary figure and his story endures. He was to the 20th century what Ned Kelly was to the 19th."
The latest Underbelly series is being produced by production company Screentime for the Nine Network. As befits the typically unflinching franchise, the eight-part drama series which airs next year on Nine, takes a darker look at the infamous Melbourne crime than the feature film which starred David Atkins. After five previous series, the crew on the show have got the formula down pat. "The Underbelly style is a heightened one," says director Karl Zwickysays. "It's based on fact but it's not a documentary. You bring the emotional peaks higher and lower than they might have happened in real life and you compress time and bring a certain vividness to it." In the case of Squizzy, much of what might look like 'heightening' to the average viewer is surprisingly close to the truth. Taylor was the Carl Williams of his day, a limelight-loving rogue whose ruthlessness was cut with a dash of charm and a whopping dollop of chutzpah. "He became a pop star," Zwicky says. "Society matrons paid to have their photographs taken with him. He really got away with murder, in every sense."
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