Filming has almost wrapped on Channel Nine's hyped telemovie Gina vs Rose: The House of Hancock ahead of its scheduled premiere early next year.
Television crews were at the University of Western Sydney in Campbelltown on Tuesday to film a courtroom scene based on the 2001 inquest into the death of Gina Rinehart's father and iron-ore tycoon Lang Hancock.
Mandy McElhinney, best known as Rhonda in car insurance ads and for her role in Packer miniseries Paper Giants, took to the stand looking a close resemblance to Australia's richest woman, with darker hair and a more serious tone of voice.
The scene did not involve Sam Neill, who is playing Lang Hancock, but Peta Sergeant was on deck to flaunt her best Rose Lacson look, complete with eye-shadow, a Filipino accent and a red blazer.
"It was a courtroom where we didn't want to have traditional dark wood," said producer Paul Bennett. "It's not a supreme court, or a district court, but a coroners court, so we were looking to try and find that. This is just a training court at the uni so it was quite easy to film in because we didn't have to worry about being in session."
Production staff remain tight-lipped about the plot of the film, but they did reveal that Rose won't be the only villain in the two-hour telemovie.
Six weeks of filming will conclude in Perth next week, where Rinehart and ironically McElhinney were brought up. The crew have also filmed scenes in Penrith, a house in Cherry Hills similar to the 16-storey Prix D'Amour mansion Hancock and Lacson built which overlooks the Swan River in Perth as well as one of Lang Hancock's original houses in Edgecliff.
The logistics behind the project are complex; there are over 30 crew members on deck every day, plus extras, actors and dozens of trucks to lug around the equipment.
The whole process was mapped out in a six-week pre-production plan, as well as a month before that to choose locations suited to what the show's producers wanted.
An air date has not yet been announced.
