Exerpt from an interview with Guy Pearce:

"'It's basically good cop/bad cop ... I'm the good cop -- in a dress,' he jokes. Guy plays Ed, the youngest of the police corps, intelligent, a cop who plays it by the book, trying hard to live up to his father's name, who was also a cop. He is naive, virtually unaware of the corruption around him, but gradually, he realises it's all part of the system. 'He relies on intellect rather than muscle. Russell is the other hand of the scale, so they despise each other,' says Guy. 'It's based on a James Ellroy novel, so it's a hard hitting story, about corruption in the Los Angeles police force, all shot on location in L.A. It's a fluke that us two Aussies ended up in this film ... I did a screen test in L.A. for it, and got the part. When I was talking to Hanson (film's director Curtis Hanson) about Russell, he said he had seen 'Romper Stomper' and realised Russell was right for it.' "