While still a student at the Royal College of Art, Peter Cattaneo directed
commercials, made an award winning music video for Miller Lite, and
saw his live action short, Dear Rosie (1990), nominated for an Academy
Award. After graduating Cattaneo turned to television, directing The
Full Wax and Diary of a Teenage Health Freak', as well as a number of
commercials. In 1995, he directed his first feature-length project,
the BBC film Loved Up (1995). Shot on 16mm and starring Lena Headey
and Ian Hart, it tells the story of a teenage girl's drift into the
rave culture.
Shortly afterwards, Cattaneo received the script for The
Full Monty (1997), a lightweight comedy-drama contrasting the backdrop
of economic decline with the humorous adventures of a group of unemployed
steel workers who trade their self-respect to become strippers. Its
ensuing commercial success earned the film four Academy Award nominations.
In 2000, he embarked on a follow-up project, Lucky
Break (2001), a comedy about a group of inmates who stage a musical
to cover up their escape, it was treated with eager expectation by fans
of the Cattaneo's previous work but failed to deliver.
