KELLY FINALLY GROWS UP FOR A POLICE WHISTLE BLOWER

The Seaforth resident is nearly 28, but ruefully admits he is still fighting the teenage syndrome.

"I started acting when I was 11 or 12, which is good experience and everything, but all the casting people in Australia know me as this little young teenager," he says.

"That sort of attitude is really hard to break. I'd like to say, 'Look at me now, I'm 27', but they can't see it because I only look about 22 on screen

"People do typecast you in a certain way, so you've got to change their ideas of who you are. I used to be about 80 kilograms - a bit paunchy - and I was up for a role in some TV thing which I turned down because I didn't like it. Then I heard they'd said they wanted someone dumpy 'just like Kelly' ... after that I lost about 12 kilos."

Dingwall's face is well known to Australian audiences - particularly teens- from television stints on shows such as Home and Away and E Street.

He also has a string of movies to his credit, mainly playing on his youthful appearance, so to prove his versatility and ability to take on"adult" parts, Dingwall accepted a pivotal role in the recently released Australian film, The Custodian.

He plays Tony Reynolds, a journalist who pursues anonymous information about police corruption, and finds the rot goes all the way to the top.

His anonymous source is a policeman named Quinlan who, after assessing his life and career in the wake of his marriage break-up, realises that he can no longer tolerate the corrupt activities of his long-time partner and those around him, and blows the whistle.

The twist lies in the fact that Quinlan (played by Anthony LaPaglia )sacrifices himself in the process, and ends up going to jail.

Dingwall's character is fairly naive to start with - or, as Dingwall puts it, "an immature person who goes through all this s... and comes out the other side as a man".

Reynolds has no way of identifying Quinlan or testing his bona fides, and doubts he is telling the truth. It is only when he starts to check Quinlan's information that he realises its importance, and puts his own life in danger in getting the story out to the public.

Dingwall researched the role by going out on the road with reporters from the ABC, and says Reynolds is the only character in the film with a sense of humour.

The rest of the film is quite bleak, as it considers how mateship can be used for all the wrong reasons, and how innocent people can be twisted or steamrolled by the corrupt.

"The idea of protecting your mates is used quite a lot in the film," says Dingwall, "and it's something that can be quite distorted. They would never dob in another policeman - it's just not done.

"But really, it's saying there can be corruption in any large company in society; and should people be turning a blind eye to that?"

The Custodian is the first project on which Dingwall has worked with his father. John Dingwall was the film's director, and at the outset father and son were unsure if they could work together.

"We were both a little worried about it," Dingwall says, "but we've always had a tendency to laugh in pretty serious situations, and this was a film so you can't get more serious than that ... but you also have to relax.

"I worked on it for a couple of months in the casting stage before filming began, so we both got comfortable with it. When we started working it was just a matter of he was the director and I was the actor. You just get on with it. But it's not every day that you get to work with your parents in your job, so that was great."

Quinlan's method of selfsacrifice is something which most policemen, real or invented, would not contemplate. However, Dingwall says that Quinlan's character plans to continue his investigations behind bars, which does create the possibility of a sequel to vindicate him.

But where would young Rey nolds be by then, after his ground-breaking story?

"You never know ... I could be John Pilger or something."

The Custodian is screening at Hoyts cinemas.