While Gibney last year scored the Gold Logie for playing Australia's favourite suburban mum, Julie Rafter, she takes her career in a bold new direction as Ms Korp, the woman left for dead in a car boot near the Shrine of Remembrance in 2005.

Gibney is seen in a number of racy scenes, at one point bouncing up and down in the lap of Vince Colosimo, who plays Maria's husband, Joe.

Colosimo is at the centre of several other trysts, including one in a hotel room where he and Maya Elliot (as mistress Tania Herman) take part in a foursome.

"I think it's going to be an eye-opener for people," said Gibney, 45.

"I said to a couple of the female editors, 'did you like it?' and they went, 'it's hard to like something that's so brutal and real'.

"This is very sexy. I have lots of cleavage and it's totally different from Rafters.

"Most of the Rafters crew are working on this and they are like 'Oh, wow, we haven't seen that before!' because Julie just doesn't have cleavage."

Ms Korp disappeared in February 2005 and was found, close to death, in the boot of her car. She spent six months in a coma while the details of her life with her husband Joe became public.

Ms Korp died when her feeding tube was removed.

Joe Korp was facing a charge of the attempted murder of his wife when he hanged himself on the day of her funeral in August 2005.

His accomplice and lover, Tania Herman, was jailed for 12 years.

Apart from sex scenes, viewers will be confronted by the staging of Ms Korp's abduction.

Herman had rubbed Ms Korp's neck raw with a bag strap while trying to strangle her.

Gibney is seen gasping for air before being dragged across the concrete floor of a garage and bundled into the car boot.