Today Show Interview -
23 November 2006
Today Show Interview -
23 November 2006
Baz Luhrmann appeared on Australia's Today Show on the morning of 23 November 2006 for an exclusive interview about his movie, Australia. The video can be found online here, and my transcript is featured below.
Luhrmann was very animated in the interview, and he was obviously very excited about making this much anticipated movie. Luhrmann revealed that he hoped to name a third cast member, presumably the actor playing Lady Ashley's husband, within two weeks.
Also in the interview, Luhrmann confirmed that he does still want to make Alexander the Great. He stated quite firmly, "My dream is that one day I will make that film."
Today Show
Interview with Baz Luhrmann
Date: 23 November 2006. Time: 8:10am. Duration: 5.50 minutes
Richard Wilkins - Well, he is one of Australia's most celebrated and acclaimed
creative talents. His three movies Strictly Ballroom, Romeo and Juliet and
Moulin Rouge all struck box office gold and earnt him a reputation as one of the
most exciting filmmakers in the business. He has of course a new project on the
go and Baz Luhrmann joins us in the studio to tell us all about it. Lovely to
see you.
Baz Luhrmann - It's great to be here, Richard.
R - A sweeping epic set in the north of Australia in the late 30's and early
40's
B - That's right.
R - Around the time of the bombing of Darwin.
B - It ends in the bombing of Darwin, yeah.
R - And it's...
B - Titled!
R - What is it going to be called? This has been a well kept secret.
B - Are you ready for it? It's called Australia.
R - Australia?
B - Yes.
R - Okay, not Australia: The Movie, just Australia.
B - No, look, actually, you know, I went through lots of titles I was looking
at. At one stage I was even calling it the Great Southern Land. But you know, if
you think of films like Casablanca or you think of Oklahoma, you know, it
represents not obviously the country, but it's a state of mind. You know, for
the character in the film played by Nicole, who is this English aristocrat who
comes out in the 30's and her life's over and...
R - Her husband's dead, right?
B - She thinks her husband's dead. She's on her way out to bust him, she thinks
he's having an affair because he's selling a property the size of Belgium. But
what happens is, she comes out, she meets this rough, hewn drover character,
played by Hugh Jackman. How are we going to get him rough and hewn, but we'll do
our best (laughs) And there's this sort of African Queen journey out to the
cattle station in which she hates the land. There's a big drama, she suddenly
finds herself with the rough, hewn cattle drover and she's got to do this epic
journey back to Darwin as the war is coming. And of course she falls in love
with the drover and the landscape, you know, and it's metaphorically she finds
life again. She discovers that life is never over, that there's always a new
life to be had. And so Australia is probably the way she'd sum up the story of
her life.
R - Wow. Any legal issues or anything by taking on Australia?
B - You know, I never thought of that, would you just check that? (looks off
camera and laughs) You mean copyright?
R - I guess you can't copyright the name of the country but, um no, anyway...
B - You know what? There's been a great history of this actually and the idea
that, you know, Brazil, for example. And I think that of course, for us, we'll
have many many quick reactions to that and what does that mean. And in a way it
named itself, Richard, because I wanted Australia to be in the title. The
faraway in the 30's would have been Laurence of Arabia. It would have been Out
of Africa. And I always wanted the name Australia in it - The Untitled
Australian Project. Now, I looked at all those namings of Australia that aren't,
you know, Great Southern Land. But in the end, ultimately, just having the
honesty of saying, of calling it, Australia seemed to be it named itself almost.
R - Australia with Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman...
B - And actually soon to be announced, we're just contracting now...
R - Soon to be announced? Say it now, we're on tele...
B - No, well, we're contracting. But in the next two weeks. You know they really
are some of our finest Australian actors and this is one of the exciting things
for me, is to be working with them.
R - Russell Crowe was attached to this project for a while.
B - Indeed, indeed.
R - What went wrong? Was it money, timing, what?
B - Well, look, Russell...
R - He said he doesn't do charity work for major studios.
B - Sure, sure. I mean Russell and I are still great mates and he is absolutely
one of the card carrying greatest actors on the face of the earth and history
will see that out. Having said that, there had to be an arrangement or an
agreement between him and the studio and that was distinct from us. And really
there was a deadline and what happened was, that could never happen. He's very
busy. We could never get it together and rather than lose the film, at that same
moment I was evolving text. And Hugh Jackman, I mean, what a phenomena is this
performer. I ring my friends in France a week ago. All of Paris is at his feet.
You know, X-Men opens, he's doing Boy From Oz. And the evolution of a story.
Suddenly, this just seemed like the right way to go and I embraced that and I've
got to say that in a sense we all think it's probably the right road, you know?
R - Well, it's a wonderful cast you've got there and we wish you well for the
project. You've got 1500 cattle, you've been auditioning for that. You start
shooting in March.
B - That's right.
R - We'd love to come up and see you when you're doing it.
B - Come and see our cattle, I've got 600 short horns, very attractive cast.
R - You've got 600 short horns, do you?
B - Yeah, at the moment. So if you've got any short horns, you know, I'm
available.
R - Send them to Baz. We'll give you his address on the website, just post them
in. Hey, um, the Chanel ad's been getting a flogging lately.
B - Not my fault (laughing)
R - I was reading the most expensive ad ever made? 18 million pounds?
B - It's not true. It's not true.
R - 18 million pounds?!
B - It's not true. Okay, I put a few in my little purse there, but no. It's not
true. It's not the most expensive ad ever made. But one thing, we made it all
here. I mean, it's shot - you see that it's set in New York. But it was all shot
here in Sydney, Australia, at the studios, and one of the great things is, you
look at Happy Feet. You look at Moulin Rouge. In terms of visual effects, we are
in a place now that leads the world in the ability to create anything we want
here and I think that that's something worth celebrating. And it's certainly
something we experimented with. The same visual effects house that did Happy
Feet worked with us to do Chanel, so I think there's the positive story, you
know.
R - Which is, what's it called?
B - It's called Animal Logic. Yeah.
R - Just finally. Yes or no answer. Alexander the Great - is it still a work in
progress?
B - You know what, I worked on that, producing with Dino De Laurentiis and
Steven Spielberg. No one's ever read the script that I worked on with David
Hare. There was a studio built in Northern Africa by Dino waiting to put
Alexander in. And my dream is that one day I will make that film.
R - Okay, good. Baz, thank you for the update. There we go. An update into the
world of Baz Luhrmann, which is an exciting one. The film Aust ralia. You heard
it here first. It's being made in March up in the Northern Territory. Thanks for
coming in.
