Baz Luhrmann Quotes & Sayings

Sydney is rather like an arrogant lover. When it rains it can deny you its love and you can find it hard to relate to. It's not a place that's built to be rainy or cold. But when the sun comes out, it bats its eyelids, it's glamorous, beautiful, attractive, smart, and it's very hard to get away from its magnetic pull. — Baz Luhrmann

I often think to myself, at the end of an interesting life it's maybe not such a bad thing to spend your last days with your friends sitting by the blue, blue ocean reliving the story of your life while sitting in the dangerous sun. — Baz Luhrmann

Historically, epics are set in Africa or Asia or the Wild West, but if you make an epic today it's hard to disassociate from the contemporary realities of those places. — Baz Luhrmann

If you wanted to show a mirror to people that says, 'You've been drunk on money,' they're not going to want to see it. But if you reflected that mirror on another time they'd be willing to. People will need an explanation of where we are and where we've been, and 'The Great Gatsby' can provide that explanation. — Baz Luhrmann

Everything I make starts very personally. — Baz Luhrmann

I understand that anything actors are doing, good or bad, is motivated by fear. — Baz Luhrmann

The ugly duckling is a misunderstood universal myth. It's not about turning into a blonde Barbie doll or becoming what you dream of being; it's about self-revelation, becoming who you are. — Baz Luhrmann

Don't be reckless with other people's hearts, And don't put up with people that are reckless with yours. — Baz Luhrmann

I really believe musical form will go on. There's got to be a way of making musical form in cinema live again. — Baz Luhrmann

I wish I'd done everything on Earth with you. — Baz Luhrmann

I feel funny about owning art. I don't really want to say: 'Wow, come and see my Monet - it's in a dark room at the bottom of my cellar.' — Baz Luhrmann

I've always loved the old epics that tell a simple emotional story, whether it's the tumultuous relationship between Rhett and Scarlett or Lawrence of Arabia's passion to get lost in a faraway place. — Baz Luhrmann

You really think that on my films people tell me what to do? I don't think so. On my films I decide. — Baz Luhrmann

I mean the future has become old fashioned. — Baz Luhrmann

When I was growing up you would see big American films that really mythologised their landscape, that really showed the vastness and the drama of their country. — Baz Luhrmann

I wouldn't take a directing job if I didn't think it was enriching life. — Baz Luhrmann

Hurt him. Hurt him and save him — Baz Luhrmann

In the '80s, everyone wanted to be in opera. It was groovy. — Baz Luhrmann

If Paris is a city of lights, Sydney is the city of fireworks. — Baz Luhrmann

The food in Sydney is an Asian Pacific cuisine. It's eclectic but above all it's fresh, inventive and creative and that's what I love about it. — Baz Luhrmann

I think dance in any culture, in any form, is a true leveler. — Baz Luhrmann

When you're in theater or the circus or film - to me it's all one - affairs happen. People fall in love. — Baz Luhrmann

I never see things I make in the same way that the audience does. You can never do that. — Baz Luhrmann

I mean, '8½' to me is such a great dissertation on the whole, you know, act of filmmaking and creativity. — Baz Luhrmann

Trust yourself that you can do it and get it — Baz Luhrmann

I feel like a member of any group comprised of outsiders. — Baz Luhrmann

Understand that friends come and go, but for the precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young. Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard; live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft. Travel. Accept certain inalienable truths, prices will rise, politicians will philander, you too will get old, and when you do you'll fantasize that when you were young prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders. Respect your elders. Don't expect anyone else to support you. — Baz Luhrmann

Some of the greatest relationship films of all time, the two stars have hated each other, but mostly you see that chemistry. — Baz Luhrmann

I've tried to make 'Strictly Ballroom' impossible to date. It does feel a bit '80s but I consciously made sure there was no technology in the movie that could date it. — Baz Luhrmann

I always have a point of view. It may not be right, but it's my own. — Baz Luhrmann

Western films don't do very well in India. — Baz Luhrmann

I do find walking is fundamental to my creative process. — Baz Luhrmann

So, what is creative freedom? We can make what we want, how we want. The only constraint is: not for any budget. — Baz Luhrmann

Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund, maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either one might run out. — Baz Luhrmann

One of the great things about Sydney is that it has a great acceptance of everyone and everything. It's an incredibly tolerant city, a city with a huge multicultural basis. — Baz Luhrmann

At a very young age I was allowed to go into the cinema and watch adult films. — Baz Luhrmann

I grew up around jazz. I love jazz. — Baz Luhrmann

Australia, to the rest of the world, is just far away, and Australia in the Thirties was the faraway of the faraway. — Baz Luhrmann

The party is a true art form in Sydney and people practise it a great deal. You can really get quite lost in it. — Baz Luhrmann

In terms of the mechanics of story, myth is an intriguing one because we didn't make myth up; myth is an imprinture of the human condition. — Baz Luhrmann

My wife is the fact-checker, I'm in the story telling business. — Baz Luhrmann

Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance, so are everybody else's. — Baz Luhrmann

I feel a kinship with anyone who feels that their road, their life or who they really are is not good enough. I really relate to that. — Baz Luhrmann

Look, I had a passion for comic books growing up. — Baz Luhrmann

My father made sure that I had lots of levels of education - from ballroom-dancing to painting, commando training, theatre and magic. — Baz Luhrmann

Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long, and in the end, it's only with yourself — Baz Luhrmann

Fitzgerald was a modernist. — Baz Luhrmann

Ultimately, you have to pursue your own path, not someone's idea of the right path. You need to stay on your path. — Baz Luhrmann

All good, clean stories are melodrama; it's just the set of devices that determines how you show or hide it. — Baz Luhrmann

The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return. — Baz Luhrmann

I don't have fights with actors. In absolute honesty, I've never fought with any actor ever. — Baz Luhrmann

The race is long but in the end it is only with YOURSELF ... — Baz Luhrmann

Fitzgerald coined the phrase the 'Jazz Age,' and now we're living in the Hip-Hop Age. — Baz Luhrmann

In the '60s not everybody was wearing flowers in their hair and flowing caftans. — Baz Luhrmann

Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you wanna do with your life; the most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives; some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don't. — Baz Luhrmann

Why live life from dream to dream? And dread the day when dreaming ends. — Baz Luhrmann

Sydney in general is eclectic. You can be on that brilliant blue ocean walk in the morning and then within 20 minutes you can be in a completely vast suburban sprawl or an Italian or Asian suburb, and it's that mix of people, it's that melting pot of people that give it its vital personality. — Baz Luhrmann

Opera was the cinema of its time, so to bring back that popular appeal, you just need to unleash its visceral immediacy and excitement. Most productions don't manage that - but when an opera does do it, you never forget it. — Baz Luhrmann

I am always worried when someone says, 'This is perfect.' — Baz Luhrmann

My gift is my song — Baz Luhrmann

There's a whole system in Hollywood where the director never speaks to the studio, but I like to engage them in a discussion. I listen. — Baz Luhrmann

One of my great all-time loves in cinema, and I've seen it three times, is Bondarchuk's 'War and Peace.' Not a lot of people may have seen that film. It was made during the Soviet era. — Baz Luhrmann