Luhrmann Quotes & Sayings

There's a certain relief to just being the guy who puts on the costume and walks onset and gets to prance or stomp around in a Ridley Scott or Baz Luhrmann movie. — Joel Edgerton

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

But DNA isn't really like that. It's more like a script. Think of Romeo and Juliet, for example. In 1936 George Cukor directed Leslie Howard and Norma Shearer in a film version. Sixty years later Baz Luhrmann directed Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes in another movie version of this play. Both productions used Shakespeare's script, yet the two movies are entirely different. Identical starting points, different outcomes. — Nessa Carey

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

Let us begin by turning the skeptic's question on its head. If you could believe in God, why wouldn't you? There is good evidence that those who believe in a loving God have happier lives. Loneliness is bad for people in many different ways - it diminishes immune function, increases blood pressure, and depresses cognitive function - and we know that people who believe in God are less lonely. — T.M. 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'll be in 'The Get Down' from the creator Baz Luhrmann, and it takes place in the '70s with South Bronx kids growing up at the rise of hip-hop and really when the city was at its financial worst. It's about teens struggling with violence, drugs and gangs and trying to find solace in music and all that good stuff. — Justice Smith

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

What I've always loved about watching movies myself of course that's [Bas] Luhrmann. His Moulin Rouge! is incredible, his Romeo + Juliet. Wow. You know. When I saw those, those really were transformative films for me. — Fredrik Bond

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

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

Linde's Danger to Self is a warm, candid and appealing account of being an emergency room psychiatrist. Linde captures the non-conformist, hard-boiled style of the psychiatrists who work in this setting. — Tanya Luhrmann

In Moulin Rouge, Baz Luhrmann takes the most thrilling moments in a movie musical-the seconds before the actors are about to burst into song and dance, when every breath they take is heightened-and makes an entire picture of such pinnacles. — Elvis Mitchell

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

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

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

We want to do for 'Hamlet' what Baz Luhrmann did for 'Romeo and Juliet' in terms of like a really cool kind of re-imagining. — Emile Hirsch

I also love Australian movies. I love Muriel's Wedding - I've seen in six times. Baz Luhrmann's best movie is strictly ballroom ... without question. — Ridley Scott

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

I wanted to be in a Baz Luhrmann film. It's just extraordinary. He's so amazing at what he does. He makes the most incredible films. — Carey Mulligan

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

It is only from the people I've had the good fortune to meet that I am learning the lessons to guide me. Baz Luhrmann, director of 'Moulin Rouge,' for example, has a childlike curiosity about the world. He doesn't pretend to know all the answers - quite the opposite, in fact. He asks loads of questions of everyone. — Simon Sinek

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

Baz [Luhrmann] paid me one of the greatest compliments ever. I don't know him, really, but when I first met him I was congratulating him on ROMEO + JULIET - which I think is a wonderful adaptation - and he said, "Oh, well we couldn't have done it without your RICHARD III, which was an inspiration!" I've never quite checked up on the dates to see whether or if, in fact, we did our film before he did his. — Ian McKellen

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

I dream of working with iconic directors such as Tim Burton, Baz Luhrmann, Terry Gilliam and Wes Anderson - so I'm setting my sights pretty high! My perfect role would be in a fairy-tale period piece, and I'm quite upset all the Harry Potter movies have been made as I'd love to have been in those. — Dree Hemingway

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

I got last-minute rush seats to Baz Luhrmann's 'Boheme,' and my favorite singer, Ekaterina Solovyeva, was playing Mimi that day. My face got burned off when she sang the aria 'Donde Lieta Usci.' The woman was technically sobbing and singing opera at the same time. I don't know how you do that. — Nina Arianda

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

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

I thought Leonardo DiCaprio was amazing in Baz Luhrmann's 'Romeo and Juliet.' — Brenton Thwaites

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

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

Trust yourself that you can do it and get it — 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

Witches try to 'connect' with the world around them. Witchcraft, they say, is about the tactile, intuitive understanding of the turn of the seasons, the song of the birds; it is the awareness of all things as holy ... — Tanya 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

I did some songs for Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby. I had done a jazz album of Roxy songs, and they used bits of it in the film. It would be nice to score a movie one day. — Bryan Ferry

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

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