Despite having extensive experience as a director for movies like Moulin Rouge and Romeo + Juliet, director Baz Luhrmann has revealed that his movie Australia “nearly killed” him.
While doing the promotional rounds for his new film Elvis, Luhrmann told Deadline about his harrowing experience filming the 2008 blockbuster.
“As a filmmaking experience, it was by far the most fraught,” he told the publication. “We were hit by equine flu. I went to the desert to shoot, and it rained for the first time in 150 years, so I had a grass-covered desert.”
He added, “It nearly killed me, but I wouldn’t give a day of it up at all.”
Speaking of working as a director and writer on the movie, Luhrmann told the publication that he decided to throw himself into the project headfirst because he found himself in a bad place mentally after having trouble conceiving children.
“So, instead, I did Australia,” he told Deadline.
“I was really living it, living in north Australia and working with some of our country’s great writers, like Richard Flanagan, learning about the stolen generation,” he added.
While Australia was a box office hit in Europe, it was somewhat of a failure in America.
“It’s weird because in America it didn’t play at all. It’s the only film I’ve had that didn’t really open in America. Everything else has played there, but it’s the biggest film I’ve ever had in Europe, and it still is. It’s still my number one movie in France and Spain, and I’m still not sure why. I was in Paris a couple days ago. They really lean into Australia, and they talk about it like it’s this masterful epic. I’m like, “Hey, isn’t it the loathed child?” But it’s the number two highest grossing Australian film of all time, so somebody saw it.”
For more on this topic, follow the Film and TV Observer.
