Baz Luhrmann - ‘I self-medicate with creativity’

I love her, and if she was gone tomorrow, I don't know what I do. The relationship works in a way in which it works for us. It's not traditional in so many ways. So I see my job as keeping fear out of the room. I take the fear on in the morning when I get out.

Welcome to How To Fail, the podcast that believes there is no growth or creativity without failure first.

“Before we get into this conversation, please do remember to like, follow and subscribe so that you never miss a single episode.”

Masterclass is the streaming platform that makes it possible for anyone to watch or listen to hundreds of video lessons taught by more than 200 of the world's best. Whether it be in business and leadership, photography, cooking, acting, music, sports and more. Masterclass delivers a world class online learning experience. The classes that excited me the most were the ones on writing. So there's a session with actual Malcolm Gladwell, author of Blink and the tipping point.

He's done 24 classes on how to find research and write stories that capture big ideas and it's totally inspiring.

I love that you can turn your commute or work out into a classroom with audio mode so you can listen to a Masterclass lesson anytime anywhere. Right now, our listeners get an additional 15% off any annual membership at masterclass.com/fail. That's 15% off at masterclass.com/fail. Masterclass.com/fail.

“Skincare is really important to me, so I'm very fussy about what I put on my face.”

That's why I love one skin.

Their products are designed to layer seamlessly or even replace a few steps in your routine, which I'm always here for.

They're certified a safe for sensitive skin, which is huge for me as an ex-Musafra and they've even earned the National X-Mor association seal of acceptance. So you're getting powerful results without the harsh irritating side effects. What really makes them different is their patented OS1 peptide. The first ingredient proven to target senestent cells, which are a major cause of wrinkles, fine lines, and loss of elasticity. Basically, they're not just covering up signs of aging, they're going after one of the root causes.

Born from over a decade of longevity research, one skin's OS1 peptide is proven to target the visible signs of aging, helping you unlock your healthier skin now and as you age.

“For a limited time try one skin with 15% off using code fail at one skin.co/fail.”

That's 15% off at one skin.co with code fail. After you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them we sent you. Few contemporary directors are as instantly recognizable as Baz Lerman. For over three decades, he has made films that feel less like traditional dramas and more like operatic spectacles detonated from a glitter cannon. His work is unapologetically maximalistic, spectacular and romantic, and the chances are your life has been shaped in some way by his vision.

Whether it's watching the fish tank scene in his 1996 version of Romeo and Juliet, or gasping when the 19th century characters burst into 20th century song in 2001's Moon Aruge. Whether it's recalibrating how we think about Elvis Presley in Lerman's 2022 biopic, or using the Leonardo DiCaprio Martini glass gift from his great Gatsby. Or whether it's owning a sticky fingered copy of his debut film, Strictly Borom, on VHS, as I did. Lerman's cultural influence extends far beyond the screen. A story maker and world builder who once described himself as the Stanley Kubrick of sequence, Lerman's own story starts in Heron's Creek, a small rural town in New South Wales, Australia.

His father owned a petrol station and cinema. His mother had a dress shop and was a ballroom dancing teacher. Little wonder perhaps that Lerman's fascination with spectacle and the nature of performance started so young. At 19, he changed his name from Mark, which he thought was boring, to Baz Mark after his classmates compared his hair to Bazelbrushing. Lerman's latest film sees him return to Elvis this time in documentary form.

Epic Elvis Presley and concert features long lost footage from the singer's Las Vegas residency. Variety has called it one of the most exciting concert films you've ever seen.

Once claiming that for artists or people with big holes in their hearts, the South medication is the creative process.

“Bazelbrushing has a lot of hope in the air.”

That was probably one of the longest in-shows I've ever written and I was nervous saying it at Lerman fans of you. Quite often people do that sort of stuff and I don't really, I don't think I ever said that, but you were dead accurate. I can't do it. I wouldn't deny anything you said. Oh, I'm so happy to hear that. Let me see if I can make you deny anything over the course of the next 15 minutes. There were so many quotes I could have chosen from you to end on. I love the way that you talk about creativity, but that idea of creativity as self-medication.

Yes. How is your self-medication going, Bazelbrushing? Yeah, well, right now I'm medicating heavily and I mean that. For some of my stage and I sort of was struggling a bit with, I often say when I make the last movie. I mean, this is the, I'm going to become a recluse. I mean, saying that was so long.

I'm just going to read books somewhere, but then you get through them. And right now, I'm more creatively busy if it's possible than I was when I was 28. Like, I've got, you know, I'm opening epic. I'm working on gender acts. Even I just announced this lovely Belmont dining car because we do other things. I'm very medicated. Okay. And is it helping you feel loved?

I think there's all sorts of love. You know, I mean, the love business. If you see my films. And there's like champagne, love is like a youthful love. It's like the giddy and toxicated romance love. And there's love for children or your child.

And there's, there's a kind of love that is just that which is between friends or that is sort of a bond. There's so many different brands and kinds of love. But it's certainly fulfilling. I mean, what I mean is not that I go, oh, I'm so fulfilled. It's just I'm so consumed with it. A lot of negative vibes aren't won't get in.

I'm not spinning out. Look, when I'm finishing a big project, I go and I kind of, I call it the methadone program when I go and do everything the opposite I do when I'm hugely responsible for giant things.

“And which usually entails going on some journey and acting like a fool and getting smashed a lot, you know?”

And growing all disgracefully. Yeah. So I'm not doing a lot of growing all disgracefully right now. Okay. How does I try?

Elvis is clearly someone who fascinates you. And I feel having had the privilege of watching epic and seeing Elvis when it came out. That I could draw some parallels between the two of you, but what is it that you think draws you in to him? Well, originally, look, he was very big when I, in my life when I was young because when we do that, you know, we had the Elvis mat nice, you know?

That's where it started. And he was there present. But then fairly quickly after the 70s, I was growing up, I went on the bowie and you know, the Michael Jackson's and the Elton's and I, you know, other artists, musically. But Emma Donna, pretty much an em.

But when I came to doing a biopic, I'd always admired Emma Davis.

And one of my favorite films. One of my favorite films. And you realize that that biopic is not about Mozart. You learn a lot. It's about jealousy.

And I always thought, what if I do a biopic? I want to use a life that is about something bigger and more universal. And Elvis is the perfect page on which you can explore American in the 50s, 60s and the 70s.

“And his life is almost perfectly broken into these three acts.”

So I started just recently to discover notes and things I'd put away on Elvis like literally 30 years ago.

And epic does such an amazing job of showing him as this superlative performer.

And as a person and the bouncing between. And I realize watching it how little I'd seen both in a way. Because so much of it has become cliche or character sure. Sure. I'm fascinated with how you did it.

And I'm sure you've been asked this a million times before. No. Because it's so hyper real when you're watching it. Yeah. But you didn't use AI in a single frame.

There's not a single frame of AI. There's not no visual effects.

“The only visual effect is the one he has on the audience.”

What happened was was an accident. I was making Elvis the movie. And Ernst E. Augustine who's this great professional on Elvis the expert. So look there are these lost reels from the 70s concert in Vegas. So I thought, oh, maybe I can find them using the movie.

So I have the resources to actually literally send a guy into the salt mines in Kansas City. Where MGM kept all its footage. And he sort of kicks the door open. I didn't go, but then I got these pictures back of. Of like Raiders of the Lost Ark, you know, these dusty.

67 boxes of footage. And then this moment happened when we found this. 45 minute tape. The Elvis in this really unguarded way just talking about himself, which in any Elvis materials, he really doesn't do.

It's always someone talking about him.

Or there's a film in which there's a voice impersonator. Speaking of script, it was written, but not just spontaneously. And so we thought, well, what if we get out of the way? And Elvis just comes to you in a kind of dream concert. And sings and tells his story to you in a really intimate way.

“And that's why what you're experiencing.”

I'm hearing this a lot. People are going, people who don't care about Elvis. Have been seeing the film going, who is this guy? He's so funny. He's so vulnerable.

He's so good at making him want to relax and on stage. You just feel you're the only person in the room. Before we get into your failures, can I just ask you about a few key moments that just live in my brain, rent free? The fish tank scene.

The aquarium in Raymie and Juliette. How did you come up with that idea? Okay, here it goes. So I'm working with Craig Pierce, my high school friend, and I'm riding eventually, we're riding the Raymie and Juliette together. See, I'm in a few of us down in Miami.

And I'm working on that actual sequence. I can't feel like, well, how do we, we know we're going to meet Juliette, but how does Romeo meet Juliette? And yet you surprised them. And I'm out at this nightclub called The Dome.

It was a restaurant nightclub in Miami and Florida.

“And you know, I was only about, I think I was 29, 28.”

And so, well, I'd had a few sherrys, let's be. I mean, I'm not allowed a tippling. And I went into a bathroom and came out and I grew up doing fish tanks, actually. I had dad, made sure we all had little businesses and I sold tropical fish. And there's this beautiful tropical fish tank in front of me.

Gosh, my hands, I look up and I see a girl through the tropical fish tank coming ahead. And this nightclub had worked out this idea of, you couldn't see the stalls or anything. But when you were washing and doing your reflection, you could see each other through the fish tank. Really to hook up, I think, got a flirt. And in that moment, that's it.

All I have to do now is work out why is Romeo, you know, going into the bathroom. I had something to do with queen map. I'm not sure what it was, but whatever you took, meaningful, crazy. Couple of sherrys. Something, something magical.

Music is a hugely important part of your work. It's the sort of fabric of your storytelling in so many ways. One big part of the fabric, yeah. That song, everybody's free to wear sunscreen. Which came out in 1999.

I remember exactly where I was when I heard it for the first time.

I listened to it again on the way into this interview. And it still makes people a lot every time I listen to it. How did that come about? Oh, gosh. I do a lot of music, actually.

And I was learning to produce music. And although I work with great producers, I'm literally in there. I mean on Elvis. I mean the studio.

And I love it. It's one of my great joys. But I was trying to learn. I was making this charity album with the guy called Anton Montseye. He was my music supervisor and he was my assistant.

And now he runs music and Amazon. And I love him. He's dear different. There was this thing called the worldwide web. That's how long ago it was. And there was this speech on it by.

And it was apparently a scribe to being by the author of. I'm slaughterhouse five. And I could want to get who I was maybe going to work with. And found out there's a hoax. But when I hang on, but it's really meaningful.

Why didn't I record it as a spoken word? So we do it. It's like seven minutes long. And I use the choirs from Romeo and Juliet on. It's like 11 minutes long.

So it's the album. Go down the local radio station. They won't play it. They go like, uh, terrible. The whole album.

It's too weird. And so I go on the arts program that night. And I say, yeah, one condition you played is seven minutes long. Spoken word song. So they play it.

And just like in a movie. There's a guy tapping on the glass while we. In the students playing. And he's pointing in all the lights aligning up on the dashboard.

And the next day they went, well, this is amazing response.

And by the afternoon, cars are stopping listening.

And by 48 hours later, it's the biggest song in the country. I then go to the US. Same thing happens. The label said, no, it's too long. It's too strange.

So I went in a college radio, played it. Boom. Next thing. It's huge. It's gone golden light.

We bring out the guy that did the voice. And he's on all the chat shows. And actually, it ended the charts in England. Number one. And the thing was I recorded it probably in 97.

“And I thought, well, what if they needed class of 98?”

Class of 99?

I did to 2000 thinking by 2000.

No one would care. So, um, you know, I ran out of like beginnings. But it is just endured. And I think it's because, you know, what is said in it. The, my whole point was, doesn't matter whether it was vodka or not.

Or this lovely writer from the, the Harold Tribune. What's in it affects people in this dark time. I'm going to show it remix and rerelease it because it does seem to cut through ugly noise. It does. Thank you for that.

We'll talk more about your films as they pertain to your failures. But your first failure and thank you because I can tell you've really thought about these. Yeah, yeah. And your first failure is that you went to the National Institute of the dramatic arts in Australia. But you felt that you lost your instincts.

Yes. So true. Tell us about that period of life.

Before I went, I mean, I've always done this.

And I'd been in movies with Judy Davis and I have my own little theatre company. You've got to remember all of this now. But I kind of had just done this. I mean, even in high school, I was running off. You know, I barely graduated because I was mainly running my little theatre company.

And all of that. And even in the tiny country town, I was making films and shows. But I auditioned for not actually didn't get in. And eventually I became so successful. I think they were embarrassed.

And it just basically turned up and we'll let you in. So because I was very well known by then. So I go to night up.

“And I think, God, now I'm like a serious actor, serious creator.”

What does a serious person do? Well, they isolate themselves. And I was having actually this relationship with someone. But even that I kept secret. And I guess I was acting out being an actor.

You know, you do that. Of drama schools are invariably these kind of hot houses where everyone thinks of that one's a star. And you know, you think that's the universe and it's not very real. But it's useful. I mean, I loved the history of theatre.

And you had an opportunity to do a lot of plays and things. And indeed, I even devised to be boredom. But I got so self-conscious that when I came out, I really lost who I was. And I was having a relationship with someone and she came out. And I thought, I just picked up where I left often be even doing something.

Suddenly I had nothing. And I fell into this. She was actually in a movie with a very famous English actor. And I thought, wow, it's all gone horribly wrong. What have I done? And I fell into one of these rare deep depressions.

I was so dark and so lost. I couldn't get out of bed.

“And I remember just dragging eventually.”

I dragged myself down to this old 1930s swimming place by the ocean. And I'd just sit there all day staring. And then I added reading the paper to it. I think I used to eat an ice cream. And I wanted to get into the water, but I was so depressed.

I couldn't even swim. And then one day I did swim. And I felt better. So what am I going to do? I've got this idea about this crazy idea.

It's this Russian ballet dance because it was during the Soviet Union. I was washing up and he meets. It was sort of McBeth setting surfclubs or something. It was nuts. But I thought, I'm going to get all my friends back together and just do a little show. And I did it. I did this little show.

And at the end there was this kind of tsunami wave. And we did back like theater. And we just did this one workshop of it. And it went crazy. It was so nuts.

I remember I got to go and get fresh fruit because the audits were actually in the foyer. And I still haven't finished the show. But they came. And it was kind of went really well. And this agent for directors and creatives sort of got Hillary Linstead.

And she said, this is one of the craziest cool things I've seen. And then all of a sudden, I just started to make things again. And then I got an invitation to go to a drama. It's got to take strictly boredom. We took it.

And there were all these great artists from the Soviet Union there. But we won. And from that moment on, I've been doing what I'm doing ever since.

And I was ashamed that I liked people.

That I really liked people. And I really liked being with people.

“And connecting with people and that I was kind of quite affordable.”

And that just didn't seem cool enough. And I learned from that. I had a natural affinity with observing people in a room. Being in a gas station, people coming by and just sort of invisible. And I'm quite good with that.

But I learnt not to get too focused on myself.

I remember a writer called Johan Hari saying that the opposite of addiction is connection. Because when you're experiencing a degree of isolation and alienation, which is what fuels addiction. Yeah. Actually reaching out and having that moment of connection can save you.

“And I think that's such a cool degree more.”

And I think we're living in a world where, and with our kids, we'll look back. And we'll go hang on. And we put this thing called, you know, a smartphone in the hands. And look, I'm not going to get into, like, I'm blank at the against it all. But we just live online and internally so much.

That loneliness and disconnection is a really big issue. And I think connection connecting with people but what we're seeing is that young people actually want to go out and commute more. That's wise, touring is so big. You know, those times later night when you're scrolling and you see something online that you've been looking for. And you just need to buy it right there and then you click on the link.

You add it to cart before hitting check out. But then that's sinking feeding. As you realize, you don't have your card anywhere near and don't want to get out of bed. But that's when you see it. That purple pay button that has all of your information saved,

making checking out as simple as a quick tap of your screen. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and has so many benefits. You can set up your own design studio, use Shopify's AI tools that write product descriptions and even enhance your product photography. You can get the word out like you have a marketing team behind you. Easily create email and social media campaigns wherever your customers are scrolling or strolling.

See fewer carts go abandoned and more sales. Don't sign up for your one pamper month trial today at Shopify.co.uk/fail.

We're million time and we're getting married.

At a finding love on the island, we are now navigating real life and wedding planning. On nearly Wednesdays we share the honest highs, lows and the chaos of getting hitched. From budgets to guest list to family dramas and the things no one prepares you for. We'll have new episodes every Tuesday so make sure to subscribe to Nalywaids on YouTube. And listen wherever you get your podcasts.

GoFandMe is not only for nodefälle, do you want the football team of your children or are you planning for a small company or a special application? GoFandMe helps you to make ideas.

“Spend an action you have to bring to your mind about 5 to 5 more months.”

So, think carefully. Who could need your support? Don't worry about the other one and do it. You can go back a bit in your childhood and talk about whether you felt connected as a child. So, you weren't in this little time but it sounds like this extraordinary galle more free of technical or experience.

Yeah, I mean at the time I didn't see that way but now I realize like dad and mom in a different way but we were in Sydney. We go, they buy this rundown gas station and dad absolutely transforms it. And we have a farm, a pick farm and then we have and we all have their businesses and mom and dress shops in the border place. And you buy it then we were running a cinema and then artists come to live with us and then dad was just like none stop. And literally we were doing boring dancing and commando train and breeding.

We all are I was breeding fish and I had quite carp and I have my own business and it was nonstop.

Could one is the loneliest number by John Farnham.

“And then I got my brother to read the sports page and he went on a bit.”

Um, yeah, we were so connected. And I was also invisible because I was like the 10 year old that was pumping gas and so people would do stuff in front of you.

And they were always this paniply of fascinating human beings.

But then dad being the kind of, you know, he just made worlds this world building and so we had a restaurant where we had sizzle plates. And he's aware of white shit and a bow tie and serve people food and then there was lens international snack bar. So looking back, we were kind of the Renaissance players of this parents Creek. We were learning lots of skills photography. I was filming things.

Um, he never said no, he was always an enthusiast and he drove us the kind of two hours every night to learn boring dancing. I'm fascinated by your dad because he was a Vietnam restaurant. And I wonder if this world building was an attempt to escape that or move on from the what he'd witnessed.

“Yeah, I think he absolutely, like he built a house when we were in Sydney when we were very young before he left the Navy after Vietnam.”

And it's a beautiful midmodern house. And when I look back, I was born on the sand in front of the house. And when I look back, he, he learned how to build it with his own hands out of a book. I mean, how do you do that? And mom was pregnant with us and she's with bricks on a conveyor belt.

And he, he was always sort of hustling too, you know, like cut to me and my brothers.

You know, if there was free blue metal or something up the road, we'd get up and shovel it in any inventor pathway is quite inventive. It invent machines and things. And he transformed this gas station into this kind of caravansia of fascination. And it became really famous. People would stop not just for the snacks or the way it looked or to see the plants or, but there was always we'd have copper corn night and events. So it was a kind of, it was a world in itself for sure. And he built that with us.

It's beautiful. Your parents got divorced when you were 12. And I imagine that was shattering. It was enormously tumultuous because, well, of course, I need 12-year-old, any kid, your parents at the center of your life and dad. And mom, mom her own way too. She was off-going doing theater and stuff. And she went through quote transformation too, like, she's still incredibly vital. I mean, she's nining and lift a truck. She's really strong. But she split. Her inscrick was too small for her.

She took my little sister and a lamb. There was, it was really tumultuous. And then dad remarried this woman, her kids. And this woman actually was a really lovely kind woman. But for us, our world had been shattered. And so eventually I ran away to reconnect with mom. Have my own apartment out of the back, so I love that.

But I went with this really forward-thinking school in former quarry that was experimental. And it was co-ed, boys and girls, to this really oppressed Christian brother's school. And actually, is the location in the Great Gatsby of Gatsby's Mansion. We use it with visual extensions. So that was a shock. That's where I got the drug. Because dad kept out here very short. We were sort of beaten up for that.

Now I've been beaten up having crazy curly hair. And they used to call me basal brush, which became bas. And in the act of defiance, I put the two names to get, I thought, you know, I'm going to be someone. Where a name, basal brush, which is on my passport. And I've had it ever since.

This idea of connection and those early experiences of the most important relationship in your life really being ruptured.

“Do you think that informed how romantic your style is, or be it, it focuses quite a lot on doom-drome paths?”

Yeah, but in the red-carcin trilogy, particularly, I'm just interested in how much you think that romanticism and that lens was informed by what your parents went through and what you went through. Well, I think both things, I think dad put us in a world and encouraged us to invent, create, there was no cap on what you could do with your imagination. And then the rupture, I'm sure, left a kind of feeling of trying to put the wheel back together again. I think if you, without getting two series about my own pain, because there are other people that lose parents.

But I think, if you have pain in your life, you tend not to want to make films about pain.

Yeah, you want to make films that either have happy endings, or a heightened, or a scape. You want things to be, I mean, romanticism, which I used to rarely make games being called a romantic. But now I accept that I am hopeless romantic. Romanticism just means things are more than they possibly can be. They're heightened. And I am drawn to that. And I, I even create a romantic world around the act of making the films. It's not just that the films have a romanticism, anyone who comes into my world.

“They come into a complete, that's why they take so long to make a world in which the outside world doesn't count that much, only what we're making together does.”

Talk about collaboration, it remains incredibly important to you. And you don't do a normal audition process. You do these collaborative workshops with actors. Can you tell us a little bit about that process? Yeah, I, I learned this, I mean, I've acted myself when I was young and I was with Judy Davis and he's not there. And what I don't do is let someone come into my space and everyone else might roll their eyeballs and get that definitely not.

And I just go, my job is to get you the job one and two, I don't do that often. So if we spend a half day on it, I want to learn something about this scene through you. So privilege that I've got you in front of me. Let's work on the scene and don't you be thinking about, are you right for the role? I won't be thinking about everything in what can we learn out of the scene. And then I'll go away and I'll go and we'll do more and what it usually reveals itself. I mean, with Austin Butler, Butler, it just revealed itself. Like he, he was already down the road when he came in and by the time he says, I forgot to tell him you had the job.

Which I want to do, because I just keep doing it, but it was more. We were just eventually start doing it, you know. And same thing just recently was Jean Dark. I saw some wonderfully talented young actors who I didn't know.

“And by doing the workshops, which I actually did, I think I can say it, in the children after it was burned out on Rayland at him, because the secret nice environment to do it in.”

Place where I'd had so much fun, but there we were doing scenes out of Jean Dark. But either Johnston who's playing that role, it came out of that process where we were just focusing on, what can we learn about this character in this story? And I, and I feel so precious and privileged, and it's so my look, children play actually brilliantly. It's called a screenplay, you know, we are but players. But if you scare a child, they can't play. So I see my job is keeping fear out of the room.

I take the fear on in the morning when I get up. And I really allow everyone to play and fail as they like to say. So I'm not saying, "Oh, it's just safe environment in fact, but you really can't." But with me, I want you to go so far that it does go too far, it does to wrong.

Because then we're going to find a third idea, not yours, not mine a third idea.

“I never say no, really. Oh, I never say no.”

Mama, how do you feel the great love for me? Huh? How can Papa Kremey be? Nutella, what do you want from Mama and Papa? Nutella is Nutella. But what I want to tell you is, you don't know where the whole studio is.

It's a semester-by-tag laptop, the soft-handed internet, it's a master's real-time. Oh, you can say it, you can say the same thing. But you don't know where the whole studio is. And if you work, you'll be able to do it. That's right.

Save, how is the studio? Hold it, then go to the studio. Now it's time for us to go out. I'm not here to tell you what to do, I'm here to give you a new way to see. Episodes of the lazy genius podcast are full of compassionate time management tips

and permission slips to do what makes sense for you. New episodes drop every Monday. Follow in listen to the lazy genius podcast on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Your second failure takes us forward a few years

and the Australian by Centenary in 1988, and there's a huge grant offered for a young artistic director to create a theatre company. And you get it, Bas. Yes, I get it. Why is this a failure? Well, it was not only eight.

I had my own bond theatre company.

“Being a knight, I think I was no niche, but everybody wanted this gig.”

I mean, it was a lot of money being thrown around, because of Bas Centenary.

And the most important theatre company in Sydney, the Sydney Theatre Company,

was one by this artistic director called Rich and Wear it. And he was a great guy and he was a great director. But he, this giant grant came with some young person, could have their own theatre company. And out of everybody in the whole country, I got the gig.

I was the artistic director. But what happened? And again, it was me kind of stepping on my own instincts. But the technical things I tried to do, like, originally, I was just going to do an open space with flowers and mirrors.

But the technical things I tried to do was so high-end, you know, with amplified voice, I got lost again. The opening up was so catastrophic, very well known people came and sort of left. And the reviews were beyond, I mean, there was a lot of jealousy about it. I mean, I had long curly hair and was probably, I don't know, 22 or something.

So there was a bit of like, "Oh, he only got it because he had long curly black hair." But, you know, I was really, it was the first time I felt, I was actually super attacked in the press. Like, and I felt it, and the reviews were absolutely scabbing.

“And it sent me into this dark, dark depression for the second time.”

And we did that show, which is Valia, and then the second show was this other person who was a drama took, I wanted to do this show, and this other writer, and it was kind of a mess. And the third show, the final show, I went, well,

I'm going to bring back that piece I did could strictly bore him, because that is actually me. So I did it, extended it, added in the sort of Spanish, you know, there's sort of immigrant plot line. And we went to this festival 88.

And at the end of it, I also went, look, this, I actually just put on this joyous kind of event at the Sydney Theatre Company, which was called Coca-Cola Bottles Dance Hall, whereby everyone had gone learn to dance, you've got to tick it.

And we recreated, 1945, Victory Night. And I did all these cabaret numbers, and that was just for fun. And it blew up. And then the next day, the guys from this train opera saw me strictly bore him,

and offered me my own opera company, to do an experimental opera.

“I mean, I've been from being completely dead,”

created me. And then this guy, this lovely guy, and his wife could tell her, but said, look, I saw your strictly bore him. I want to start a film company. I have this band, ACDC, rather famous.

Yeah. We'd like to buy the rights of your play, strictly born and make a film, and I said, well, no, I'm going to make a movie of it. And they went away, and he came and said,

hmm, okay, you can do it. And I never stopped. Why? And I learned from that, again,

my instincts has always been,

it's not, oh, they're my friends. It's that I might have a conversation with someone, and there's more to have. And I don't really read CV. It's a bit.

But I really go, is there more to a conversation. And that means I can really work with someone. And with the Amp, for example, or Craig or anyone of which is a long time.

wife. Yeah, my work after Monica, of course, the Amp. She came in. I was looking for someone to work as a designer in the company.

She had this other part of the way. We went back to my drama school. And she came to this place I lived above the brothel. She's cross.

And I had like two sticks of furniture. And I had to get off her a cross on. And we started talking about Bertel, Breakton, Madonna, and especially in an hour

and the conversation went on for three hours or something. And we're still having a conversation today. So that's how I realized that this whole idea that you are. I just just not me.

I have to have some connective tissue, some connectivity with primary collaborators. And that's how I decide. Use the conversation going on. Is the music going on?

People have a weird fascination with your marriage. Yes. Does it annoy you? The fascination, I mean. What I got on at standard.

I mean, my stuff is really camp. And our relationship is, well, camp in one regard. Like I use that theatricality. And there's a sort of underlying seriousness to it.

And similarly, people say we're going to get married. I don't remember.

I just know we've always been together.

And it's a truly real relationship. I love her.

I don't know what I do. But we also are very distinctly different individuals. We understand each other. The relationship works in a way in which it works for us. It's not traditional in so many ways.

My kids make lots of jokes about me. What kind of joke? Oh, you know. I mean, they just kind of mocked me a lot. And it gets me very grounded.

Sometimes they call me rude Paul. I mean, I don't know. Like in a fun way. Yeah. We are this absolute real relationship.

But we also have our commitment to each other,

“which is I think what real marriages are,”

which is their contracts with each other, that you know are good for each other. And there are things you can change and things you can't. But weddings are actually advertisements to everybody else that you're together.

You know. And you know, CM does her stuff sometimes and I like epic. I did that. That's my gig. She's got her home wears.

But then on the visual language stuff, we won the films. We work very, very closely together. But you know, this is, I think, really deep love and love transforms over the years. Is the person that you can have the most trust with.

So there's a profound trust. She's the person I would turn to, and I'm the person she would turn to. When you really got things you can't say to anyone else. One of my favorite pieces of Baselerman footage is actually a TikTok video.

You know where I'm going with this. I do. It was just casually iconic. It was so funny. Yeah, did you have a, what happened?

What happened? I was taking a kid's, it was Marigra.

And we always go, I was taking the kids.

And we were buying ice cream, actually. In Newtown. And I turned around in this kid. She was sort of being kind of cheeky asking me questions. And I was like, I wasn't going to go.

And it became pretty clear that shadow idea of the walls. So she was asking pretty straight up questions. And I just gave my honest answers. Yeah.

“And I think what happens is she goes home.”

And someone says, you know, that's Baselerman. And she didn't know. So I don't know, I thought it was kind of fun and charming. Well, I loved your response because it just shows how open-hearted you are to the world. And actually it's a lesson to every interviewer.

To just ask the direct questions. It was brilliant. Yeah. Final question on this video. Did it teach you how to deal with criticism?

Yes. I mean, well, when you first get, we, yes, did. I mean, when you first get really criticized publicly, you actually think that everybody in the street is putting you in. Yeah.

There he is. That terrible. He's the one. And you're so embarrassed and ashamed. But then our things go on.

You learn as overseas in Epic. He says, well, you know, you can't please everyone. And you learn. It doesn't.

“It still hurts if someone viciously attacks something that you and a bunch of people have really”

given your heart and soul to. And you think like, well, could you just say, why it's not working as opposed to somehow we're bad people, whatever that is. But what you learn to do is understand that. They've got a job and they're, you know, they're criticizing.

And some criticism is really, really good. And some are going, you know, I can't get that. But you curate that. I mean, early on with the press, I'd read everything. You know, right, I do a thing.

Oh, did I get it right? And you, and you, and you feel really compelled to sort of explain yourself completely like it's your, your biography in one interview.

Then as you go through this, I never look back at the stuff.

I just sort of tell it from the heart. And, you know, in print sometimes people are really lovely to be with. And then they, you know, they've got editors. And editors know that, you know, a headline is going to get clickbait or whatever. But I just don't take it.

I've got this little mantra, which is, you know, for a good simple, simple, focused humble. And it's not that deep. You're final failure. I'm so happy we're going to talk about one of my favorite films of all time.

Strictly ballroom. But as you say to me, it wasn't a failure. It was a success, but you never realized it's full potential. Well, I'm actually talking about their stage version. Oh, okay.

So that we talk about the movie afterwards. No, no. Well, the movie was a whole journey. Actually, great dramas. Because we finally, no one wants her.

We finally get the money that lovely man. And Ted Albert suddenly dies on the eve of us about to make the film.

His incredible wife steps in and says,

"We will, my husband, new talent." And even though the family saying, "We're in the music business."

When we screensrictly ballroom, the ones. And we have canceled sets. The worst film I've ever seen. I got up the coast.

“I think, well, these film things are going to work out.”

Because they say it's too theatrical. And they also say the woman playing. The mother in it is the worst performance. She's ever given you a room in a career. I get a fun call.

And this guy's got a French accent. This is my name. It's a piano from the Gendfin Festival. I just saw your film Strictly ballroom. I'm going to offer you a twelve-clock screening.

We go. Rest is history. It still has the record for the most around a thousand. And I remember a security guy grabs me. Because the crowd gets her and he says, "Miss you.

From this moment on, your life will never be the same again."

And he was kind of right. But years later, years and years later, I do this relationship with calm and public. She's a great theatre person to do. I'm going to do Strictly ballroom on a ridge.

So I'll do the Strictly ballroom.

“Because it's a web being back in Australia.”

And I was very distracted and I couldn't get there. And it's not like the play was a complete failure. I just know that I was, it's the first show I'd done in years. Where I was kind of off-kill on it. And when I did it, I realized I should never go back

and try and repeat the past to quote a lion from Gatsby. I just couldn't be me when I was 28. And I'm like, "That's not the right thing." So the next time, with Milan Rouge, I was sitting at a dinner party at a friend of mine's in New York.

And Alex Timbers, whose work I really loved and seemed to be like a nephew of mine in kind of his style. I just said, "Hey, would you like to do Milan Rouge?" You went, "You kidding?" No, I'm so glad he did it.

The theatre show. Because he went, "I would turn up and see runs and give some notes." But I was more like Uncle Bass. And he would eat it things in life with all the new music. I probably wouldn't have done that,

because I would have gone all the fans. And you see, "I'm not, I love that." I don't want to go back to my old works. And captain, I'm happy to support someone else reinterpreting them. And I'm not precious about them.

As long as the essence is there, I love the way that someone takes something I did and reinterpret it. Because that's like Shakespeare. You know, you take Shakespeare and you recode it and re-discover it for a certain time and a certain place.

Yeah. That's just forward momentum, but also there's sort of presentism in you. Yeah, I agree with that. It was fully present.

Yeah, it was fully present, but I'm always moving forward.

I made all my films for the future, not to be hip in the moment. Say that again. I always made my films for the future, not to be sort of hip in the moment or right in the moment.

I'll get the ticks and crosses. I know there would be a way of doing certain things. Where the creaks all go like, yeah, this is really on point. But like for example, in Romeo and Juliet, you can't date it because of, you know, early on,

I realize there must be nothing you could date in it. Or even strictly boredom. It's kind of vaguely 90s. But there's nothing in it that really perfectly dates them. Because I want them now to have a universality.

And I want them to move through time and space and grow as they're time. I'm just saying, although you don't look at your in your 60s, I think. Well, I've got sunglasses on. I'm holding my bag. No, you've got excellent skin.

Oh, thank you. You don't make films quickly, because they are these beautiful collaborative processes. Well, I really live them. You go inside the world, I live them.

“Have you thought about how many films you have left to make?”

There's been about a talk about that. It seems been saying, look, he's only got it like. He said 10 and I think sky is getting through the most. I keep think I've got one criteria. Like it's like a fashion house in a way.

The big films that I could share then. We do all these other creative adventures. But I think I will do, I have this one large piece. And there's many, many, many, many.

I never have to think of any idea of who has got them.

They're there sitting there. But I just think this is the right time. I was always going to do Alexander the Great. I worked on that for a long time. And for a very reason I didn't do it.

But I just feel the story of this 17 year old. You know, dark world where she says we've got to peel this world away from the nobly old hands of these old men. I mean, could there be need for a clearer hero than a generation changing young person who says what you're doing to this world is not right.

And I've got a vision, and I'm here to lead us to our generation into a new time in the new place. Jean-Darck, that's your next film. I can't wait. A very superficial question.

You know that our version of dancing with the stars is called Strickly Composing.

“Did they ever give you royal cease for the title?”

No, it was actually, I found out the woman who did it. She was worried about her, we weren't, but she wanted to do Strickly Ballroom. And she did. So she came up with this idea of dancing with the stars comes Strickly Composing. And it's a great success, and only on it helps.

So once actually, when I was doing the Blue Ray of Strickly Ballroom,

you know, the older Jan, who was the judge?

Yes, Langutman. There's an American version called Dancing with the Stars. Yes.

“And I went on that to promote the Blue Ray took his gig for a nap.”

For a nap. I was terrible. I'm terrible on this, because I spent my whole life lifting people up. I'm not sure if it's saying, you know what? Listen, Mr. UFC, Cage Fuddy, you're touch our socks, you know?

It's not me. I'm terrible. And Bass, this has been such a joy. And I know lots of other people, including myself, have opinions of your work and your brilliance.

“How would you like people to think of your work or remember your work?”

If one person gets affected or look, I was growing up in a very tiny country town, and I was a fan. Whether it was a bowie or an Elvis or a movie or a potclutch now, as I got older or whatever it was, discovering Bergman and constantly opening my mind or sorts of creativity, whatever I was a fan. And those things that touched and affected me, sometimes didn't just thrill me for a week and all stayed with me.

Sometimes they were my guide. So if something I've made helps one person have some kind of a piphany or uplift, or even if it's just escaping from a difficult time. For a couple of hours into the cinema and come out and feel renewed, which I actually think epic is doing to a lot of non-alwa fans.

They just thought it'd go in and in this very dark world we're in. If there's one thing about Elvis, he's a uniter, and he's also really empathetic and funny, and his music and the way he performs this show up. So getting out of the way in this case and providing that, I just hope if one person has that, then I feel like I'm kind of useful.

As Lerman, thank you so much for coming on How to Fail. It's really, I didn't know how I'd go on this, you know, to a family,

but I really enjoyed the third recession doctor.

Thank you so much. That's the ultimate compliment. Do I have to pay you for my therapy? No, you've paid me already in the culture you've produced. Thank you so much. No, it was beautiful.

Please do follow How to Fail to get new episodes as they land on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. Please tell all your friends. This isn't Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment original podcast. Thank you so much for listening.