WEBVTT - Baz Luhrmann 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:03.680 The Quest Loft Show is a production of iHeart Radio. 0:00:21.280 --> 0:00:25.160 Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to another episode of The Quest 0:00:25.200 --> 0:00:25.639 Loft Show. 0:00:25.760 --> 0:00:27.800 I will say that our guest today. 0:00:28.520 --> 0:00:34.040 Is a visionary, a visionary so many iconic moments and 0:00:34.120 --> 0:00:39.479 his canon be it of course, moll And Rouge, Romeo 0:00:39.520 --> 0:00:43.479 and Juliet, the Elvis film The Great Gatsby. You know, 0:00:43.680 --> 0:00:47.159 not enough people to talk about the get down. Nobody 0:00:47.159 --> 0:00:49.879 talks about the get down right now, We're here to 0:00:50.040 --> 0:00:54.800 celebrate probably one of the most clever acronyms, a movie 0:00:54.840 --> 0:00:58.480 called Epic, which is Elvis Presley in concert. I guess 0:00:58.480 --> 0:01:03.279 you could say almost companion film to the Elvis biopick. 0:01:03.360 --> 0:01:07.360 And it's an amazing rare look. I believe, over fifty 0:01:07.480 --> 0:01:11.679 nine hours of rare concert footage that hasn't been seen. 0:01:12.319 --> 0:01:14.959 And in a minute, so much to talk about, Ladies 0:01:14.959 --> 0:01:18.600 and gentlemen, please welcome, bads. Look all right, lureman, is 0:01:19.000 --> 0:01:20.600 that is okay? 0:01:20.360 --> 0:01:20.600 You say? 0:01:21.600 --> 0:01:22.760 You do everything perfectly? 0:01:22.880 --> 0:01:25.080 There you go, Baz Lauren, thank you for coming to 0:01:25.080 --> 0:01:26.600 the Quest Love Show. How are you today? 0:01:27.280 --> 0:01:30.720 Well, I'm extremely happy to be here on your show, man, 0:01:30.760 --> 0:01:33.640 because I you know, you said a lot of nice 0:01:33.640 --> 0:01:35.720 things about me and my work, and I feel the 0:01:35.760 --> 0:01:38.520 same about you, and I feel somewhat of a kindred 0:01:38.600 --> 0:01:41.679 spirit and that I think both of us, you know, 0:01:41.880 --> 0:01:47.039 we don't specify ourselves. Like you love music, you love storytelling, 0:01:47.319 --> 0:01:50.880 you love ideas, you like people, and you love culture. 0:01:50.880 --> 0:01:52.560 And that's the way I see the world. 0:01:52.680 --> 0:01:56.360 You know, I'm kind of geeking out because the fact 0:01:56.360 --> 0:01:59.080 that you're even putting. 0:02:00.240 --> 0:02:04.400 My pronoun into we and us, Like, I'm glad. 0:02:04.160 --> 0:02:11.720 You see me as Atlasa Kendrick spirit, you know. Okay, 0:02:11.760 --> 0:02:13.280 So I have so many questions to ask you about 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:17.040 your career, but for me, the most important is I 0:02:17.080 --> 0:02:21.760 guess your trademark that I know you for is kind 0:02:21.800 --> 0:02:26.720 of your anachronistic treatment of music in period pieces. 0:02:27.400 --> 0:02:28.799 I remember sitting there and rolling me. 0:02:28.720 --> 0:02:30.960 On Juliette, like, wait a minute, this music wasn't out there, 0:02:31.000 --> 0:02:33.120 and like are they allowed to do that? Like we 0:02:33.160 --> 0:02:37.080 had so many talks about wait, are they allowed to 0:02:37.200 --> 0:02:38.640 just disregard time? 0:02:38.720 --> 0:02:40.920 And you know, and this happens often in your movies. 0:02:41.360 --> 0:02:47.120 When you first get a spark for a project, does 0:02:47.160 --> 0:02:52.320 the playlist come first? Like how important is our songs 0:02:52.720 --> 0:02:55.080 to you before you start a project? 0:02:56.040 --> 0:03:01.160 Well, first, of all these I pop into my mind 0:03:01.400 --> 0:03:04.399 and then I go, I must do it. I think 0:03:04.440 --> 0:03:07.959 everything I've ever made has been in my mind from 0:03:07.960 --> 0:03:09.960 the get gos. It is like the list of things 0:03:09.960 --> 0:03:12.960 I feel I must make, not what I want to make, 0:03:13.440 --> 0:03:14.600 but what I must make. 0:03:16.160 --> 0:03:18.400 There's too many that I won't get them all done 0:03:18.440 --> 0:03:18.960 before I go. 0:03:19.520 --> 0:03:22.840 But like, for example, one thing I was always fascinated 0:03:22.840 --> 0:03:26.080 with since being a kid was if Shakespeare made a movie? 0:03:26.800 --> 0:03:29.560 How would he go about making a movie? And so 0:03:29.600 --> 0:03:33.280 then it begins with that philosophical idea. I usually spend 0:03:33.280 --> 0:03:35.920 time like I have a great friend Craig Piers went 0:03:35.960 --> 0:03:39.440 to school. We wrote things together, you know, seem like 0:03:39.560 --> 0:03:43.680 serial collaborators, musers, friends going up and downhills, drinking too 0:03:43.720 --> 0:03:45.080 many glasses of wine and going. 0:03:44.880 --> 0:03:47.200 Now, which, what's right? What's useful? Now? 0:03:47.400 --> 0:03:49.560 So then it goes like, oh, you know, I really 0:03:49.600 --> 0:03:52.000 want to reinvent the musical, but that's going to be 0:03:52.040 --> 0:03:54.960 more complicated. So I just quickly bang off, you know, 0:03:55.040 --> 0:03:56.120 what would Shakespeare do it for me? 0:03:56.240 --> 0:03:57.400 A movie? That was the mission? 0:03:57.760 --> 0:04:01.400 Now I say that, and it will answer your question, 0:04:01.960 --> 0:04:08.200 because in studying Shakespeare very deeply, he would do things 0:04:08.240 --> 0:04:12.000 like very broad comedy and then huge drama in the 0:04:12.040 --> 0:04:15.680 next minute. The other thing he did was he took 0:04:15.800 --> 0:04:20.479 pop music from the street and put it into his shows. 0:04:20.920 --> 0:04:22.280 And he was pillared for this. 0:04:23.040 --> 0:04:26.719 He was considered, I mean other writers at the time 0:04:26.800 --> 0:04:29.640 that this guy is just such trash and he's a 0:04:29.720 --> 0:04:33.919 working class he's not educated, he'll never last. But because 0:04:33.960 --> 0:04:36.120 he did it, I would do it now now. To 0:04:36.240 --> 0:04:42.640 be clear, as we were developing script, I developed the 0:04:42.720 --> 0:04:46.640 music language as well. So it's literally written in the 0:04:46.680 --> 0:04:49.719 script of Romeo and Juliet. I think it was something 0:04:49.760 --> 0:04:53.480 like a boy with the voice of Stevie Wonder sings 0:04:53.480 --> 0:04:57.680 a version of Princess Dove's Cry as a hymn as 0:04:57.760 --> 0:05:01.560 Romeo and Juliet. So I can se the music of 0:05:01.720 --> 0:05:05.720 equal importance in the fabric of storytelling as I with 0:05:05.800 --> 0:05:09.680 the words and the image. I actually developed them in parallel, 0:05:09.960 --> 0:05:10.960 like three scripts. 0:05:11.440 --> 0:05:13.479 I guess you're telling me that you're saying that you 0:05:13.600 --> 0:05:18.760 inherently know everything. And I believe this too, that all 0:05:18.839 --> 0:05:23.599 humans know everything. We just have to channel you know, 0:05:23.680 --> 0:05:26.000 the information, everything we need to know, everything that we're 0:05:26.040 --> 0:05:28.960 going to know in this lifetime is already inside of us. 0:05:29.080 --> 0:05:31.200 Yeah, life is a self revelation that never stops. 0:05:31.200 --> 0:05:33.880 Correct. So that said, I gotta ask. 0:05:34.080 --> 0:05:37.479 I mean, because everything you've done is ambitious, is there 0:05:37.520 --> 0:05:45.160 a holy Grail project that you dream of making that's 0:05:45.240 --> 0:05:47.000 kind of on the back Murner right now. 0:05:47.920 --> 0:05:49.719 Well, I have to be very careful. 0:05:50.279 --> 0:05:50.640 You can't. 0:05:50.720 --> 0:05:53.440 Okay, no, no, because my answer going to sound pretentious, 0:05:53.440 --> 0:05:54.120 and the answer is not. 0:05:54.560 --> 0:05:55.159 You're an artist. 0:05:55.440 --> 0:05:57.919 Not because anything I think up, I don't go. 0:05:58.400 --> 0:06:01.039 I mean, this does sound pretentious, but I don't go 0:06:01.200 --> 0:06:02.920 like I got this idea. 0:06:03.040 --> 0:06:04.000 I need to get a job. 0:06:04.560 --> 0:06:08.440 I just have always been either arrogant enough, or foolish enough, 0:06:08.839 --> 0:06:13.839 or blind enough or singular enough to go hmmm. Shakespeare 0:06:13.880 --> 0:06:16.920 directs a film. I want to make that now. At 0:06:16.920 --> 0:06:19.760 that stage I had made Strictly Borim and it was 0:06:19.800 --> 0:06:23.400 a wonderful journey. It was a play that I devised 0:06:23.440 --> 0:06:26.000 in Lae. And when we did the film, we lost 0:06:26.000 --> 0:06:26.960 the one distributor. 0:06:27.040 --> 0:06:28.680 And then the guy brings me up. 0:06:28.760 --> 0:06:31.520 I'm shaving my long collly black care off going Obviously, 0:06:31.560 --> 0:06:34.000 I'll never make a movie again. It says my name 0:06:34.080 --> 0:06:37.440 is Beer Rision, I'm from Zeke and film Festivela like 0:06:37.560 --> 0:06:40.200 to invade you. We go Boom twelve o'clock, most amount 0:06:40.240 --> 0:06:41.800 of sales in history. 0:06:42.480 --> 0:06:45.000 Yeah. Changes, Yes, exactly, my life changes. 0:06:45.240 --> 0:06:48.960 So by having said that, in doing a first look 0:06:48.960 --> 0:06:52.000 deal with Fox, they were definitely not expecting me to 0:06:52.040 --> 0:06:55.440 walk in and say I want to do Shakespeare, as 0:06:55.440 --> 0:06:58.240 if Shakespeare was directing a movie. That was not what 0:06:58.279 --> 0:07:02.440 they were hoping for. But I just go, that is 0:07:02.480 --> 0:07:04.400 what is needed to tell you right now, Right now, 0:07:05.040 --> 0:07:06.800 I mean, I'm in the middle of this, and this 0:07:06.880 --> 0:07:10.840 is god epic has its own quite extraordinary life. Even 0:07:10.920 --> 0:07:17.000 I'm swept up and surprised and joyed by the embrace. 0:07:17.240 --> 0:07:19.080 And I'm not just saying that as a sales pitch, 0:07:19.240 --> 0:07:24.120 but in the background, on a very deep level, I'm 0:07:24.120 --> 0:07:26.600 working on jan Dac the story of Joan of arc 0:07:27.440 --> 0:07:30.680 in the belief that in two years time, a story 0:07:31.720 --> 0:07:35.120 about a world that is stuck in this echo chamber 0:07:35.760 --> 0:07:38.160 of old dudes who want to keep it going around 0:07:38.200 --> 0:07:41.120 and round and around because it makes money. And she 0:07:41.320 --> 0:07:44.400 says enough is enough. And she comes from a small 0:07:44.440 --> 0:07:48.800 country town at the age of seventeen and lifts up 0:07:48.840 --> 0:07:52.400 a young king who's on his last knees and changes 0:07:52.480 --> 0:07:54.720 history for that generation. 0:07:55.080 --> 0:07:56.800 And I just think that's going to be useful. So 0:07:57.680 --> 0:07:58.920 I just think I have to. 0:07:58.920 --> 0:08:03.280 Do it continue the tradition of playing with time in 0:08:03.400 --> 0:08:04.160 terms of. 0:08:04.760 --> 0:08:07.480 I know every step genov ARC's taken, I've taken it, 0:08:07.880 --> 0:08:10.600 and I've worked with academic systuff, very very academically. But 0:08:10.640 --> 0:08:15.920 then I say, my job is to translate it for 0:08:16.000 --> 0:08:18.480 the audience at this time, in this moment. 0:08:18.560 --> 0:08:21.120 And so without saying. 0:08:20.880 --> 0:08:24.160 What yeah, well, without saying what it is, yeah, see, 0:08:24.280 --> 0:08:25.840 here's my thing, here's my thing. 0:08:26.400 --> 0:08:27.120 Listen to my thing. 0:08:27.960 --> 0:08:30.880 You take Gatsby, whether people agree with what I did 0:08:30.960 --> 0:08:34.480 in Gadsby or not. I was working on Gatsby and 0:08:34.520 --> 0:08:41.400 Fitzgerald wrote into his novella Black Street Music, which was 0:08:41.440 --> 0:08:44.760 called jazz, even termed the phrase of jazz age, and 0:08:44.840 --> 0:08:46.800 people went, why are you doing that? It's going to 0:08:46.840 --> 0:08:49.800 be a fad, this jazz stuff, But when you come 0:08:49.840 --> 0:08:54.079 to make the movie, it's kind of got a nostalgic patina. 0:08:54.360 --> 0:08:57.640 So then I get with jay Z and Jay I 0:08:57.679 --> 0:08:59.920 told him all about it down just down the road here, 0:09:00.800 --> 0:09:02.319 and before I even finished, he says, what are you 0:09:02.320 --> 0:09:04.680 talking about? We're doing it, And he says, we're going 0:09:04.760 --> 0:09:07.760 to do this, and together we embark on this journey 0:09:07.800 --> 0:09:11.320 bringing lots of artists together because we wanted to show 0:09:11.360 --> 0:09:14.360 that that is what it is and what it felt like, 0:09:15.120 --> 0:09:18.360 and what Gatsby in the novel felt like was kind 0:09:18.360 --> 0:09:20.480 of what hip hop could do for us. 0:09:20.840 --> 0:09:21.480 I understand. 0:09:21.600 --> 0:09:24.319 So, yeah, if you put jazz inside of Gatsby, now 0:09:24.880 --> 0:09:27.640 jazz is your grandparents' music, it's it's except great. 0:09:28.080 --> 0:09:29.960 But I don't understand. 0:09:30.000 --> 0:09:33.160 It was like edgy and scary and was like cut 0:09:33.240 --> 0:09:34.200 through you know, gotcha? 0:09:34.800 --> 0:09:39.280 What was your first musical memory in life? Your very 0:09:39.280 --> 0:09:40.320 first musical memory. 0:09:40.600 --> 0:09:40.920 Easy. 0:09:41.400 --> 0:09:45.040 My father went to the Vietnam War and when he 0:09:45.080 --> 0:09:48.240 came back, he brought with him what was called a 0:09:48.280 --> 0:09:52.080 real to real Akai, very very high tech, and we 0:09:52.120 --> 0:09:53.520 were in Sydney for a while. Then we moved to 0:09:53.559 --> 0:09:56.840 a tiny country town. And in this tiny country town 0:09:57.760 --> 0:10:00.920 we had the gas station and a restaurant, a pig farm. 0:10:01.080 --> 0:10:02.280 It's only about five houses. 0:10:02.800 --> 0:10:07.200 But Dad had a Kai and it came with the 0:10:07.240 --> 0:10:14.280 demonstration tape. And the demonstration tape had Tijuana brass, classical music, Mozart, 0:10:14.960 --> 0:10:19.320 the Beatles, and the sound of the Japanese. 0:10:18.880 --> 0:10:21.480 Bulletrain going right. 0:10:22.080 --> 0:10:24.560 Yeah, I know, it's random. Yeah, what I want to 0:10:24.559 --> 0:10:27.760 show stereo. Okay, Oh, there was a voice that said 0:10:27.760 --> 0:10:28.199 something like. 0:10:28.559 --> 0:10:31.679 A Japanese bullet train now as it rips. 0:10:31.360 --> 0:10:34.560 By, and it could record. But the thing is, I 0:10:34.600 --> 0:10:37.240 think that we used to play the tape endlessly. And 0:10:37.240 --> 0:10:38.880 then there were records, and then I ran my own 0:10:38.960 --> 0:10:42.160 radio station, not as cool as yours. I only had 0:10:42.200 --> 0:10:46.120 one record called One is the Loneliest Number, which I 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:49.640 don't find it. But I think the variety of that 0:10:49.720 --> 0:10:53.280 music left me with a sort of lack of prejudice 0:10:53.320 --> 0:10:54.840 about kinds of music. 0:10:55.520 --> 0:10:59.079 There was just music, good and average. 0:10:59.280 --> 0:11:01.400 Which city is the that you were born in or 0:11:01.440 --> 0:11:01.880 grew up in? 0:11:01.960 --> 0:11:05.360 But I was born in Sydney on the sand outside 0:11:05.360 --> 0:11:08.000 where my parents were building a house with their bare hands. 0:11:08.440 --> 0:11:10.520 But then very early on, we moved to this tiny 0:11:10.559 --> 0:11:15.160 country town in the bush in Australia, kinda not in 0:11:15.280 --> 0:11:20.480 desert in huge trees, like it was a forestry area 0:11:20.520 --> 0:11:21.559 on a highway. 0:11:22.160 --> 0:11:22.480 All right. 0:11:22.559 --> 0:11:25.720 So many elements of your life I think can be 0:11:25.760 --> 0:11:29.200 traced to your formative years. Everything as the irony hit 0:11:29.280 --> 0:11:31.040 you or whatever, like your dad runs a movie theater 0:11:31.120 --> 0:11:32.400 and suddenly like this is your life. 0:11:33.000 --> 0:11:35.680 Your mom was a ballroom instructor, so that's you do 0:11:35.720 --> 0:11:39.079 strictly ballroom. I mean, your name is Mark Anthony. 0:11:39.200 --> 0:11:43.560 So there's some sort of Caesarus Shakespearean thing going on. 0:11:44.280 --> 0:11:46.960 First of all, where is the name Baz come from? 0:11:47.040 --> 0:11:47.840 Is that a nickname? 0:11:47.960 --> 0:11:48.240 Or yeah? 0:11:48.280 --> 0:11:51.720 Yeah, yeah, Well Willams is rather than going to the 0:11:51.840 --> 0:11:54.439 epic version epic as you know, it was President Constant 0:11:54.480 --> 0:11:58.000 give a plug, just kidding bigger, but no, the epic 0:11:58.080 --> 0:12:00.800 version of it. But we my brothers and I grew 0:12:00.920 --> 0:12:04.440 up my sister. There was a moment of tumultuous separation 0:12:05.120 --> 0:12:08.040 and my mother leaves us to go to the city, 0:12:09.080 --> 0:12:12.480 and you know, I just knew I would forever be there. 0:12:13.200 --> 0:12:15.160 And that was a very loving man, and he. 0:12:15.800 --> 0:12:18.440 Had all sorts of artists stay with us, and he 0:12:18.480 --> 0:12:21.480 didn't ever ask to be without education. So we learned 0:12:21.480 --> 0:12:24.120 photography and bought him dancing and commander training all at once. 0:12:24.480 --> 0:12:24.680 You know. 0:12:24.720 --> 0:12:26.960 It was crazy, like we all had to have a business. 0:12:27.360 --> 0:12:29.600 We were just active from five am in the morning 0:12:29.880 --> 0:12:32.520 till late at night, plus running the gas station and 0:12:32.559 --> 0:12:34.840 blah blah blah. 0:12:34.080 --> 0:12:38.240 And little kids, little kids. We had so much work 0:12:38.240 --> 0:12:41.760 to do and stuff. But it was I now look 0:12:41.840 --> 0:12:42.280 back and go. 0:12:42.400 --> 0:12:46.640 It was sort of a caravancier of adventure and creativity. 0:12:46.960 --> 0:12:50.959 There was NonStop. However, there's this breakup. I run away 0:12:51.320 --> 0:12:55.120 and I find mom in the city and she puts me. 0:12:55.360 --> 0:12:57.280 I was in quite a progressive school. There was like 0:12:57.440 --> 0:13:00.720 experimental school that we were in. Had a new system 0:13:00.720 --> 0:13:02.360 and you had to think all d day and so 0:13:02.400 --> 0:13:05.800 you could learn different creative things. Anyway, long story short, 0:13:06.080 --> 0:13:08.520 they put me into this kind of boys school. But 0:13:08.920 --> 0:13:12.520 dad had this thing because he was from the Vietnam War. 0:13:12.520 --> 0:13:15.199 He did not like hippies, and so he cut our 0:13:15.280 --> 0:13:17.840 hair really really short, and we had to wear you know, 0:13:18.160 --> 0:13:20.880 white shirts and ties. Can you imagine in the seventies, 0:13:21.320 --> 0:13:23.920 you know, when everybody else was wearing pooka shells and 0:13:24.040 --> 0:13:27.080 like a wine shirts and flip flops and you know, and. 0:13:27.360 --> 0:13:30.040 Doing we you know, like we got beat up a 0:13:30.080 --> 0:13:30.439 lot for that. 0:13:31.040 --> 0:13:32.680 So as soon as I ran away, I grew up 0:13:32.760 --> 0:13:36.080 my hair, which was crazy curly, and I went to 0:13:36.080 --> 0:13:39.839 this boys school and you know, obviously you know, hormonal 0:13:39.880 --> 0:13:43.320 teenage boys banging on their head. And so the US 0:13:43.400 --> 0:13:47.320 got me basil Brush after a kind of English cartoon 0:13:47.440 --> 0:13:49.880 character as a sort of oh yeah, just to put 0:13:49.880 --> 0:13:50.240 me down. 0:13:50.920 --> 0:13:52.959 So this nickname mas or Basil, bas. 0:13:52.840 --> 0:13:53.960 Or Basil and you took it on. 0:13:54.160 --> 0:13:56.400 So I went to hell with that and I went 0:13:56.480 --> 0:14:01.040 into deed poll and at nineteen, you know what, mark 0:14:01.160 --> 0:14:04.120 boring and thought, I'm going to call myself Baz Mark 0:14:04.200 --> 0:14:06.320 two sides to me. One is going to be my 0:14:06.440 --> 0:14:09.400 kind of brand, Baz, and the Mark's going to be 0:14:09.440 --> 0:14:11.320 who I am. And I made up the name Basmark. 0:14:11.880 --> 0:14:14.240 And was that your legal name now or my legal 0:14:14.280 --> 0:14:16.079 name my passport? 0:14:16.640 --> 0:14:17.480 Since I was nineteen? 0:14:17.559 --> 0:14:24.000 Okay, at ten to fifteen, what were your goals in life? 0:14:24.040 --> 0:14:24.160 Like? 0:14:24.200 --> 0:14:26.400 What did you want to be when you grew up? 0:14:27.840 --> 0:14:30.160 Well, again, it's going to sound pretentious. 0:14:29.680 --> 0:14:32.120 But you're an artist. You're allowed to dream. 0:14:32.840 --> 0:14:35.160 That's what I was doing. But I was not only dreaming. 0:14:35.280 --> 0:14:39.120 I was doing so even at ten, I was doing shows. 0:14:39.160 --> 0:14:42.040 I have my own radio show. Dad was really supportive 0:14:42.080 --> 0:14:42.360 of this. 0:14:42.640 --> 0:14:44.400 Wait, how were you when you had a radio show? 0:14:44.480 --> 0:14:47.960 I was about eleven. I got the eleven years old. 0:14:48.120 --> 0:14:48.360 Yeah. 0:14:48.480 --> 0:14:51.040 I found this old record player and Dad ricked up 0:14:51.080 --> 0:14:52.280 speakers in the gas station. 0:14:52.640 --> 0:14:55.560 It was called radio. It was mobile no mobile gas. 0:14:55.760 --> 0:14:59.920 Yeah, I here we are Radio Mlbil and when we come, 0:15:00.240 --> 0:15:03.000 let's play that great hit one is the loneliest number, 0:15:03.040 --> 0:15:06.880 because that's the only rest. And then my rather my 0:15:06.960 --> 0:15:08.920 younger brother would read the sports, you know, and he 0:15:09.040 --> 0:15:11.320 was like, let's say, not the greatest reader in the world. 0:15:11.520 --> 0:15:13.520 Well that's enough with the sports. Let's get back to 0:15:13.760 --> 0:15:16.280 that great hit one is the loneliest number. So it 0:15:16.320 --> 0:15:19.320 was it was role playing, but I did it and 0:15:19.360 --> 0:15:23.080 I made little films because Dad met month through photography. 0:15:23.400 --> 0:15:26.440 He was in the equivalent of the Navy Seals, I guess, 0:15:26.520 --> 0:15:29.480 you know. He was on the Melbourne, which is an 0:15:29.480 --> 0:15:32.640 aircraft carry blowing stuff up basically to do landings, and 0:15:32.920 --> 0:15:37.720 you know, he need really he lived an energy military life. 0:15:38.640 --> 0:15:41.920 But he was very creative and he was obsessed with photography. 0:15:42.360 --> 0:15:45.200 So he made me learn how to use a box brown. 0:15:45.240 --> 0:15:47.920 He wouldn't let me use an SLR like old Kodak 0:15:48.280 --> 0:15:52.240 and process my own film and footage. And I was 0:15:52.280 --> 0:15:53.880 making little movies at the same time. 0:15:54.440 --> 0:15:59.120 Okay, so you come from theater culture, of course, and 0:15:59.360 --> 0:16:02.440 of course you as a director, I'm under the impression 0:16:02.440 --> 0:16:04.400 that the grass is always greener on the other side, 0:16:04.400 --> 0:16:07.000 like when you're on one side. Then you know, like 0:16:07.080 --> 0:16:09.480 I wish I was as much as I complained about 0:16:09.520 --> 0:16:11.960 touring with the Roots back in the night, you know, 0:16:12.080 --> 0:16:14.880 like I would do anything, even the towns I hated 0:16:14.920 --> 0:16:15.280 to go to. 0:16:16.240 --> 0:16:17.680 But of course, when you're doing that. 0:16:17.520 --> 0:16:19.720 You wish, oh man, if I could just live in 0:16:19.760 --> 0:16:21.040 one city and have. 0:16:21.040 --> 0:16:21.760 A regular job. 0:16:21.840 --> 0:16:23.600 You know, the grass is always green. 0:16:23.800 --> 0:16:29.720 So for you, you know, coming from developing theater, where's your 0:16:29.720 --> 0:16:30.480 pleasure center? 0:16:30.520 --> 0:16:33.680 Do you like theater better or is it movies? 0:16:34.160 --> 0:16:38.720 You know, I honestly do not consider myself a film 0:16:38.760 --> 0:16:44.080 director a director of opera. Right now, I've just finished 0:16:44.080 --> 0:16:46.960 with seeing them making a little train carriage for the 0:16:47.080 --> 0:16:50.120 people that have the orone express for dining carriage. 0:16:50.200 --> 0:16:52.840 It's going to open in May. We've built what is this. 0:16:53.000 --> 0:16:54.440 We've got a hotel in Miami. 0:16:54.680 --> 0:16:55.080 Okay. 0:16:55.240 --> 0:16:56.760 I got a little by here in New York. 0:16:56.880 --> 0:16:57.640 Okay. 0:16:59.520 --> 0:17:04.719 You know, I done election campaign edited magazines. I believe 0:17:04.800 --> 0:17:09.119 in creative adventure. I actually don't define myself by that. 0:17:09.640 --> 0:17:11.840 It's got to be a creative adventure. And I would 0:17:11.840 --> 0:17:17.600 say what defines me is that I trade in storytelling 0:17:17.920 --> 0:17:22.320 and ideas and the medium is always I'm open about it, 0:17:22.480 --> 0:17:24.840 you know, like often thinks that for the first time 0:17:24.880 --> 0:17:27.480 when I have my opera company. It was the first 0:17:27.640 --> 0:17:31.480 time I did opera just because I was fascinated and compelled. Yeah, 0:17:31.640 --> 0:17:33.840 I've met a lot of music. I learned to produce 0:17:33.920 --> 0:17:36.560 quite early on. And although I've worked with the greats, 0:17:36.560 --> 0:17:39.640 you know, like Jay and great great artists, I mean, 0:17:40.200 --> 0:17:42.480 you know, the Bono's and the Bowies and you know 0:17:42.560 --> 0:17:43.640 and Elton. 0:17:43.359 --> 0:17:46.480 And I've known that you've produced your soundtracks, which, yeah, 0:17:46.520 --> 0:17:47.639 I definitely want to get into that. 0:17:47.800 --> 0:18:03.200 Yeah, forty years has passed since. 0:18:03.760 --> 0:18:06.680 I don't want to reduce it to saying Leo Mania, 0:18:06.720 --> 0:18:10.800 but I mean the spark of the world's obsession with 0:18:11.040 --> 0:18:14.960 Leonardo DiCaprio. Really, there's always the well I was there 0:18:15.000 --> 0:18:16.800 in the beginning. I was a day one, but I'm 0:18:17.000 --> 0:18:20.400 really like I was alive during Romeo and Juliet time, 0:18:20.520 --> 0:18:22.560 and I'll tell you how much have changed me as 0:18:22.600 --> 0:18:23.040 a DJ. 0:18:24.560 --> 0:18:28.960 I never knew why, Like I was late. 0:18:29.000 --> 0:18:31.520 Maybe I saw Romeo and Juliet maybe like four months 0:18:31.560 --> 0:18:33.960 after it came out. Yeah, And I used to always 0:18:34.000 --> 0:18:37.119 play Young Hearts when free, and suddenly I was like, wow, 0:18:37.359 --> 0:18:40.080 like young kids are really into Kandy State, and like 0:18:40.640 --> 0:18:44.160 I must be doing something good. Having no clue how 0:18:44.200 --> 0:18:47.800 you incorporated music into it. So, like, what are your 0:18:47.920 --> 0:18:54.960 memories of like just that period of Romeo and Juliet. 0:18:55.160 --> 0:18:59.199 How did you convince your producers in the movie company 0:18:59.280 --> 0:19:00.960 that this idea is going to work? 0:19:01.440 --> 0:19:03.919 First of all, did you know it was going to work? Yes, 0:19:04.440 --> 0:19:04.960 you knew it. 0:19:05.119 --> 0:19:08.640 Yes, okay, So from super to nuts, Like, how give 0:19:08.680 --> 0:19:10.000 me your reflections of it? 0:19:10.080 --> 0:19:12.560 Well, you know, we used to always make in the 0:19:12.640 --> 0:19:15.399 days of Blu Ray, we always made the extras. You know, 0:19:15.640 --> 0:19:17.960 I've been involved in everything, and I think I tell 0:19:18.000 --> 0:19:20.640 the story. It's there was a big kind of thing 0:19:20.680 --> 0:19:23.960 in Sun Valley where industrialists would come and so I 0:19:23.960 --> 0:19:26.080 did a lecture on creativity and blah blah blah, and 0:19:26.080 --> 0:19:29.000 I tell the story of pitching Romeo and Juliet. 0:19:29.040 --> 0:19:30.159 And I'm a terrible picture. 0:19:30.840 --> 0:19:34.679 And look, I gotta be careful because the exec I 0:19:34.680 --> 0:19:36.719 had at the time as a dear friend, and you know, 0:19:36.960 --> 0:19:38.720 he wasn't expecting me to come and see it's a 0:19:38.760 --> 0:19:40.200 modern day Romeo and Juliet. 0:19:40.440 --> 0:19:43.439 He says, just it's a long story, but I do 0:19:43.520 --> 0:19:44.080 it terribly. 0:19:44.240 --> 0:19:45.680 Who was the exact pitter? 0:19:45.800 --> 0:19:46.040 Rice? 0:19:46.880 --> 0:19:47.920 Oh, yes, of course. 0:19:47.960 --> 0:19:52.240 And Rice is like, you know, I love Peter, but 0:19:52.280 --> 0:19:54.200 he was young too, and he was like, oh my god, 0:19:54.640 --> 0:19:56.760 he hates me telling this story, but I got to 0:19:56.760 --> 0:19:58.840 tell you. He also without him, there would be no 0:19:58.920 --> 0:20:02.960 Romeo and Juliet because there's a chapter two. First chapter 0:20:03.080 --> 0:20:05.480 is I'll do it without going into all the detail. 0:20:05.560 --> 0:20:07.960 But he says, that's great, but just don't mention its Shakespeare, 0:20:08.000 --> 0:20:09.639 you know. So I go in and I do my 0:20:09.760 --> 0:20:12.280 you know, is where like in Imasion and as Gangs 0:20:12.280 --> 0:20:15.680 and Wound, the lights go on and goes horribly wrong. However, 0:20:16.840 --> 0:20:20.119 I did what I always do, and it relates a 0:20:20.160 --> 0:20:23.720 little bit to Epic because I think what Jonathan and 0:20:23.760 --> 0:20:26.600 I John I Redman, my editor and co producing cro 0:20:26.760 --> 0:20:29.680 creator on Epic. I always begin by making a kind 0:20:29.680 --> 0:20:34.760 of tone poem of music, visuals and dialogue that can 0:20:34.800 --> 0:20:36.639