Baz Luhrmann conducts staff meetings while pantsless and in bed. His written-down to-do lists include the questions “Where is this in my heart?†and “What is the plot of Tosca? Remind myself.†His closets in his different homes are identical, as is the way he lays out his toiletries in any bathroom. This is all according to a new profile in The New York Times Magazine that paints Luhrmann as the wild eccentric you imagine he is. And given that he’s currently between projects, his next step is very up in the air. Here are all the possible upcoming endeavors mentioned in the article:
Rom-com
“I’d love to have done James Bond,†he said. “I’d love to just go and do a rom-com or a jeans-and-T-shirt film, because that would be fun.†But he can’t. “It is both maddening and also has a degree of exultation about it, but I’m addicted to doing not that which I really want to do, but that which I feel mustbe done.â€
A 1977-Set Miniseries
One cable project he is developing is “Before Crack,†a dramatic series set in New York in 1977, when disco was king, punk rock was an insurgent movement, block parties were giving rise to hip-hop and tagging was a way to say, “I am somebody.â€
That Napoleon Miniseries
Whether that project will be his first extended foray onto the small screen depends, in part, on the pace with which HBO develops its mini-series on Napoleon Bonaparte. He and Spielberg are working on the project together. “A lot of people will go: ‘Napoleon? Isn’t that the fat guy in tights?’ But I love the Napoleonic story,†Luhrmann said, ticking off the high points: childhood in Corsica, seduction of France, elevation to emperor, exile to Elba. “His life is in three massive acts. He’s the pathos poster boy.â€
Something in Russia
He has long talked of making a film version of Mikhail Bulgakov’s 1966 novel “The Master and Margarita†— a satire about Satan, in human form, roaming the streets and infiltrating the atheistic bureaucracies of 1930s Moscow. (His working title: “Sympathy for the Devil.â€)
Or Maybe China
He is intrigued, too, by the idea of making a film in China. He’s considering either a kung-fu movie, a life of Buddha, a musical or a film that combines all three.
The world is your oyster, Baz Luhrmann!