Tom Hanks plays his cunning manager, Colonel Tom Parker, with a strong Australian cast that includes Olivia DeJonge as Priscilla Presley, Richard Roxburgh and Helen Thomson as Elvis’ parents, and David Wenham and Kodi Smit-McPhee as singers. country Hank Snow and Jimmie. Rodgers Snow.
Although it was well received on Sunday at the Sydney State Theater premiere, there were fears that the film would never be made when Hanks tested positive for COVID-19 just three days before filming began. March 2020. But he returned to the Gold Coast later that year, spending two weeks in a hotel quarantine, to resume filming.
“I’m very interested in recording things that were great but that somehow got rusty”: Baz Luhrmann. Credit: Steven Siewert
Since delivering Elvis to the Hollywood Warner Bros. studio, Luhrmann has been zigzagging around the world promoting his release, scheduled for later this month.
Its programming has included the Coachella Music Festival in California, the Met Gala in New York and Cannes, followed by screenings in London, Gold Coast and Sydney. This week begins a circuit of screenings in 10 American and Canadian cities.
Luhrmann’s hoarse voice shows how he’s been working to sell Elvis.
“You have to give it your all,” he says. “I’ve made a theatrical film and all I care about is that strangers of all kinds end up in a dark room sharing a great story.”
Luhrmann mentioned a possible big story for the future in a talk on Vivid Ideas on Sunday, a film about the famous New York nightclub Studio 54, but has yet to decide what will come after a while.
Once Elvis opens, he plans to go back to what he did for all the movies except Gatsby: go on an anonymous solo break in an unlikely place in the world.
“I never woke up one morning saying,‘ Oh, I’ll do this, ’” he says. “They all infiltrate for years. It’s just a matter of what it’s useful for.”
His break – he hopes it will be more successful than when he went to Kuwait to unwind after a movie – will have a particular resonance as he is about to turn 60.
Producer Schuyler Weiss, Baz Luhrmann, Olivia DeJonge, Austin Butler and Tom Hanks at Elvis’ Sydney premiere at the State Theater on Sunday night. Credit: Brendon Thorne / Getty
“I’m going to spend a while saying,‘ I’m 60, what does that mean? ’” He says. “It simply came to our notice then.
“So I need to have time to work:‘ What do you do [my] need of life? ‘ and ‘Can I put something out there that is useful?’ ”
Luhrmann, who has lived with his wife, production and costume designer Catherine Martin, and his two teenage children on the Costa Dorada, also believes it is time for the new federal government to continue to become a republic.
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Although he is happy that the queen has had her platinum jubilee – “she is an exceptional person, there is no doubt” – she wants a new head of state for the generation of her children.
“I really think it’s important to be a republic,” he says. “Young people want to make a difference, but they need a system of self-government that is commensurate with the maturity of the country.”
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Email the writer at gmaddox@smh.com.au and follow him on Twitter at @gmaddox.