Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Film director known for visually extravagant, genre-reviving films such as 'Strictly Ballroom', 'Moulin Rouge!', and 'Elvis'.
On the island
Eight records
I heard the opening bars of this track and this voice, and it scared me. And yet, I was compelled towards it.
I rigged up the speakers and I had my own radio station... the only problem was I only had one record, it was a 45.
Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass
When we moved to the country, the Yakai came with us and we ran it in our little restaurant... Tijuana Bras played a lot.
I use it dramatically because when he says, I'm caught in a trap, I can't get out, we see with Colonel Tom Parker signing him into a lifelong contract.
Che gelida maninaFavourite
I had this experimental theater company and experimental opera company... I remember the first Iraq war had broken out... it was such a controversy.
I was listening to Bjork's Venus as a Boy and this other band called Massive Attack. And I keep playing this unfinished sympathy track. I think, who made this music?
Christina Aguilera, Pink, Mýa, Lil' Kim
We thought, what if we put them together? And Marmalade was a song that I just thought was perfect.
Jay-Z, Kanye West, The-Dream, featuring Frank Ocean
Jay and I are sitting there and he goes, I've got this beat. And that was Church in the Wild.
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:20Why is romance such a creative driver for you?
I have to admit that I am a romantic, and romanticism just means that you kind of want or see things better than they actually can or are. It's a heightened sense of the world and of life and of love.
Presenter asks
2:50Does the scale of your filmmaking ever daunt you?
No, I'm not daunted by it. I always think, like when I did Raymond Juliet, I was thinking like, oh, I really believe the musical can work again, but I'll do that really easy one. What would Shakespeare do if he was directing a movie, Raymond and Juliet? That should be quite small and easy to do. Cut to me in Mexico with a young actor no one had heard of, you know, helicopters and people shooting, and you know, and I recognize at some point there's some scale, but I'm so in the middle of it, I never think like that.
Presenter asks
7:46Your father was a military man who instilled discipline. Can you describe that?
He had huge discipline and also a ridiculously soft heart. It was a funny combo. The drive was nuts. Like 5 a.m. in the morning, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. We had to wash our own clothes and work. Just work before school. Like, empty the garbage and clean the thing, la da da, da, blah, blah, blah. But there was also, like, when I found the ballroom dancing flyer on the on the bottom of the bus, two hours every night, every second night he'd drive us to the bottom. So he was supporting.
The keepsakes
The book
Leo Tolstoy
I think I want to read something that I've always wanted to read but was too frightened to read because it'd be too big. Although War and Peace is a cracker of a story. I'll take War and Peace.
The luxury
a very soft and perfectly balanced silk eye mask
It would be a very soft and perfectly balanced silk eye mask. I guess I can stick coconut fronds in my ears for the sound, but the eyes a light affects me. I cannot have a crack of light or I can't sleep.
Presenter asks
11:07How did you cope when your parents divorced when you were twelve?
Truly traumatic. Our world was ripped in two. Because your reality is defined by your parents, the solidness of that. And it was very acrimonious. Because dad then had a relationship with this other woman. Like he found another partner after the breakup. She had two daughters. So this disrupted our world even more because even though dad was tough, it was a moral universe that was absolutely clear. You understood it. Now he was in love and sort of, you know, there's nothing weirder than when you're a kid and your dad's going, look, I bought her some earrings. Would you tell her they're great? You'll be like, oh, God.
Presenter asks
23:30How does your creative partnership with Catherine Martin work with you both having separate spaces?
Yeah, I mean I step away when you need to get together. Look, look, look, everyone's going like, but are they really together? I mean, I'm an insomniac and we live such a big life and we have these two kids. And the Rolling Stones have Rolling Stones time, you know, and then there's everybody else where we have Baz and Sam time. Like every Saturday night we go to a hotel. Our house is not like a normal house. Like it's full of creatives and kids and creativity. And I work in my bedroom. I mean, my bedroom is a large creative space. And I like to grow old disgracefully. So I don't mind admitting, I still like to get out there and club. And, you know, people go like, really? But I can't help it. And so I'm a late-night guy in an insomniac. And she's a very early morning person. And we still are having that conversation. And there is still a great love and romance between us. I mean, love transforms as you grow. Teenage love is champagne love and so on and so forth. But the depth of our relationship and our understanding, I just saw her and very quickly went like, whatever our construct is, I don't ever think I want a day when you're not around. That's how important she is in my life.
Presenter asks
27:58You divide critics; one said your films 'don't talk, they shout.' Does that hurt?
It does hurt, but not me, or it's frustrating, but it's not me, but all the people I've led down the road, particularly like a new actor or even the financiers, they believed in you and they've gone out on a limb. So I have to go out and do hand-to-hand combat to make sure that the film is not beaten to death like a baby seal because some guy who hasn't done his homework or who just isn't his taste, you know, like it shouldn't be about taste. I think there are great critics actually, and they just do their job. And if they do it really well, and there aren't a lot of them who really do it well, but if they do, they really do their homework and they might go, not my taste, but I can see what is going on here. As far as how that goes, I just leave that for history. You know, it's up to history to decide whether the underlying notions or the underlying big ideas have relevance or presence or resonance.
“I have to admit that I am a romantic, and romanticism just means that you kind of want or see things better than they actually can or are. It's a heightened sense of the world and of life and of love.”
“I get the heebie jeebies and I get my fear but I see my job as packing my fear away.”
“Truly traumatic. Our world was ripped in two.”
“I don't ever remember having a cap on my belief that I would be where sort of where I am today, like maybe better.”
“I think artists, well, I don't know if I'm an artist, but I think people who have big holes in their hearts and are trying to fill it with imagination, creativity, or whatever that is, or song, whatever it is, the self-medication is the creative process.”
“I would go with the Puccini just because it would suit moonlight and lapping waves. Someone might hear me from far away and come and rescue me.”