transcript

[00:00] Maybe the most beautiful man ever photographed. Well, you're pretty good-looking yourself, right? Well, thank you, thank you very much. Hey everybody, welcome to Literally! The auteur, the great, the inspiring, Baz Luhrmann is here today. You know, one of my favorite filmmakers, but he has, no, not but, and, and he has his new, documentary feels reductive. It's so much more than that. It's one of my favorite movies of the year. I just saw it two nights ago. EPiC, Elvis Presley in Concert. It's all archival footage that he found when he was making the Austin Butler dramatization of Elvis's life. It's absolutely insane. Insane. So all the way from Australia over multiple time zones, I bring to you Baz Luhrmann. I feel like I'm busy all the time, even when I'm in between things. You the same? Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think you just naturally, I mean, it's kind of inherent in you or not, you know? I mean, it probably has something to do with the way you brought up as well and what your life journey has been. But if I'm not moving forward, I probably go the other way, you know? Probably on the few occasions in my life that I haven't found myself moving forward, I kind of get sucked down into a vortex, you know? So, and I don't try and make myself move forward. Even when I think I'm standing still, I'm moving forward. And you have so many disciplines you work in, you know? You do the theater, you get documentaries, you've got... First of all, we got so much to talk about, but I just watched Elvis Presley in Concert. Dude, it's transcendent. First of all, I'm not an honest broker, because I love Elvis. And my father was at those 68 shows in Vegas. Amazing. And he tells the story of, he was in Vegas for a convention. They said, you have tickets to see Elvis tonight, and his reaction was, oh, I was into that in high school. That feels really cheesy to me. And he went sort of against his own will, and went back every single night. And probably for a different child, you know, Rob, amazing observation. Look, by the way, I mean, I had my own fandom when I was a kid. Then I grew out of it. I went into Bowie and all the different musical influences, and opera, all sorts of things, you know? And when I came back to Elvis, I was really, you know, there were so many musical icons. I wanted to, in the same way that I loved Amadeus, look at some great musical icon and reflect upon them and use them as sort of a canvas to tell a universal idea. But I could never get over the fact that if you looked at that, you just can't go beyond Elvis, because he, as a life, just it's kind of the reflection of America in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. I mean, he's beyond being a musical icon. He is kind of the American canvas. Probably, I hope it's not a demeaning thing to say, but I just think the rebel 50s, right? The family entertainers 60s after coming back from the war, which is something BTS knows something about right now. They're probably the only, there's a reflection in that. What happens to all the kids in K-pop coming out of war. I'm sorry, the army. Then the 70s, this kind of supernova moment that your dad went and saw. Then he's caught in an invisible way, kind of like a bird hitting its head against a glass window, not knowing why he can't spread his wings and go on that world tour. One of the great joys of EPiC has been that we've been able to give Elvis the world tour that he never really had but he always dreamed of. That was one of the, so thrilling. It was crazy. I mean, I say I haven't done Japan or Korea, but only like within two weeks, I've been in, sometimes I was in two cities a day, and I literally, literally kind of, I mean, it was Elvis up there and people were feeling like they were in the room with him. But I was the curator of that tour and I was on the tour with him. It was just such a thrilling things to see the power of that unpredictable performer. That's what your dad would have seen. Your dad would have seen not the same show every night. The uniqueness of it would have been, as Elvis says in the actual, in EPiC, I learn X songs. They never knew what he was going to do. He said, I don't want, every night is a new night and I don't want the band or anyone on stage to get used to it. So he'll just suddenly say, look, let's do Bridge. That's what kept it alive, spontaneity. And that's the unique quality that your dad would have seen on that stage. Just unbelievable spontaneity. And he also Elvis's interaction with the audience is so bananas. Like he's so loosey goosey. Yeah. Well, that's it, isn't it? Underpredictable. I mean, you know, there's a lot of talk about AI at the moment, and I know a lot about AI and I know a lot about it for a long time. And although I know we need governance, that's for sure. What I don't fear about AI is that it'll make a lot of really great, it'll make a lot of really average things. It can do that. That's right. But what it can't do is be flawed. And what greatness is, is just this, it's the human chaos, it's the flawedness, it's the fact that you never knew that Elvis wasn't not only not perfect on stage, you just never knew what he was going to do, but God was he alive and gosh, was he human. It's that humanity on stage that you can't stop looking at. And to your point and probably to your dad's point or experience, I mean, different for you. But I challenge or my greatest joy is people who just go like, look, whether it's Questlove or, I mean, just less well-known people going, look, I was dragged along to this. And then I was, I mean, Converted is probably too strong a word, so I don't want to get religious on you there. But really actually, they come out going like, who is this guy? I thought he was wallpaper. I thought he was a Halloween costume. Yes, a caricature, a flying Elvis from the movies, a Vegas impersonator, you know, all of that stuff. And he's like, in a way, Michael Jackson, who I knew a little bit. Yeah, I knew Michael a little bit too, actually. And saw him at his height, where they're like gods on earth. Yeah, they are. It's a great comparison. I mean, I worked a little bit with Michael, when we were trying to make something. And I worked twice with Prince. And there's not a long list. Like, when you're talking that rarefied air. Yes. Right? And I've seen Prince and Michael perform many times. Right? Or Michael only twice. But when you're talking about that rarefied air, what they do on stage, and this is where it gets difficult for them. Right? What I mean is, we can't understand what it's like. When you are that great on stage and you are that exalted and you get that much love across the stage lights. When you come off the stage, there's just nothing that can quite fill that void in the same way. Elvis says five hours in your movie. In EPiC, he says it takes him five hours. That's right. By the way, he sings gospel all night with the gospel singers, with the Swedes, with the gospel singers, with the guys, right? I mean, where's everybody out? They all go to sleep, I'm sure. They're like, please, not one more gospel song. He's still singing Nearer Thou God to Thee. And I think without getting too heavily into this, that's where numbing themselves, I mean, they're all in different ways, we're anti-drugs, but we're very, very versed in prescription drugs. Isn't that something? And unfortunately, it becomes about numbing yourself. And then the other thing with all of them is that when you're almost God-like on stage is an issue of trust. Who can you really trust around you? You know, because, you know, the funny thing is, I think you see it in EPiC, is on stage, Elvis is so human. You feel like you're in Islandra. I mean, the kind of just like, hey, guys, come hang out. You know? Gee, what's that thing up there? Anyway, where are we going to do? You know? And I say Michael in a very different way. Michael, a very different performer, you know? Michael just literally creating something so. Beyond reality. Like he was always arriving out of a spaceship or, you know, he seemed, you know, and then he'd fly away, you know? You know what I mean? But Elvis just sort of walked on. Like he never, you know, Elvis never exploded out of an egg or something, you know? Or vaporized, you know? He wasn't, because he was really about, his magic was his humanity, you know? He'd just walk on and do that's all right, mama. And you, you know, in three numbers in. And the nervousness, I think what Peter Jackson, wonderful, so lovely to work with Park Road Post. I mean, the reason it looks like it does, I literally found these 59 hours of footage, literally in salt mines in Kansas. I did not, by the way, knock the door in. Someone found them and said, look, it's actually there. We thought they're rumored. And, but there was no sound. So I did a test. It was anamorphic 35 mil, some 16 mil and some 8 mil. We just went, you can't not do it. You can't not devote the two years it took to find the sound and negotiate from people who had, you know, runoff prints and all of that to actually match it. And the actual finaling of it didn't take that long, but it took that long just to... And then when you started to see it emerge with sound, like stuff that is on the internet that's pirated, say Elvis in the back of a car. Yeah. But this was Elvis in the back of the car. You could hear what he was actually saying. Yes. You know? How did you find, walk me through, because I'm not, is it like they did with the famous Beatles documentary of a few years? Yeah. Where are you finding the sound? I understand that you found the archival footage. Yeah. Well, this was different with the Beatles. Like, Peter worked on the Beatles, which is, I just think, the high water mark of if you want to see how a creative group of people, it doesn't matter about music. That's what I said. That is the high water mark of how you would know, Rob, that's like rehearsing a movie or writing a movie, and rehearsing or writing a theatre piece. You get, well, something like blah, blah, blah, blah. It's a long end winding, scramble eggs, scramble eggs. What do you got for me? Yeah. It's inspiration captured. If you want to know what channeling is, inspiration, flow state, that movie shows it. Also, in its drudgery, what I love about that movie is that they're just sitting around for ever. No one, Rob, no one understands. We can't complain, right? We're very privileged to be able to dream things up, make them, and if you make them and they have an audience and people care about it, good, nice things come with it, right? So nothing to complain about. But what no one ever sees and no one wants to see is that when Mick and Keith and the Stones are sitting around, there's great doco on them doing sympathy for the devil. And honestly, it's, and I think it may be made by Joan Locard, Joan Locard, but with some kind of interesting influence. But really they're sitting there for two weeks and they're doing it in 4-4. Do you know? And then one day Charlie Ross goes, what if we sort of did a bit of a sammaby? But please let me introduce myself. And, and you know, they just happened, they did, it's the four weeks sitting around going like, it's not really working, is it? You know, like no one sees what you call the drudgery, but no one sees actually the labor. I mean, it's just breaking rocks until one day that you crack through, you know. It's breaking rocks, yes. A bit with the, we didn't try and do the Beatles one. I really thought working with Jono, it was when we found this one audio tape, this was in the minds. And then I'll come back to your earlier question about the sound, because that was kind of a journey in itself. But when we, when we found this one tape, which was 45 minutes of no picture, but just Elvis speaking about his life in a way which he'd never before, he sort of unguarded way, we went, oh, that's it. Every piece about Elvis tends to be talking heads because he wasn't very, partly the Colonel and partly Elvis himself. He just wasn't very much about like, let me have a chat with, talking, if you really want to know what Elvis actually was communicating, listen to what he sings. Yes. You know, what he says is one thing, what he sings is another. And this was him really unguarded and there was a reason for it, is there's a little bit in the film of Elvis really tired at night, they finished rehearsing and he's talking about, well, it's in the early, early on, he says, well, I just love music, I love the Spanish flavor and the, and he's exhausted. He says, guys, actually, he's on tour. I'll come back, I'll do this in the morning, this talk. And being the most spontaneous person on the planet, he comes back and he goes, you know what? I'm too tired. I don't look great. I've been up all night. I'll just talk and you can use the voice, right? And because he wasn't on picture, I think he was just, his flow is really, really clear. So in that moment, we went, let's, like we've got all this footage. We have Elvis on tour. We have all of Hampton Road. We have all of the Vegas. You know, we can't make a 45-hour doco or concert film. Let's not do that. Let's take an attitude. What if Elvis came to you in a kind of dreamscape? And told you his story and sang his story in a sort of tone poem? Like I like it to be a sort of poetic, you know, that's why I say more than a concert film, more than a doco. It's kind of a, and I'm really touched, Robert. I don't mean it, I don't mean it in any faux way that you use the word transcendent because I think that the greats, their function in life is to transcend us. Yes. Is to lift us up above this heavy, dark world and for a few hours we're lifted up. And then when we hear their music, which got the vinyl coming out, just saying, but in April, because of my vinyl nut. Same. Crazy vinyl nut. But to lift them up, which is why again, by the way, and one of my great joys in life is that I have worked with the greats, but also music is huge in my life. I produced a lot and I've worked with the great producers, collaborated with just about everyone really. But I love being in the studio, like I really do love because music is different in other than film and the film is just such commitment of years. Whereas, I mean, you work with great music artists like, I remember Björk said to me once, Nelly was doing all the Björk stuff, but she said, she won an award for being a lead in a musical at Cannes. I'm not sure I asked this question, but I might have or a friend of mine said, look, you can't wait to act again. Said, no, you guys are going to turn up at like 5 AM in the morning and be creative, right? I like free flow. You know. Before we move on, I have to tell you, and I mean this, the movie is transcendent, but you did things in the movie, directorial things that are fucking amazing. And the two or three things that stand out for me is when you did that sort of storytelling runner, where you would take what Elvis is saying and sort of put it through a reverb loop, like, I like to go to Europe, I like to go to Europe, I like to go to Europe. And so you're saying, listen to this, pay attention to this. Yes. You're underlining this in Elvis's own words. And you're right, what I realize is you did design it as a dream. It feels like- Yeah. Yeah, Rob, actually- It's a great technique. I'll tell you a breakthrough moment of that is, see, you take a song like Poke Saladani. Oh, my favorite. But the thing with Poke Saladani is, and I think that's one of the great, I mean, if you want to know how great a cutter, an editor, cutters to lower word, John O is. I mean, what it took technically to get, to be going from Elvis rehearsing it, performing it with several performances, and it all sonically linking. But there's a moment when he's telling the story. Now, I never really, I just went like, well, it's down in Louisiana, where the, you know, and I just thought, what a groovy song, but who's this Poke Salad woman, and what is this Poke Salad? But you eventually understand, I mean, there's a bit of a kind of underlying, you might get high on it. But the real thing is, it's about poverty. Yes. Right? It's about poverty. Because she's so poor, she's basically eating weeds, you know. They're weeds. They're weeds. They're actual weeds. Weeds, right? That's how poor. Now, when I was studying, researching Elvis, I was very honored to have an office in Graceland for like 18 months. I found this fellow, and it's in the beginning of the movie, that bit in the movie where you see Elvis in one of the few white houses in the black community in Green Street. I found Sam Bell, who now passed, very sadly. Yeah, in the Austin Butler Elvis movie, that great sequence. Yeah, that's right. Exactly. And that bit where he and the kids are running around, they go to the gospel tent, they go to the juke joint. All of that, I just put it in verbatim. That's exactly the way he told me that story. But what he did say to me in the videos that I've got of him is, they were from East Tupelo. I mean, they were poor. He said, I don't want to put them down. But EP, they used to call him EP. EP was like, I mean, and this is his 10-year-old kid. He said, they were, I mean, and you could tell that he was talking about just how poor they were, you know. And I think that back to your point, and there's a little bit in the middle where Elvis goes, well, they did all right. Really trying to connect with the idea of Elvis going, we were poor, but we did all right too. We, you know, I had my mother's love. Okay, so I'm an Elvis fan. I've heard that song a thousand times. I've heard 17 different versions of it. I know it backwards and forwards. In your movie, we did all right, is piercing and I couldn't figure out why. I've heard him say it a thousand times. But so whatever you were imbuing it with, completely comes out. I wanted to make sure that, I mean, Elvis would choose a song musically, but because he's such an incredibly instinctive human being, just so nothing, almost nothing bad instinct, as he says. Well, I just feel it. They're very early on. And look, some great iconic living legends who I know, who do are unbelievable on stage, would say to me, you know, but they rehearse. Like they rehearse what they're going to do on stage physically. I mean, dance-wise, you know, their steps, you know. But right up early in the piece, there's a moment, they say, well, what are you going to do on stage? Well, I'll just do what I feel I always have. And he does. And that bit of 8 mil that we found from Hawaii, I was going to Austin the other day and saying, well, I wish we'd had that bit. Because you heard about people talking like he had an electric eel in his pants. But he actually does seem to have an electric eel in his pants. Like, you know, the way he moves, that's a move we've never seen because he's just actually feeling it. And I think Robert comes from having grown up in the church, where you become kind of possessed by spirit, by the spirit of the experience, and then you let your body react. And I, and I feel like, I mean, he was quite defensive when he was young about that, because what, what a lot of early critics who were all after him, you know, journalists, I mean, he'd say anything they were trying to paint him as the devil. But they were trying to say that, I think some guy interviewing him in the 50s said something like, oh, you're from the Holy Rollers. And he got really upset about it. Because Holy Rolling kind of means, you know, handling snakes and that kind of Pentecostal religion. But I think that undeniably, because as a kid, he was sneaking, he was obsessed with gospel. He would go to the white gospel, but he was sneaking into the back of the Black Gospel Church singing Mahalia Jackson. And so the mixture, I mean, we're all a mixture. But his mixture, imagine you're in the crossroads, you're in Memphis of all music, really, country, blues, gospel, and then this emergence of rock and roll. Even when I was in Memphis for all those years, we'd go out to this place I think called the, it was called like the salon or the hair laundry or something like that. Because it used to be a hair salon and next door, there was a little venue and you never knew who was going to turn up. There'd be a sort of an electro Japanese-influenced pop disco band doing anything, like just the crossroads of music. So he's there and just absorbing everything. But also, and this is the difference, as he starts to express himself visually and musically and physically, he's very much teased, attacked, and judged as a kid. We all know it, right? You're a teenager, something growing up. Yes. Somewhere in there, a lot of choices for most teenagers would be, I'm going to retreat from that. That's not cool. I want to belong. I need to blend in. He went the other way. When he had the long hair and the truck side burns and started wearing makeup and dressing what would have been called in black fashion, he went the other way. He leant into it. He didn't lean away from it and that's just maybe it's defiance, maybe it's being lonely and the loneliness is there, I think, Rob. You see, he talks about being lonely, love and loneliness, which back to the other two icons who kind of lived at a point on stage, it was so transcendent, is on stage, they're incredibly not lonely. Off stage, it's very hard not to be lonely. He is also maybe the most beautiful man ever photographed, I think. Don't you think? Well, you're pretty good looking yourself, right? Well, thank you. Thank you very much. I mean, you would know something about that. I mean, just in a more mechanical way, in that really being born with beauty or really good looking, like that can destroy you or that can be something that you can actually come to terms with. And I think he really does come to terms with it. But I think he did it. You're absolutely right. Like, it seems like that face is the face of David carved out of stone. It's insane. And you know what? I always remember there's a little piece with Whitney Houston. Sissy Houston, Whitney's mom, was in The Sweet Inspirations in the show your dad would have seen, because your dad would have seen the 69 show. That's right. So the 69, if you went two or three times, that was the actual opening of Gambit. That was the X55 shows. Yeah, it was the opening of the hotel. Streisand had opened it, and he came in as the next act. Yeah, and he would have done like six, seven weeks. And so your dad said, let's say his dad said it three times. So Sissy Houston would have been on stage. Now, Whitney was about 10 one day, and she goes to see mom, and she says, and Elvis walks in, and she says, well, you don't go like, nice to meet you, Mr. Elvis. She said, when Elvis walked in, you just stare. You couldn't move. You just stared at the face. Now, I think a lot of his self-deprecating humor and all of that, you know that what you see in the rehearsals, him just gagging all the time. Yeah. Is about being silly and about disarming people because at a certain point, not only was he beautiful looking, but he would have got the combination of the music and his beauty, and the fact that he then was performing and he moved, he would have got used to very early on. Just people, and I'm not just talking fans, like when you're with really iconic people and you're in the room with them, I mean politicians and giant intellects who you really admire suddenly go into freeze. With Elvis, he was six foot tall. So you can imagine. So I think his whole MO was to disarm everyone, and to disarm the most, the least powerful person in the room. You see that stuff backstage when Sammy Davis Jr. comes back. Yes. You can see he's talking to Sammy, but you can see his eyes looking around just to make sure everyone's feeling comfortable and he's talking to everyone. By the way, that sound has never been heard, what he actually says. It's unbelievable. I couldn't believe it. It was unbelievable. Of course there is. The girl says, so was that karate? You're doing karate? He said, and he goes, yeah, karate, karate. Yeah, karate. Yeah. Then the other guy's going, you stole all my moves. Obviously, I know all the lines because when you've been mixing something for three months, it sticks in your head. It's, there was also something about him backstage. We've all been backstage with icons or luck. Like you say, we're blessed enough to have seen everybody and done everybody, right? So, and it's always interesting how people are backstage, still high from the performance. And I've seen people who are gracious. I've seen people who aren't so gracious. I've sort of seen it all. And I was really struck with Elvis, because I've never heard that. I'd never heard, like you said, we've never had that audio. He seems so down to earth. Well, yeah, and Rob, you know, too, like, you're right. I mean, never been anything like what. I mean, I have had the great thrill of being dragged, like, on stage. Bonner was very tricky with me one day, and he sort of has a trick. I'm not really tricked, but sort of dragging you. There was a sort of curtain that opens, you know. It was in Jersey, I think. You know, it was one of the tours. And the curtain opens, and just for a few seconds, you're sort of on stage, and then they push into the gutter. You know, this is sort of the gutter. But for a few seconds, I was like, because you can't be actually seen, but you know, curtain goes up, and so you're in a stadium moment. You're like, shh, shh, shh, you know. And the great performers, it's not that they get used to it, but they know the mechanics of it. Imagine you're doing that, and you're exciting, you know, 40,000 people all night long, then you come off. And I can understand that you're going like, even as great as you are, my observation is the true greats come off, and they're still a bit like, how was I? You know, they never come off and go, I was great, wasn't I? Wasn't I amazing? You know, they still feel like they could have given more, they're not, there's a funny feeling, I think. But not funny is not the right word, but I think there's a, everybody else, we, the audience, are so fulfilled and so lifted up and so nourished, and so like, let's go out and have the night of our life. That was amazing, right? Right, yes. But that's not the experience of the performer, and you are so right. And you know, different performers, I mean, you and I have been around long enough, I'm sure you've been, I mean, I've been, you know, with the greats before they go on, and with the greats when they come off. Some just don't do the, I come off moment, because they just go like, I got to get ready for tomorrow night. Some do it like, come see me at the hotel, I got my slippers on, you know? Yes. Got to watch my voice. But isn't it interesting how they choose to handle it? It's very, because everybody's different. I mean, I'll never forget seeing Barbara Streisand at the Hollywood Bowl, just murder. I mean, destroy. And after she was, what do you, so what'd you think? It was good, right? And you're like, I've never actually, I do know Barbara a bit, but I have never seen her before. Oh my God. I can imagine. Oh my, dude, you have no idea, because she puts her friends in the front row, because she still has stage fright, and she sings, she sings to you. You can't imagine what it is, isn't it? Isn't the gift, the ability, the greats have an ability to make every single person feel like they're the only person in the room. That's right. I mean, obviously, she needs that connection. And I had a little bit to do with Barbara on, we were going to do something, a bit of a surprise and you never really quite could bring it about. But that thing, but that proves the point, doesn't it? The greats are still deeply nervous. And Elvis is the poster person with that. I mean, the film opens, I mean, it doesn't open, but we have this sort of prelude. But when he's walking on stage, it's amazing. I mean, that shaking leg, that nerves, that thing. He says, I still get what you call, what you call, what do you call it? What do you call it? I still get what you call stage fright. You know? I mean, I'm like, dude, you look like that. You can sing like that. You are Elvis at the height of his career. It's not like, you know, your first night at the ball in Memphis, right? And you still get stage fright. That is healthy. That's what keeps them great. How great is that weird, that entrance, that backwards walk thing that he does? Yeah. The side sort of crabbing. That crabbing move is so sick. I mean, and that's just an instinctual. Yeah. Yeah. I think he probably, where does that come from? A lot of the early spaces that he went on, you've got to remember, first of all, that kind of show, he really invented it. Right. Like that hotel, we kind of think of residencies as being normal. There was the Rat Pack. That was a whole different thing. That was like cabaret, right? So that was like a cabaret room, right? Yeah. So your dad, I mean, when he went to what was then probably the Hilton or the International, probably the International. It was the International. Well, you know what? Back then, I've seen the pictures. The International was stuck out in the middle of the desert. Like it wasn't- It's off the strip. Like, yeah, it was off the strip. And it was such a big throw of the dice. And so, the idea of building an apartment at the top, I mean, and the artists living there, I mean, I'm not getting into, you know, all of our iconic friends, but having worked with Elton John and knowing very well and made music, made a song, but, you know, having great love, Elton. Yeah, same. I mean, we love, love, love Elton. When he did Red Piano. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He had a residency and he had an apartment upstairs at Caesars. And you'd go and see him and, you know, maybe it'd be amazing and funny. And then you'd go upstairs and there'd be the killers and having a big dinner and all of that, you know. But he and David, the consummate, like just such wonderful hosts, you know. Yes. Yes. And talking about after show, like the ability to do the show and after. And that's the thing about the residency, right? It's a bit like, you know, the residency is very different from, it's a bit like Adele, right? I also know a bit. And Adele's choice was, do I tour around the world? People, I don't think, and I understand the fans' disappointment. I really do. I really, really do. But for Adele to fly around the world and uplift 100,000 people at night or, you know, 50,000 people, she's got to go home. She can't go out and party. She got to go home and sit in a hotel room, no matter how big the hotel room and all of that. It's a little bit different, I think, when you're a band, you know, it's not totally different. But, you know, the Stones know how to do Rolling Stones time. You know, they know how to tour and they've done all their lives. And, but they also have each other. And Paul McCartney, I think, says this really beautifully is, and because they really admired that, I mean, Elvis was such a big thing for them. They said, look, the thing with Elvis is, see, we had each other. We might have been stuck in a hotel room when we were kids, but we had each other. We could write music. Even Mick and Keith, when the crowds became so big early on, they'd be going, well, let's write a song. But Elvis was on his own from the get-go, from the fifties, you know? Even when he was a kid, there's a beautiful article written about this guy who's going to direct him in a film when he was early movies, follows him around and he writes an article about, and literally he's not that known, but he performs in the Louisiana Hayride or something, turns out the back and there's a police escort to a hotel screaming girls outside tearing the car apart and all he can do is go over, pick up the phone and order a burger. That's it. That's it. That's the loneliness. You know? And then that evolves into him going, well, let's do a residency and back to Adele, when Adele decided to do the residency, right? See back then it only just started to become a really big thing. I mean, a few, you know, they've been Celine and Elton. It became a thing. But now, I think a lot of artists, Adele went, well, guess what? I can go do a really great show, but I can go back to my home in LA that night or stairs. You know what I mean? There's a degree of performance life balance. Which is important. And also, if you have a voice like hers, you got to take, you really have to take care of her voice. I mean, obviously, sometimes it's time to get out and do the big world tour, right? But I mean, do you think about Michael doing those shows at the O? What is it going to be? 52 shows? Can you imagine? I think he says in The This Is It, I think he says, how can't you do 52 shows? You know, like, I mean, really, how is he going to do that many shows? I don't think he was ever going to do one show. I knew without getting into it, I knew people deeply involved in that. I had tickets, I still have the ticket. I do too for Opening Night. And I, same, and I knew I would never be there. I just knew, I didn't think he was going to die, but I just couldn't imagine it happening. I love that movie, by the way, except it makes me cry. I do too. I think maybe where we can act, I mean, I think you don't have to be in the work as we are to have the same emotional connection, because you can be a fan. But when you go behind the curtain, and again, when you see the greats, and you know, whatever the human being, it's like Elvis says so clearly. He says, well, he's in a press conference, he says, well, there's the image. It's very hard to live up to an image. There's the image and the man, and the image is one thing, and the man is another. I was struck by that because I felt, not that I didn't think Elvis was insightful, he obviously would have to be to do what he did. But I was really surprised that he was able to articulate that so succinctly. I was really- Really was. Don't you think, Robert? Sounds like actually a quote that, you know, that Omar Khayyam or something. Yeah. I mean, like it actually sounds like a quote from some Roman philosopher or something. You know? I have a quick obscure question. Was there ever any weirdness when Elvis would cover the Beatles who were eating his lunch on the charts? I think my take, look. You don't understand what I'm saying, right? Oh, I know. Exactly. I know exactly. I think, look, I know Paul very little bit. I mean, I'm very good friends with Stella McCartney. And I was just recently with them all recently. She's the best. She's one of my great old pal. Yeah, I shouldn't say. Oh, she's eternally young. She's a great pal. Yeah. Yeah. And recently I was at something very special with her and all of that. But Austin told me how generous Paul was when he was doing Elvis. And they spent some time on a train together. And Paul told the story of them all going up to see Elvis for the first time. And, you know, I think they were probably high on lead for the first time. Weed was kind of new or something. And they all have different, I mean, I'm not telling you something that Paul hasn't put out there because they have different takes on the story. But Paul distinctly remembers he and Elvis jamming on a song. And there's this great moment when Paul's on the train with Austin. He says, I think, oh, you know, I think like Elvis was singing on the Marty Waters song, whatever it was. And he says, yeah, I'll sing it. And he gets it out on his iPhone. So he and Austin are singing it together. Austin is Elvis. And that's when Austin Reign said, you know how you said my life is going to be different? I think it might have just got different. But I think one thing that Paul says, he says, there comes a point, you know the whole thing about he and John and Yoko, and it was all in the papers and you see it in the docco. He says, when it's written about so much and the world is commenting on it so much, you kind of subconsciously start to believe it, even though it's not real. And my take is that Elvis, I mean, you see Elvis covering the Beatles. Like one of my children said to me, I thought Elvis was really anti-Beatles. I said, look, there's kind of one thing for sure is the Beatles totally, if you look at the world of Elvis, I mean, to them, he was like the sun. And if you see him get back, they actually go, Elvis' birthday today, just very sad and passing. And the thing too is that Elvis so admired them musically, what they wrote and just thought musically they were great. And he met with them. But I think that what happens is later on. Look, there's a great film out, Rob, you got to see it. I saw, after I saw Paul, it was called Man on the Run. I think it's on Amazon. I've seen it. It's great. Isn't it great? It's great. And it's Paul. It's great. That's a bit I didn't know anything about. I just imagined Paul, and I know Stel really well. I just saw Paul and they went to a fabulous castle in Scotland. That's what I thought. I didn't realize they lived in such, excuse me, shithole. It's unreal. I mean, it's incredible. It's incredible. And I reached out to Stelar. I said, Stel, what was that lie? She said, that was the most magical time of my life. And there is Paul, around the same time, Elvis is trying to find his new road. That's right. Right. You know, 1970. The Beatles, at this point, says, I was always, I was just a kid, then I was a Beatle, then suddenly there was a divorce. And there he is trying to refine himself, living like, trying to be normal and building his life around the family. Re-grounding, I guess. Going to the essence of essence. And then thinking, am I going to make any music? And the crazy thing is, I loved the Beatles, but we were insane about wins. Growing up, my brothers and I isolated in a small country town. We just thought wins everything from Ramon. The idea that Paul McCartney was going, am I any good? Can I still write music? Just inconceivable. So there you go. And just again, peeking behind the curtain and realizing the humanity. I mean, Paul's gift with tune is just on another level. Another level. It just flows out. It's like Elton, it just flows out of them. Tune and lyric, but just music, music in general, it just flows out. But it flows out. But the idea that he was going like, who am I without the Beatles? Elvis would have been saying, who am I? Now there are the Beatles. Yes. Yes. 100 percent. Who he was, was what he turns into in Vegas. What he turned himself into, and this is the other thing, Rob, that look at his vocal. He never stopped working vocally. He never stopped working on himself as a musician, as a singer. So he goes from really a high tenor, well, there's a lot of echo on those songs. Yeah, that was amazing when he said that. Yeah, right. He's singing really, he's singing high tenor. Oh, up there, right? Then he's saying, I love Mario Lanza. He's singing like an opera singer by the end. I mean, how great thou art. What we didn't put in the film, because we put it in the drama, and also John, early on, we were talking about, we see him at the absolute peak in this movie. The absolute peak. Yes. But what do we want to do about the tragic descent? The thing about the tragic descent is- I'm so glad you didn't do it. Can I just tell you something? I am so happy. I loved it in the movie with Austin. I loved it. But I loved that I didn't have to see him like that. Yeah. Because- Well, I'm glad you say that. Because you know why? The thing about the movie, that final moment, which he sings a few weeks before he dies, and he sings Unchained Melody. Even though the body is corrupt, he sings probably the best he's ever sung. Like he's singing like literally like Mario. I mean, he's singing like an opera singer really. Yeah. And the musicality is just off the charts. But he can barely work out where the seat is, right? But he never stopped trying to reach for the stars in terms of his vocal ability. And as a singer, and you've got to think about that. You know, like, some artists just go, Yeah, I got my shtick, I'll go out, I'll do it. I know I'd like the back of my hand, you know. You can see the strings, they literally just bop them through because they want to get home and, you know, do what they do that is enjoyable. But I think that's what makes greatness is just always reaching for something a little bit beyond your grasp. Why do you think Elvis did not write? I think, you know, the interpretation, like, get a lot of trouble if I start relating this to fashion, but high in fashion, but there are, it's in any art form. In any art form, there's the gift of like, like writing, some can write and perform, like Bob Dylan, who, by the way, Elvis covers in this movie. And by the way, he says, one of the greatest moments of my life is when Elvis recorded one of my songs. I mean, the quotes from musicians are amazing. I jumped cut then. They write and then they find a way to vocalize. And so Bob's whole use of his own voice, you know, is it the prettiest voice in the world? That's for other's opinions. But is it a poetic? Is it one of the great poetic voices? Yes. Amazing. Amazing, right? Then you have people, artists who interpret. And actually, Rob, you're coming from an acting background or you know acting, right? I mean, some of our greatest performances in the world, you just think isn't Moulin amazing. But he didn't actually write the lines to the song. I mean, he might have written, he might have improvised Apocalypse Now. Yeah. And Children. Yeah. But I feel with Elvis, his gift not just vocally and in terms of song, was he was an absorber and an interpreter. And then he saw himself sort of as a conduit. I was going to say a conduit. Beyond himself. A conduit for everything. And that is a gift because I liken it to Orpheus, the myth of Orpheus, because Orpheus was such a great singer that the very rocks and stones would get up and follow him. He didn't say he was a great singer-songwriter, you know. He just sang, right? He would take a song and he would illuminate the song and make it his own. That's what Elvis actually does. He can take a song like Bridge Over Trouble Water, which is wonderful in its original form, but it's a folk song, you know? It's a beautiful folkish song, I would say. And Elvis turns it into this gospel powerhouse ballad, you know? And that's a gift. That's a true and particular gift. And I think that he just loved to sing. And it takes a lot of, you know, if writing comes to you naturally, great. It takes a lot to write. But I think his thing was, I'd rather be out using my gift, living, interpreting songs. Yeah, it makes sense. And the other thing is he's getting the best songwriters in the world coming to Lieber and Stoller and all the rest of them. Well, exactly. But then until the Colonel, actually, Mike Stoller, I think, turned up to one of the screens. I got a really nice reaction from him. But the Colonel, of course, went out of his way to cleave them apart. I mean, I'm not a big fan of any artists like that. I mean, I'm sort of not so guarded about giving my opinion about the Colonel, because I was during the film, because what I found out in the film and all of that, and I didn't want it just to bubble down to, look, all of Elvis' flaws were the Colonel's fault. No. The flaws in all great artists are there. It's just that when someone's MO is looking for the world's greatest carnival act and doesn't actually see the artist, then eventually it's going to be like, how many times can I get you on stage? And then the artist probably going like, how many times can I get on stage? That's why I think EPiC is more a poem than a linear storytelling. I wanted you to feel it or think it or let Elvis tell his story. Is he open the film with you? He says, there's a lot being said, but never from my side of the story. It's amazing. I mean, I could go on and on and on about it. It's great. I'm a huge fan of yours. Is anything happening to the Joan of Arc? I'm deeply in the middle. In fact, I think as I'm speaking to you, I think, maybe I'm wrong, something's being said about it at CinemaCon. Yeah. I mean, I'm deep inside of it. In fact, I'm in my, I mean, I panned the camera around and you'd see these walls covered with all the structures and imagery and all of that. I'm doing the fun part for myself, which is learning to ride in armor because I don't want to put any actor through anything I don't really understand what it's like. Wow. But we're right down the road. I mean, we're in many drives. When are you shooting? Is there a script? Give me the practicals. The facts are simple, right? I'm about three drafts in and we have a wonderful script. I'm working with the wonderful Ava Pickett. She has a show opening at the West End in a few weeks, right? One of her great plays. I love working with her. She's gifted. I have found an extraordinarily gifted young player, Ida Johnson. She is beginning the road of preparation. You've got to understand, first of all, I hardly ever make movies and when I do, I prepare them for a very long time. I also need to build almost everything. The way we create the medieval world, at least from my living research, which has been many years, is not often represented on screen in a way in which is decoded, right? That's what it is and what it really felt like. So to actually build everything is taking a very long time. And then there's a lot, I mean, you know, there's one or two epic battles in it. So these things I really am thorough about. But I will be shooting by the end of the year or early next year, right? I'll certainly into pre. I'm into pre very soon, actually. Real, you know, you know the language, Rob. Yes, yeah, yeah. I have pre-pre. Pre-pre? I have pre-pre. Yeah, yeah. And then I have real pre, which is when, to put it bluntly, when we start spending a lot of money building the world. And I'm looking out here in the sunlight out here at a space where construction is going to be starting like literally within weeks. But it will take a long time. So, and you know, I want to do it in a, I would just want to give, I just think there's many stories. I go, gee, I'd love to do that. And I'm doing other things. You know, we're launching a dining train car in like a few weeks in London. Amazing. We've made seminar, yeah. It's a fun, fun, cool. What's the route? Is it stationary? Does it move around? Oh no, it's like, it's going to be on the Belmont, it's going to be on the Pullman. You can go anywhere out in the English countryside. There's a story about it. There's a dining car for 12 that goes on this kind of special train. It's like the Orange Express, same people who do the Orange Express. So we built that. With Belmont. Okay, of course. Yes. Exactly. So if you feel like having a chic dinner for 12 people, I can tell you there's a 1930s dining car named after a fictitious actress called Celia and her fab friends. You can shove off into the English countryside with a five-star chef, an amazing bar, and then comes back. It might turn into a little bit of a disco later on or a dance. I love this. Which one? I love this. I love this. Anyway, all that stuff. But really, there's things that I always think, there's things I want to do because wouldn't that be fun? Yeah. But then there are things that I think should be done. I think the story about a 100-year war where there's a line. I didn't write it, actually. I ever wrote it, which is, we've got to peel this world away from the craggy old hands of these men, right? Meaning that this eternal, just endless negative energy just going on and on because the previous generation are hanging on with craggy old hands. Along comes a teenage girl from nowhere and says, to all the other young people, you know what? Enough's enough. We need to take our life back. The king, who's only 25 and is about to run away to Spain and is lost, says no, lifts him up and says, we can change things. There is hope and reclaims not just France, but actually, I think for the youth of the time, their future. So to me, it's a generational story, and it's a story also about the haves and the have nots. Those things, I think, in two years' time when it comes out, it seems like a long time, but I'm not fast. But those things, I think, are really relevant now, and that story will need to be told more than ever. We need to have it out there, I think. I can't wait. It's another, you're the perfect person for it. It's a great story. I may have to come to Australia and watch you shoot that. That would be, you're shooting, I'm assuming, in Australia. Be careful, I'll throw you in some armor. You want to be careful? I mean, is armor as uncomfortable as? No, actually, what's amazing, what is amazing, there's a bit of a picture of me. There's me, here it is. I might grab this, it's just like a chest. I happen to have a framed picture of me in it. I can do that, bring it up here. Oh, I gotta see this. Trust me, but can I do something I learn? Actually wearing, what would it be if someone sent this to me? Born, born to jest, forced to joust. I don't know if you can see the picture. Oh my God, I can see it great. Jesus Christ, how can you even sit on a horse like that? Well, the thing about it is, I learned it in Ketterich, which is in Northern England, where they train everyone in armor. Can I tell you something? What you learn is that if it's actually why armor made for you, it's way not heavier than a soldier today. I can ride okay, right? I grew up on a farm and horses and stuff. But when I got in the armor, I thought, God, I'm going to make a total fool myself, right? Honestly, it is so balanced, each piece, that it really, really isn't. You become very used to it very early. The only thing is, it's a bit like scuba diving. It's about dealing with that limited view. Yeah. Yeah. And then you got to add to it, right? You know, things exploding and smoke. I mean, how she actually did it. In the most important moment, when it looks like the moment that changes history, that she's going to take back Orleans, she's almost led everybody over the parapet. And then Ara goes six inches into her. For sure, she's dead, by the way. But adrenaline will, the Holy Spirit, whatever it is that you want to language it as, Ara comes out and she gets back on that horse with half her armor on and leads the French to, you know, free Orleans. That is not only as glazed as falls into the Loire, that's not only the end of the Siege of Orleans and the turning of the tide for the French. But in my mind, it's literally the end of the Dark Ages and the beginning of the Renaissance. Like literally that symbolic. Anyway, yeah, it's not as, it's, it's, it was not, it's, I know it's, that's one of the things I'm dealing with in decoding is, is, you know, our image of knights in armor that all seems so like funny or like, you know, how do they do it? You know, so that's why I, that's why I went and lived in Graceland and all of that, or had the office at Graceland and live it, because I'm from a tiny country town. I literally feel like unless I live it, I can't expect to tell it, and I certainly can't expect actors to play it if I don't really understand the truth to the best of my ability. Well, amazing. I hope, I hope our paths cross one day on a set. I'm sure they will, Rob. Listen, I'm occasionally in your neck of the woods. Yes. Well, again, I was so excited to have you on. I could have talked for another five hours about music and all the other stuff that you've done. We know your music for sure. It's beautiful. Thank you. This was great. EPiC, Elvis Presley in Concert, it's out now. It is my favorite movie of the year by far. Well, thank you, man. And it's so transcend... Like I said, it transcends the genre. I don't even know what the genre is. It's a poem. You said it beautifully. It's a dream. It's Elvis coming to you in a dream. And it is a dream. Baz, thank you, brother. It was great getting to spend time with you. And I'll catch you next time in Part of the World. Joan of Arc, how sick is that going to be? Baz Luhrmann's Joan of Arc? I'll buy my tickets now, two years in advance. Thanks, you guys, that was a longer one. We haven't had a long talk like that on the show, I don't think, in quite a while, but I was just fanboying, and it was really fun. Thanks for being a part of it. Thanks, Baz, again, for coming on the show. And we'll be back, as we always are, right here next week on Literally! You've been listening to Literally! With Rob Lowe, produced by me, Sean Doherty, with help from associate producer, Sean Calvano. Research by Jeff Fox, engineering and mixing by Joanna Samuel. Our executive producers are Rob Lowe for Low Profile, and Nick Leow, Adam Sachs, and Jeff Ross for Team Coco. Booking by Catherine Cook, music by Devin Bryant, special thanks to Hidden City Studios. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time on Literally!