Baz Luhrmann has opened up about his unconventional 29-year marriage with Catherine Martin. Photo / Amy Sussman, Getty Images
Baz Luhrmann has opened up about his unconventional 29-year marriage with Catherine Martin. Photo / Amy Sussman, Getty Images
Baz Luhrmann has opened up about his “not traditional” marriage to costume designer Catherine Martin, sharing how the pair’s relationship has been enriched by their artistic partnership.
The flamboyant auteur and his wife have famously spent much of their 29-year marriage apart, with Luhrmann living in New York and Martinon Australia’s Gold Coast.
In an episode of Elizabeth Day’s How To Fail podcast, Luhrmann acknowledged that many people are fascinated by the couple’s unconventional relationship.
The Great Gatsby director Baz Luhrmann lives primarily apart from his wife Catherine Martin. Photo / Kevin Mazur, MG25, Getty Images for The Met Museum, Vogue
“I can understand it. I mean, my stuff is really camp, and our relationship is, well camp in one regard. I use that theatricality and there’s an underlying seriousness to it.”
He praised Martin, who he has collaborated with on several films, including Strictly Ballroom, Moulin Rouge! and The Great Gatsby, as someone he had “profound trust” in as a creative and romantic partner.
“I love her and if she was gone tomorrow, I don’t know what I’d do. But we also are very distinctly different individuals. We understand each other.
“But we have this absolutely real relationship, but we also have our commitment to each other, which is, I think what real marriages are, which is their contracts with each other that, you know are good for each other. There are things you can change and things you can’t.”
Having met in London when Luhrmann was seeking a designer, he said their initial conversation is still ongoing today.
“I have to have some connective tissue, some connectivity with primary collaborators, and that’s how I decide. Is the conversation going on? Is the music going on?” he said.
Baz Luhrmann and Catherine Martin share two children together, daughter Lillian, pictured, and son William. Photo / Gisela Schober, Getty Images for amfAR
“The relationship works in a way in which it works for us. It’s not traditional in so many ways. My kids make a lot of jokes about me.”
The Romeo + Juliet director went on to describe how the couple’s kids jokingly call him RuPaul, in reference to the famed American drag queen.
His daughter Lillian, 22, previously told the Under the Gloss podcast how paparazzi had asked her if Luhrmann was gay, referencing rumours her parents sleep apart.
“That was the first time I felt embarrassed,” she said. “Not embarrassed, but more like, ‘Why are these people talking about my dad? Why are they making fun?’ I’m like, ‘They just have different sleeping schedules’.”
Luhrmann and Martin also share son William, 20.
The Australian creatives have been working on a concert tour film about Elvis Presley off the back of their Oscar-nominated biopic starring Austin Butler.
EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert debuts never-before-seen recordings of Presley during his Las Vegas residency, discovered in Kansas salt mines in 2022.
