The Great Gatsby - Crew

BAZ LUHRMANN (Director/Producer/Screenwriter) has captured popular and critical imagination internationally with a diverse range of commercially successful projects in film, opera, theatre, music, multi-media and events. As the founder and director of Bazmark.Inq. and subsidiaries Bazmark Live and Bazmark Music, the huge commercial success of Luhrmann’s projects reveals an instinctual ability to anticipate audience tastes, and to tap into the spirit of the times.

Lurhmann’s most recent film, “Australia,” was the first to be produced as part of his planned trilogy of epic works.  The sweeping historic drama garnered an Academy Award® nomination for Best Achievement in Costume Design for Luhrmann’s wife and creative partner, Catherine Martin, and also marked Luhrmann’s third collaboration with Nicole Kidman, who starred in his previous film, “Moulin Rouge!”

“Moulin Rouge!,” which also starred Ewan McGregor, was developed, co-written, produced and directed by Luhrmann, opened the Cannes Film Festival in May 2001 and went on to open in the number-one position in the UK, France, Australia and Switzerland. Worldwide theatrical sales surpassed $170 million and the film has been showered with many prestigious awards, including a Golden Globe for Best Picture - Musical or Comedy, National Board of Review and Producers Guild of America Film of the Year Awards, and two Academy Awards® for production and costume designer Catherine Martin. The film garnered six additional Oscar® nominations, including Best Picture. Luhrmann also received BAFTA Award nominations for Best Director and Best Screenplay and a Golden Globe nomination for Best Director. He was also the executive producer of the film’s two soundtrack albums, which went multi-platinum and have sold over six million copies worldwide.

Luhrmann is also renowned for his audacious adaptation of “William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet,” starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes. Luhrmann co-wrote the screenplay, directed and produced the international box office hit.  The film opened in the number-one position in the U.S., grossing over $140 million worldwide and garnering numerous awards, including four BAFTA Awards, including Best Direction and Best Adapted Screenplay; two Berlin Film Festival Awards, again for Best Direction; a Golden Bear Best Actor Award for Leonardo DiCaprio; and an Academy Award® nomination for Best Art Direction for Catherine Martin.  The soundtrack albums, executive produced by Luhrmann, went triple platinum in the U.S and have sold more than seven million copies worldwide.

“William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet” followed the international success of Luhrmann’s film debut, “Strictly Ballroom.”  Grossing more than $80 million at the box office, “Strictly Ballroom” premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Prix de la Jeunesse and a special mention for the Camera D’Or before going on to win numerous other international awards, including three BAFTA Awards and eight Australian Film Institute (AFI) Awards.

The feature film “Strictly Ballroom” evolved out of a play that Luhrmann conceived, co-wrote, staged and directed while studying to be an actor at Sydney’s National Institute of Dramatic Arts (NIDA). The play, which also began Luhrmann’s long-term collaboration with writer Craig Pearce, was to have several further award-winning stage incarnations, including a first run during Luhrmann’s stint as Artistic Director of the experimental theatre company Six Years Old (for the Sydney Theatre Company), before eventually becoming a hugely successful film in 1992.

After NIDA, in between incarnations of “Strictly Ballroom,” Luhrmann served as the Artistic Director of another experimental theatre group, the Ra Project for the Australian Opera, where he created the critically acclaimed opera “Lake Lost” with composer Felix Meagher. This production marked the beginning of his collaboration with designer Catherine Martin.  “Lake Lost” was followed by “Dance Hall,” a large-scale musical event staged by Luhrmann and Martin at the Sydney Town Hall. Several more original and classic operas followed, including their highly acclaimed 1990 production of Puccini’s “La Bohème” for the Australian Opera, which was awarded an MO for Operatic Performance of the Year. The production was completely re-staged in 2002 and opened to enormous critical acclaim on Broadway. “Baz Luhrmann’s Production of Puccini’s La Bohème on Broadway” was nominated for seven Tony Awards, including Best Revival and Best Director for Luhrmann, and won for the ensemble cast, set design and lighting. After more than 200 performances, the opera toured to the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles in January 2004 for a limited engagement and was nominated for seven Ovation Awards, winning for ensemble cast, set design, lighting and sound.

Luhrmann has also staged his interpretation of Benjamin Britten’s version of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” set in colonial India, for the Australian Opera. After successful seasons in Sydney and Melbourne, the production went on to win the Critics’ Prize at the Edinburgh Festival. Also that year, Luhrmann, Martin and Bill Marron served as guest editors for a signature edition of Vogue Australia featuring Nicole Kidman and Kylie Minogue.

It was after “William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet” that Luhrmann set up his Sydney-based company Bazmark.Inq. and began working on his concept album “Something For Everybody.” The album featured the hit song “Everybody’s Free to Wear Sunscreen,” which entered the UK charts at No. 1 and went gold in the U.S., receiving extensive breakout radio play.

Under the direction of Catherine Martin, Bazmark then produced acclaimed Australian fashion designer Collette Dinnigan’s 1998 Autumn/Winter Collection at the Louvre in Paris. The Bazmark Live team followed this up by conceiving and designing the streetscape for Fox Studios Australia’s backlot, producing as part of this the show “Lights Camera Chaos,” written and directed by celebrated Australian theatre director Barrie Kosky.

Most recently, Luhrmann conceived, produced and directed a groundbreaking worldwide cinema and TV campaign for Chanel Nº5 perfume, which featured his “Moulin Rouge!” star Nicole Kidman and Brazilian rising star Rodrigo Santoro. The campaign received the U.S. Cinema Advertising Council Award for Top National Spot.

CRAIG PEARCE (Screenplay) is a graduate of Australia’s premiere theater school, The National Institute of Dramatic Art.  In 1991, he and Baz Luhrmann co-wrote the screenplay for the enormously successful feature film “Strictly Ballroom,” which won eight Australian Film Institute Awards, including Best Screenplay, and was nominated for five BAFTA Awards, including Best Screenplay.  It also won the Prix de la Jeunesse at the Cannes Film Festival and the NSW Premier’s Literary Award for Script Writing.

In 1994, Pearce and Luhrmann adapted William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” for the screen.  The film, which starred Leonardo DiCaprio, broke box-office records for Shakespeare films worldwide.  Among its many nominations and awards, the film won the Alfred Bauer Prize and the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, and three BAFTA Awards, including Best Screenplay – Adapted.  Pearce and Luhrmann also co-wrote the screenplay for “Moulin Rouge!”  The film was in competition at—and opened—the Cannes Film Festival.  The film’s many accolades include winning two National Board of Review Awards, including Best Film; nine Golden Satellite Awards, with a nomination for Best Screenplay, Original; three Golden Globes, including Best Motion Picture—Musical or Comedy; a Grammy Award; five Australian Film Institute Awards; two AFI Film Awards; and numerous others throughout the world.  It was also nominated for twelve BAFTA Awards, including Best Screenplay – Original, nominated for a Writers Guild Award for Best Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen, and nominated for eight Academy Awards®, including Best Picture.

Pearce recently co-wrote the screenplay for director Burr Steers’ drama “Charlie St. Cloud,” starring Zac Efron, and has a number of film projects in development, including “The Power of the Dark Crystal,” with the Jim Henson Company. He and Luhrmann are currently working on a live stage musical of “Strictly Ballroom.”

Pearce is also developing “The Maid,” an epic television series about Joan of Arc, and is creator and executive producer of “Will,” a television series about young Will Shakespeare which will premiere August 2014 on Pivot TV, the new cable network from Participant Media.

ANTON MONSTED (Executive Music Supervisor / Co-producer) has worked on three previous Baz Luhrmann films: “William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet,” “Moulin Rouge!” and “Australia.” Following the success of “William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet,” Monsted went on to head up Luhrmann’s music company, Bazmark Music, and in 1997 collaborated with Luhrmann on the enormously successful “Something for Everybody” album, which included the hit song “Everybody’s Free to Wear Sunscreen.”

Monsted continued his collaboration with Luhrmann on “Moulin Rouge!” serving as the music supervisor and executive music producer both for the film and the two soundtrack albums. He was also the executive producer of the director’s “Chanel Nº5: The Film” global campaign, starring Nicole Kidman. He also served as executive music supervisor for the film and soundtrack for “Australia,” earning a Satellite Award nomination for Best Original Song for “By the Boab Tree.”  In addition to those duties, Monsted also produced the film’s behind-the-scenes and EPK footage.

Between 2004 and 2006, Monsted focused on music direction for live events, producing the music for dozens of Australian fashion shows, product launches, sporting events, venue openings and television season launches.  The culmination of this period of work came with the Sydney Harbour Bridge 75th birthday event in March 2007, where his sound design was experienced by nearly a million bridge walkers.

Monsted was most recently a producer on Baz Luhrmann’s series of eight short films at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York for the Costume Institute’s 2012 exhibition, “Impossible Conversations: Prada and Schiaparelli.”

CATHERINE MARTIN (Producer / Costume and Production Designer) has collaborated with Baz Luhrmann, director and visualist, on the distinctive look of all his films and theatre productions for over 20 years. Along with Luhrmann, Martin is a partner in Bazmark Inq, which includes subsidiaries Bazmark Live and Bazmark Music, and is one of the world’s most innovative producers of film, theatre and entertainment.

Martin began collaborating with Luhrmann during her final year at NIDA, when she was hired by Luhrmann's experimental theatre company to design his production of Lake Lost for the Australian Opera. This earned Martin and colleague Angus Strathie a Victorian Green Room Award for Best Design.

Since then, Martin has designed almost all of Luhrmann’s subsequent productions, including Benjamin Britten’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” for which she won the Sydney Theatre Critics’ Circle Award for Best Opera Design, and a version of Puccini’s opera “La Bohéme,” set in 1957. The latter went on to open on Broadway in 2002 to critical acclaim and won Martin the coveted Tony Award for Production Design.

1992 saw Martin’s film debut with Luhrmann on the hugely successful “Strictly Ballroom.” Her design on this film earned her Best Production Design and Best Costume Design at both the BAFTA and AFI Awards.

She followed this success in 1996 with “William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet,” also directed by Luhrmann, for which she was awarded another BAFTA Award for Best Production Design and an Academy Award® nomination for Best Art Direction.

In 2001, Martin won two Academy Awards®, for Costume Design and Art Direction, for her work on “Moulin Rouge!” as well as AFI Awards for Best Production Design and Best Costume Design and a Los Angeles Film Critics Award for Best Production Design, among numerous others.

Martin was Production and Costume Designer and Co-Producer of Luhrmann’s epic “Australia” in 2008. The film starred Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman and earned Martin an Academy Award® Nomination for Costume Design.

Martin’s other projects with Luhrmann include guest editing the first signature edition of Vogue Australia (January, 1994) and designing the look of 2004’s lavish “Chanel Nº5: The Film,” a global campaign starring Nicole Kidman, in collaboration with Karl Lagerfeld.

Aside from her work with Luhrmann, Martin has her own creative homewares business with Designer Rugs and Mokum. These rugs, fabrics and wall coverings are an expression of her personal and distinctive aesthetic and style. Some of these pieces are featured in the film and have also been used at The Plaza in New York and several of Tiffany & Co’s flagship stores around the world.

Martin is looking forward to again collaborating with Luhrmann on their upcoming stage production, “Strictly Ballroom Live,” due to hit the stage in 2014.

Martin divides her time between Sydney, New York and Paris and has two beautiful children, Lillian (9) and William (7).