Baz Luhrmann Defends Unique 29-Year Marriage

describes his 29-year marriage to wife 'as camp and not traditional in so many ways, but an absolutely real relationship'.

The Australian director, 63, gives a rare insight into their marriage and how they make it work in Elizabeth Day's How To Fail podcast. 

Award-winning production designer Catherine, 61, works on all of Baz's movies. 

Baz admits while they keep their relationship out of the spotlight, he understands the public fascination. 

'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 says. 

'CM and I, people say, "well, when did you get married?!" I said, "I don't remember. I just know we've always been together and it's a truly real relationship'. 

'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. The relationship works in a way in which it works for us. It's not traditional in so many ways. My kids make lots of jokes about me.'

The couple have two children; Lillian, 22, and William, 20.  

When asked by Elizabeth how their children tease them, Baz replies: 'They just mock me a lot. It keeps me very grounded. Sometimes they call me RuPaul. 

'I mean, I don't know, like in a fun way. 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. 

'But weddings are actually advertisements to everybody else that you are together.' 

Baz remains one of the most commercially successful and stylistically distinct directors in Hollywood.

He rose to fame with Strictly Ballroom (1992), Romeo + Juliet (1996), and the groundbreaking musical Moulin Rouge! (2001).

Baz is also behind The Great Gatsby (2013) and Elvis (2022).  

Of how they work together on their film projects, Baz adds: 'CM does her stuff sometimes and like epic, I did that, that's my gig. She's got her homewares. But then on the visual language stuff, on the films, we work very, very closely together but there's this I think, really deep love and love transforms over the years, is the person that you can have the most trust with so there's a profound trust.