Road to the Oscars 2023: ‘Elvis’ director Baz Luhrmann on what he’s looking forward to this awards season

We’re just under two weeks out from the Oscars – Hollywood’s biggest night airs live on March 12 on ABC, and the movie Elvis is expected to pick up some hardware.

The film goes into Oscars night with 8 nominations, including a nod for Best Picture, and a nod for Best Actor for star Austin Butler. Baz Luhrmann directed the film, and he tells ABC Audio he loves awards season because it often puts him in rooms with people he knows well and people he’s never met.

“You may not have noticed, but we’re not spring chickens. Like we’ve been around,” he says before naming Cate Blanchett and Steven Spielberg as some of the community he knows well.

“What’s exciting, though, is you get the young Daniels [directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert] who are making the film Everything Everywhere All at Once,” Luhrmann continues. “You get to see this new energy and we’re very focused on helping the new generation and being part of that. So it’s exciting to see people who’ve never done it before.”

For Luhrmann’s wife and business partner Catherine Martin, who produced Elvis alongside him, shares that all of the nominations mean a lot to her, but possibly even more to others.

“I just feel really happy and proud that all the people who aren’t even nominated but worked so hard on the movie get to put on their CVs Oscar-nominated movie,” she says. “You know, people that don’t naturally get thanked.” 

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