Q+A: Baz Luhrmann Is Going to Score on ‘Dancing With the Stars’

by Nicki Gostin

On Monday night Australian director Baz Luhrmann will be making his debut as a guest judge on . It’s not as odd as it sounds. He directed a sumptuous version of for Broadway, reinvented the movie musical with the magnificent , and of course started off his career with , a hilarious peek into the world of competitive ballroom dancing. He spoke to Pop Vox about his new job.


Actually, well, first of all it’s fun. The show is fun. But more importantly, a lot of people in the U.S. don’t know that was the inspiration for the original BBC version, which then was the inspiration for . It’s called in Britain, and Disney is re-releasing the DVD of in the U.S. early next year. So this is part of me linking the disc to the show.


I was a ballroom dancer. I grew up in a small country town. I did competitive ballroom dancing later on. My brothers got into it, and then later on my mother became a judge.


I was all right! I won the districts triple A something or other, blah blah blah. You could say I was a northern New South Wales champ at some point.


You know what? I was a little champ. We certainly took it seriously. We loved it. Ballroom dancing for us as children was...we lived in the country. It was a country person’s escape into theater and to be able to travel and be part of something. A world that is in one regard preposterous and fantastical and on the other hand it was a serious sport. You really had to be good at it. There is nothing like dance. Expressing yourself through dance is a really joyous thing.


I have watched it a lot more recently, now that I’m boning up on how to be a judge. I’m sure I’ll be a terrible judge and probably give everyone a nine.


Score as in…I don’t know, I’m a bit old for that, but I’ll give it a go.


You know what? I don’t really know. I said, "Look I’ll go in, I’ll participate, it’ll be fun."


I don’t know. I think the thing about all these shows is that they are fantastic arenas of popular culture. Dance is a joyous thing. Seeing a kung fu wrestler dancing, there’s something incredibly human and wonderful about that, and everyone has an opinion about what constitutes good and bad dancing.


I’m a very busy man.


Well, sometimes. I love and things like that. There’s some brilliant writing on TV.


It’s one of the things I’m considering. I’ve not decided which thing I will commit to. I own the rights to . It’s one of the many things I have in my development department. I own the rights to it and a whole lot of other books.


I’m nowhere near that part of the journey.


I conceived them and supervised. I worked with a wonderful choreographer named Rob Ashford who won an Emmy for it.


I don’t think I’m qualified to answer that. You have to watch a lot of TV to be able to answer that.


I’m doing the Blu Rays of and It’s a great joy to be going back to those films. It allows you to realize the films in quite a spectacular and beautiful way.


I’m going to look into that in depth before I answer.


You know what? There are but a few things in life you can never have enough of, and sequins are one of them.