The Australian’s Australian of the Year: Can’t help falling in love with Elvis pair Baz Luhrmann and Catherine Martin

Baz Luhrmann and Catherine Martin took a gamble when they decided to shoot a biopic about an adored American music icon in Australia during the middle of a pandemic.

Catherine Martin and Baz Luhrmann. Picture: Getty Images

Film director Baz Luhrmann and costume designer Catherine Martin took a gamble when they decided to shoot a biopic about an adored American music icon in Australia during the middle of a pandemic, but it paid off for the Hollywood power couple.

Elvis, starring Austin Butler as the King of Rock and Roll, was a roaring success.

But it is not only their work on this film but over a generation that has earned Luhrmann and Martin a nomination for The Australian’s Australian of the Year.

The biopic bagged 11 awards at the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards in December, with Luhrmann winning the award for best ­director.

But Martin, who has forged a creative partnership with her husband, also walked away with the AACTA’s Longford Lyell Award for lifetime achievement.

When accepting the award, Martin said: “My own work is indivisible from my creative partnership with Baz Luhrmann, who has been my husband for 25 years.”

She then added: “I know – I need an award for that too.”

Three days before they were scheduled to start shooting Elvis in March 2020, the Gold Coast set was spectacularly shut down as actor Tom Hanks, who plays Elvis’s manager, contracted Covid.

Filming resumed in September, with Luhrmann and his crew having to navigate Covid-19 restrictions.

“There was a time when it looked like the film was really going to go away. It was going to not happen,” Luhrmann said at the eventual premiere of the film.

But Elvis was last month announced as one of 2022’s top 10 films by the American Film Institute alongside titles including Everything Everywhere All At Once and Top Gun: Maverick.

And by filming on the Gold Coast, Elvis is predicted to have injected $105m into the local economy.

But Luhrmann and Martin gave Australians more than Mr Presley in 2022.

The Australian version of Moulin Rouge! The Musical, an adaptation of Luhrmann’s 2001 film, continued to enamour audiences, with the show moving from Melbourne and opening in Sydney in June.

Australians have had a chance to fall in love with the story all over again as the musical criss- crosses its way across the country, with shows scheduled in Sydney and Perth during the first half of 2023.

The Golden Globes have now nominated Elvis in three categories – best motion picture, best director and best actor – while the Academy will announce its nominations on January 25, with the film widely tipped to receive nods for best picture, costume design, production design and possibly best director.

Martin is currently the most successful Australian in Oscars history, having claimed four Academy Awards for best production and costume design for Moulin Rouge! and The Great Gatsby.

But having now been nominated for The Australian’s ­Australian of the Year, Luhrmann and Martin may have another reason to celebrate come January 26.

We encourage our readers to put in a nomination for The Australian’s Australian of the Year, which was first won in 1971 by economist HC “Nugget” Coombs. Prominent Australians can be nominated by filling out the form above, or sending an email to [e-mail]. Nominations close on Friday, January 20.