Moulin Rouge Extras

Snubs Poll Results

Oscars 2002 Best Supporting Actor
You chose:
1. Ewan McGregor, ''Moulin Rouge'' (37.4%)
2. Gene Hackman, ''The Royal Tenenbaums'' (23.6%)
3. Guy Pearce, ''Memento'' (20.4%)
4. Billy Bob Thornton, ''Monster's Ball'' (9.3%)
5. Billy Bob Thornton, ''The Man Who Wasn't There'' (9.3%)


Best Director
You chose:
1. Baz Luhrmann, ''Moulin Rouge'' (59.5%)
2. Christopher Nolan, ''Memento'' (20.3%)
3. Todd Field, ''In the Bedroom'' (7.9%)
4. Steven Spielberg, ''A.I. Artificial Intelligence'' (7.8%)
5. Jean-Pierre Jeunet, ''Amelie'' (4.6%)


Ms. Kidman was laced to 19" for this film.
About Kidman's infamous rib break - she says
it wasn't the corset that broke it in the first place...
"Because we were doing the dance sequence
where I have to jump in his arms and neither of us,
particularly Ewan, is a trained dancer. [laughter]
And, it was just the way he caught me.
It wasn't a full break, it was a small crack as they described it.
But then they put me in a corset a little too soon and rebroke it.
And that was the beginning of the film."

London Premire

The Hollywood Film Festival

MTV Movie Awards

All That Baz

EW.com

The latest news about ''Moulin Rouge'' -- Director Baz Luhrmann talks about the Oscars, the film's upcoming DVD release, and more by Liane Bonin

''Moulin Rouge'' can-canned its way back into theaters Nov. 21 with hopes that it will generate some Oscar buzz for stars Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor, as well as director Baz Luhrmann. Well, 20th Century Fox's plan seems to be working: Last week, the movie was named Best Film of the Year by the National Board of Review (the Oscar season's equivalent of the New Hampshire primary). EW.com caught up with Luhrmann to find out what he thinks of the Oscars, what goodies await fans on his soon-to-be-released ''Moulin Rouge'' DVD set (in stores Jan. 18), and why -- contrary to rumors -- he's not James Bond-bound.

Was it always part of your plan to rerelease ''Moulin Rouge''? When we were going out with the film this summer, we knew what a tremendous risk it was to release this kind of movie at that particular time. Having said that, the movie did well enough to pay the bills, so we had no intention of going out with it again. But when it turned out to be a hit in Europe and was at the top of the charts in London for six weeks, the studio started saying we should rerelease it. I think audiences have been able to generate word of mouth for long enough for that to have gone around and fed back into itself.

Although ''Moulin Rouge'' eventually broke even, it wasn't as successful in the U.S. as was expected. What happened? I think when it was first released in the states, there was a lot of fear about the M-word -- that word being ''musical.'' And in the end, the marketing campaign couldn't convey the cinematic language we'd been dealing in. The guys at Fox have been fantastic, but how do you market a postmodern comic-tragic musical, for goodness' sake? So all of the trailers for the movie ended up emphasizing just the tragic aspect instead of the comic aspect or the musical aspect. And in the end, what makes this movie a different experience is it's a musical.

What do you think the movie's Oscar chances are? I have a very simple view about all awards and it is that, in the end, art is not a horse race, you know? ''Crouching Tiger'' is not a better or worse film than ''Gladiator.'' But what is good about awards is the celebration or acknowledgement of work that has either pushed the envelope or is simply very good in one way or another. And I can think of a lot of people in my company -- as well as two actors -- who have taken extraordinary risks and pulled them off. [Nicole and Ewan] play broad comedy, then high tragedy, then break out into song and dance and die. And I would love for them to be acknowledged by their peers.

What's going on with the second soundtrack CD from ''Moulin Rouge''? I just finished it, and it comes out in February. All of the music on the CD comes from the film, so it's not an ''inspired by'' soundtrack. We made a decision in the beginning that the double album would be too expensive for younger audiences, so we put the radio-friendly tracks on the first album and what I like to think of as the show tunes on the second album. So this one has ''Like A Virgin'' and ''The Show Must Go On.'' I could do a third album quite easily, there's that much music in the film that hasn't been released.

What can we expect from the double DVD set coming out next month? I've extracted all of the dance sequences from the film and put them on one disc. I'm not sure how much more footage I've included, but one example is the can-can scene, which was just 40 seconds in the movie, but is almost five minutes on the DVD. You can also edit your own version of the tango, and you can view ''Roxanne,'' ''Can Can,'' and the end sequence from four different camera angles. While a lot of DVDs just dump on a bunch of B-roll footage to give you a peek behind the scenes, we've really worked to show the audience how the movie was made, and in a fairly vulnerable way, because we included the rehearsal and the writing process as well. You can see an idea progress from Craig and I writing a song, to me singing it -- which is something you might want to skip over -- then Ewan and Nicole singing to each other. It's like looking behind the red curtain and discovering the journey from beginning to end.

Now that you've completed your Red Curtain Trilogy, what's next? Didn't you say you wanted to make a Bond film? I was joking! My point was, what I might WANT to do is make a Bond film or even just take a break, because that would be fun, but what I need to do is something that might make my life journey interesting and fulfilling. Right now I'm in San Francisco looking for places to put up my production of the opera ''La Boheme.'' Then in March I have two months where I just go off on my own with a backpack and a credit card to stir up ideas. I will do other musicals someday, but after every project I take a moment to stop and ask myself, What can I make that could be useful? I mean, do we really need any more crap? I have nothing against junk, I like junk for myself, but I'd rather make one or two films that are useful than a lot of stuff that's only useful for a minute.


Behind the Scenes


Last updated: June 19, 2012


Ewan McGregor
Moulin Rouge
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