Baz Luhrmann 'nearly killed' by experience making Australia

Baz Luhrmann admitted making 'Australia' "nearly killed" him.

The 60-year-old director admitted making the 2008 historical epic - which starred Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman - was the most "fraught" filmmaking experience he's ever had because the set was plagued by so many problems, but he doesn't regret any of it.

He told Deadline: "I was really living it, living in north Australia and working with some of our country’s great writers, like Richard Flanagan, learning about the stolen generation.

"As a filmmaking experience, it was by far the most fraught. We were hit by equine flu. I went to the desert to shoot, and it rained for the first time in 150 years, so I had a grass-covered desert.

"It nearly killed me, but I wouldn’t give a day of it up at all.

"Looking at it now, it’s probably the only thing I’ve done where there’s no confetti or fireworks. Actually, there might be, but if there’s no fireworks, there’s definitely a big rainstorm."

Baz admitted he is still perplexed about the film's very different fortunes around the world, because while it flopped in the US, it was a hit throughout Europe.

He said: "It’s weird because in America it didn’t play at all. It’s the only film I’ve had that didn’t really open in America.

"Everything else has played there, but it’s the biggest film I’ve ever had in Europe, and it still is. It’s still my number one movie in France and Spain, and I’m still not sure why.

"I was in Paris a couple days ago. They really lean into 'Australia', and they talk about it like it’s this masterful epic. I’m like, 'Hey, isn’t it the loathed child?'

"But it’s the number two highest grossing Australian film of all time, so somebody saw it."