Baz Luhrmann on His ‘Deep’ Bond with Nicole Kidman: We’ve Shared ‘the Most Traumatic Moments’ (Exclusive)

Baz Luhrmann is convinced that he will always have a “deep friend” in Nicole Kidman.

The Elvis The director has collaborated with the Oscar winner many times, including the movie musical from 2001 Moulin Rouge and an upcoming Hulu miniseries Far fallsits expansion of their 2008 film Australia.

The director, 61, tells PEOPLE that his relationship with the actress extends well beyond their work, explaining that they’ve been through “some of the most traumatic moments of our lives together.”

“She famously went through an extremely significant breakup with her then-husband Moulin Rouge” Luhrmann recalls, referring to Kidman’s divorce from Tom Cruise in 2001. “I lost my father on the first day of shooting. And so on Australia, she actually got pregnant. She really wanted to get pregnant with children. And so we went through many, many life experiences together.”

Baz Luhrmann at the Christian Dior Haute Couture Fall/Winter 2023/2024 show. as part of Paris Fashion Week on July 3, 2023.

Marc Piasecki/WireImage

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He says his first meeting with Kidman, 56, came as a result of working together on an issue Vogue Australia. “I co-edited the edition Voguehe was Australian Vogue, and we were going to LA and I wanted her to be there. We were fast friends,” he recalls.

Luhrmann adds, “[You] you have artists that you become very close to. You have artists that you work with professionally, but you wouldn’t say that you would pick up the phone and say, ‘Hey, I’m in town.’ But Nicole is one of the few artists who were deep [and] is a deep friend.”

According to Luhrmann, Kidman’s family is a big fan of their film Australiawhich also starred Hugh Jackman and has now been expanded to Far falls. “She called me,” he recalls, “and she said, ‘Oh, Bazzy, I’ve been playing Australia family the other day, and it’s their favorite movie.’

Courtesy of Hulu

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He says that things between him and Kidman have long been “nothing but extraordinary.”

“I’ll tell you what Nicole and I have, and she [is] equally a friend. We have extraordinary memories of making that movie,” he says of the shoot Australia with her. “You’ll never have that experience again, because we just don’t make movies like that anymore. We don’t go into the middle of a vicious desert landscape with an indigenous community and cattlemen building cattle stations and houses in the middle of nowhere. I mean, it’s easier to work in the Sahara than in northern Australia. There is better mobile reception there.”

Luhrmann tells PEOPLE that he’s aware that he’s a creature of habit when it comes to casting his projects. “You can see historically when I find someone, like if it’s Leonardo [DiCaprio] or Hugh or Nicole, Austin [Butler], now I’m going to list all the ones I left off the list,” he says. “But when you really connect with an actor, you know he always has more strings on his instrument than he’ll ever have time to play. And one of the great joys for me is reuniting with someone who I not only worked with before, but also love to work with.”

“It’s a joy,” he adds about these reunions. “And you have shorthand when you’ve worked before. So it’s just a question. I never really say ‘I want to do something with X.’ I always say, ‘What story do I have to tell for myself?’ And then, “How will it be useful to get it out into the world?” And then I have to go through the process of going, ‘Well, who’s the best?’ ”

Far falls will be available to stream on Hulu on November 26.

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Source: HIS Education