He praised Martin, who he has collaborated with on several films, including Strictly Ballroom, Moulin Rouge! and The Great Gatsby, as someone he had “profound trust” in as a creative and romantic partner.
“I love her and if she was gone tomorrow, I don’t know what I’d do. But we also are very distinctly different individuals. We understand each other.
“But we have this absolutely real relationship, but we also have our commitment to each other, which is, I think what real marriages are, which is their contracts with each other that, you know are good for each other. There are things you can change and things you can’t.”
Having met in London when Luhrmann was seeking a designer, he said their initial conversation is still ongoing today.
“I have to have some connective tissue, some connectivity with primary collaborators, and that’s how I decide. Is the conversation going on? Is the music going on?” he said.
Baz Luhrmann and Catherine Martin share two children together, daughter Lillian, pictured, and son William. Photo / Gisela Schober, Getty Images for amfAR
“The relationship works in a way in which it works for us. It’s not traditional in so many ways. My kids make a lot of jokes about me.”
The Romeo + Juliet director went on to describe how the couple’s kids jokingly call him RuPaul, in reference to the famed American drag queen.
His daughter Lillian, 22, previously told the Under the Gloss podcast how paparazzi had asked her if Luhrmann was gay, referencing rumours her parents sleep apart.
“That was the first time I felt embarrassed,” she said. “Not embarrassed, but more like, ‘Why are these people talking about my dad? Why are they making fun?’ I’m like, ‘They just have different sleeping schedules’.”
Luhrmann and Martin also share son William, 20.
The Australian creatives have been working on a concert tour film about Elvis Presley off the back of their Oscar-nominated biopic starring Austin Butler.
EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert debuts never-before-seen recordings of Presley during his Las Vegas residency, discovered in Kansas salt mines in 2022.