“Opera was the cinema of its time, so to bring back that popular appeal, you just need to unleash its visceral immediacy and excitement. Most productions don’t manage that – but when an opera does do it, you never forget it.”

I think dance in any culture, in any form, is a true leveler.

I feel like a member of any group comprised of outsiders.

I understand that anything actors are doing, good or bad, is motivated by fear.

Australia, to the rest of the world, is just far away, and Australia in the Thirties was the faraway of the faraway.

Don’t worry about the future.

You really think that on my films people tell me what to do? I don’t think so. On my films I decide.

In the ’80s, everyone wanted to be in opera. It was groovy.

One of my great all-time loves in cinema, and I’ve seen it three times, is Bondarchuk’s ‘War and Peace.’ Not a lot of people may have seen that film. It was made during the Soviet era.

Accept certain inalienable truths.

Your choices are half chance, so are everybody else’s.

My father made sure that I had lots of levels of education – from ballroom-dancing to painting, commando training, theatre and magic.

I don’t have fights with actors. In absolute honesty, I’ve never fought with any actor ever.

Some of the greatest relationship films of all time, the two stars have hated each other, but mostly you see that chemistry.

To be honest, there is a tourists’ trail; my family had a farm and a gas station, and you can go and see my birthplace, though where I lived is actually under a freeway now.

Hurt him. Hurt him and save him

Trust yourself that you can do it and get it