Leonardo Di Caprio coming to Great Gatsby Australian premiere

Actors Leonardo DiCaprio and Carey Mulligan in a scene from the film 'The Great Gatsby'. Source: The Daily Telegraph

The Daily Telegraph reports

Leonardo DiCaprio will join his Great Gatsby co-stars Tobey Maguire, Carey Mulligan, Joel Edgerton and Elizabeth Debicki at the Australian premiere of the film in Sydney on May 22.

The cast, along with director Baz Luhrmann, will walk the red carpet at Hoyts at Fox Studios after the world premiere of the film in New York on May 1, and after attending the Cannes Film Festival, where it is the festival opener, on May 15.

The film's other Aussie star Isla Fisher will not be attending the local premiere.

The film, which was shot in Sydney, opens in Australia on May 30.

Will Leonardo DiCaprio be at The Gatsby premiere?

Leonardo shooting scenes for The Great Gatsby. Source: Supplied

Vicky Roach, The Daily Telegraph, reports

Baz Luhrmann's 3D adaptation of The Great Gatsby was shot in Sydney, but it won't hit Australian cinemas a full two weeks after its US release.

The official line from the film's distributor, Roadshow Films, is that the lag will faciliate a proper, star-driven red-carpet premiere in the director's home country.

"We're delighted to welcome Baz home in style," said Joel Pearlman, managing director of Roadshow Films, announcing Gatsby's May 30 release.

"By opening the film after the US, it will provide an opportunity for the stars of the film to attend an Australian Premiere befitting a film like Gatsby.''

While Roadshow Film's comments suggest a celebrity-studded red-carpet premiere, there's no confirmation that Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire and Carey Mulligan will be making the trip for the event.

Since Luhrmann's last outing, Australia, underperformed in the US, it makes sense for the filmmaker to make the US his primary focus.

And of course, Gatsby is actually set in 1920s New York.

Luhrmann will also be keen to make the sort of sparkling, attention-grabbing State-side debut that is likely to linger in the minds of Academy voters.

When Warner Bros pushed the film's release date back from December 25 to May 10, some industry commentators suggested this would harm Gatsby's Oscar chances.

Weaver in fast lane with Lois short film

Jacki Weaver. Photo: Getty Images

Suzanne Carbone, The Age, reports

Jacki Weaver, the actor who proves that being a mature-age woman isn't a hindrance to Hollywood acclaim, can't put a foot wrong. She is starring in the Sydney Theatre Company's production of Uncle Vanya in New York with Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving and Richard Roxburgh, with critics hailing the cast as ''uniformly brilliant''.

Far from turning up her nose at smaller projects after winning international acclaim for her role in Animal Kingdom, Weaver plays the lead role in a short film called Lois - and, to be precise, it's eight minutes long. Written, produced and directed by Alexandra Schepisi, daughter of Fred Schepisi, the film is the shortest of the shorts screening at the Melbourne International Film Festival's ''Australian Shorts'' program.

With runny mascara smudged under Weaver's eyes for the film's poster, the scene is set for Lois to be ''tipped over the edge'' after receiving a letter. Weaver won't be at Russell Street's Greater Union cinema on August 11 for the screening because she will be in the US filming Labor Day, a drama starring luminaries Tobey Maguire, Kate Winslet and Josh Brolin. Schepisi will have her day of labour because she's expecting her first child with husband Jeremy Rouse.

First trailer for Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby makes stylish debut

News.com.au reports

It’s one of the most anticipated cinema events of next year and after months of waiting the trailer for Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby is finally here.

The first peek at the epic period drama has debuted online and the reponse so far has been overwhelmingly positive.

Filmed throughout Sydney late last year, it stars Leonardo DiCaprio as the pivotal character Jay Gatsby in the re-telling of F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel.

The trailer footage has already been described as "visually stunning" and "quite simply spectacular".

The Great Gatsby stars Carey Mulligan, Joel Edgerton, Tobey Maguire and Isla Fischer.

While US audiences will get to see the film on Christmas day - just in time to qualify for the Oscars - Aussie audiences will have to wait until January 10, 2013.

Wild weather can't dampen spirits as winner adds some fizz to Tropfest

Crowds enjoying the films Photo: Quentin Jones

Garry Maddox, The Age, reports

In the race between the films and an approaching thunderstorm, the films won - but only just - at the 20th Tropfest in the Domain last night.

In heavy rain and intermittent lightning, a judging panel that included Cate Blanchett, Geoffrey Rush, Nicole Kidman, Toni Colette, Asher Keddie and John Polson gave the top prize at the country's biggest short film festival to Alethea Jones for Lemonade Stand, a comedy about a man and his grandfather whose efforts to sell lemonade bring a clash with an officious council officer.

She collected her prize in a near-deserted Domain, without a working microphone, amid a few hundred hardy souls sheltering in the VIP tent.

Jones said she was ''absolutely thrilled'' and ready to take the next step in her filmmaking career. Asked whether she planned to step up from shorts to a feature film, Jones said: ''I've got five ready to go.''

She is the third woman to win in the past five years, winning two weeks after signing up for the dole.

In a year in which the 700-plus entries were required to include a ''lightbulb'' as the signature item, Jones's prizes include a trip to Los Angeles to meet film industry executives, a $6000 camera and $10,000 cash.

Second prize went to actor Rupert Reid for Boo!, a comedy about an elderly couple who play tricks on each other, while Michael Noonan's Photo Booth, about soldiers who stumble on a mysterious photo booth, was third.

The festival was almost a repeat for Marie Patane, whose film How Many Doctors Does It Take To Change A Lightbulb? was washed out during the dramatic storm that closed down Tropfest in 2006.

The sequel to that film, How Many More Doctors Does it Take To Change A Lightbulb?, was the final film to screen in torrential rain last night. She won the women in film award.

Veteran Don Reid was named Best Male Actor for Boo!, which also won the Crowd Pleaser Award.

Best Female Actor went to Kate McNamara for the comedy Kitchen Sink Drama, about a proposal gone wrong.

The stellar guest list included Baz Luhrmann, Tobey Maguire, Joel Edgerton, Gia Carides and Rachel Ward.

On the black carpet, Blanchett said she was ''shellshocked'' by how the festival had grown since the early years at the Tropicana Cafe in Darlinghurst.

''It's more than just the films, we're celebrating the whole industry and it's future,'' she said.

Just back from the United States, Kidman said short films were important for actors as well as filmmakers. ''Each little step is a chance to learn and a chance to grow,'' she said.

The Trop Jr competition was won by two 15-year-old school friends from Melbourne, Max Barden and Tim Sheehan, with Let's Make A Movie, a comic short about choosing a genre to enter the competition.

The Great Gatsby actor Tobey Maguire takes wife Jennifer Myer and his children to Sydney's Redleaf Pool in Double Bay

Enjoying the beauty that Sydney has to offer ... Actor Tobey Maguire has brought his family with him as he films 'The Great Gatsby'. Picture: Jane Dempster Source: The Sunday Telegraph

The Daily Telegraph reports

He was once a part of the pack nicknamed "the Pussy Posse" in Hollywood, headed up by Leonardo DiCaprio, magician David Blaine and actor Lukas Haas.

But how times have changed for vegan, teetotalling family man Tobey Maguire, who has swapped nightclubs for nappies as a married father of two.

While DiCaprio seems content to do most of his sight-seeing at night, Maguire was spied this week making the most of Sydney's sunny weather with wife Jennifer Meyer and their two kids Ruby, 6, and Otis, 3.

The cute foursome took a dip at Double Bay's Redleaf pool as Maguire enjoyed a break from filming The Great Gatsby.

It will be one of Maguire's last chances to sample the Sydney lifestyle, with the actor/producer set to return to the US later this month.

Great Gatsby turns into a movie-making marathon

Leonardo Di Caprio shooting scenes from The Great Gatsby in Sydney. Picture: Brad Hunter Source: Herald Sun

Amy Harris, The Herald Sun, reports

It was a wrap. But now it's not. Slated to finish filming just before Christmas, The Great Gatsby continued its marathon shoot in Sydney yesterday after bad weather plagued the production.

Grabbing whatever slivers of sunshine were offered up by Mother Nature, director Baz Luhrmann and his A-list cast assembled at White Bay power station to shoot several more key scenes with star Leonardo DiCaprio - seen striding around the set in a powder-pink suit - joined by Tobey Maguire and Carey Mulligan.

The prolonged shoot has sparked rumours as to just how much Luhrmann's $120 million budget - propped up by a sizeable grant from the NSW Government - has blown out, with one well-placed source estimating the film's delay is coming at a cost of up to $1 million a day.

A rep for the film declined to confirm the rumoured blowout, though an on-set source said the $1 million-a-day figure was "incorrect".

Sydney's rain stops Baz Luhrmann filming Great Gatsby scenes with Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire and Carey Mulligan

LEONARDO DICAPRIO as Jay Gatsby and CAREY MULLIGAN as Daisy Buchanan in Warner Bros. Pictures' drama STHE GREAT GATSBY, a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Picture: Unknown

The Daily Telegraph reports

IF THE unseasonable weather has been getting you down, spare a thought for Baz Luhrmann.

The Aussie director wrapping the final two weeks of The Great Gatsby, but is understood to be stuck in a holding pattern because of the recent Sydney rain.

Luhrmann, who is understood to have just two weeks left to film final scenes with key cast members Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire and Carey Mulligan, is holed up in the Blue Mountains waiting to shoot a pivotal outdoor scene. But a break in the weather could ease the pressure this weekend, with (some) sunshine forecast for tomorrow and Sunday.

A spy on set admits the race is on to bag the scene given DiCaprio, Maguire, Mulligan and Joel Edgerton are all expected overseas for various other projects.

DiCaprio will head to the set for Quentin Tarantino's upcoming western Django Unchained while Mulligan is due in New York to begin shooting Joel and Ethan Coen's Inside Llewyn Davis.

Elizabeth Debicki on kissing Tobey Maguire and working with Leonardo DiCaprio and Carey Mulligan on The Great Gatsby

Revamp ... Tobey Maguire, Leonardo DiCaprio, Carey Mulligan and Joel Edgerton.

Source: The Daily Telegraph

The Daily Telegraph reports

SHE'S the little-known Aussie beauty plucked from obscurity by Baz Luhrmann to play a lead role in one of the most anticipated movies of 2012, and now Elizabeth Debicki has lifted the lid on what it was like working on The Great Gatsby.

Having graduated from the Victorian College of Arts only a year ago, the softly spoken 21-year-old has spoken about intimate scenes with Tobey Maguire and her blooming friendship with co-star Carey Mulligan.

Debicki says she took to playing golfer Jordan Baker, the love interest of Maguire's Nick Carraway, with the same precision she did any acting - especially when it came to kissing.

"I think it's best not to think about it too much," she told a West Australian newspaper.

"Kissing in films, it's just another thing you have to do. It's kind of becomes as technical as how to open a door really."

Debicki joked that when it came time to lock lips with Maguire, who famously shared an upside-down kiss with Spider-Man co-star Kirsten Dunst, her preparation was simple. "Brushing my teeth," she said.

While not mentioning headline star Leonardo DiCaprio, the striking brunette said the cast would often "do stuff together as a group".

"I probably spend more time with Carey really than anyone else. She's just the most beautiful girl, she's a lovely, lovely person and I feel so lucky that on my first job I got to work with such a lovely cast," she said.

Before Gatsby, Debicki - the new face of Jan Logan jewellery - had only had a small part in upcoming Aussie comedy A Few Best Men.

"Some days I just can't believe this is happening," she said.

The Great Gatsby to finish filming in Sydney on December 23 as Leonardo DiCaprio and Kendal Schuler's romance grows

Water crane in use ... Funeral Scene for Leonardo DiCaprio's character Jay Gatsby at Waverley Cemetery.

Picture: Brad Hunter Source: The Daily Telegraph

The Daily Telegraph reports

PRETTY young things of Sydney have a deadline of one week to make an impression on Leonardo DiCaprio, with the actor set to depart on December 23.

A rep for Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby confirmed the (scheduled) wrap day yesterday, saying all the stars would be back at their homes for Christmas.

That includes, of course, DiCaprio, whose appetite for pretty models has become the stuff of local legend since he came to the Harbour City in August.

Arriving as the official beau of Gossip Girl actress Blake Lively, DiCaprio parted ways with the leggy blonde before rebounding with some of Sydney's top models - around 40 of whom attended his birthday party last month. And, spies say, a select few also attended an exclusive after-party at The Star.

But it looks like DiCaprio, who has also been linked to American Victoria's Secret model Karlie Kloss and Romanian lingerie model Madalina Ghenea during the Gatsby shoot, has developed an eye for one particular girl.

It is understood Chadwick Models' Kendal Schuler, the one-time girlfriend of Didier Cohen, has evolved into somewhat of a "steady" for DiCaprio, with the pair spotted walking hand-in-hand on a number of occasions.

"He has dated a lot of girls but Kendal is the one he keeps going back to," a friend of the 21-year-old said.

A rep for Chadwick Models said yesterday: "I have spoken to (Schuler) about this and this is a matter that she just wants to say 'no comment' about."

Luhrmann had to hire a large water crane to shower his actors with artificial rain at Waverley Cemetery yesterday.

The cast was filming the funeral scene following the death of lead character Jay Gatsby, played by DiCaprio.

Partner-in-crime Tobey Maguire, who plays the supporting role of Nick Carraway, was a late attendee, rocking up to Waverley late in the day to take over from his stunt double who spent the morning standing in the rain on his behalf.

Yesterday's shoot was the first time the crew have filmed publicly since shooting at Rozelle several months ago.

They have been tucked away behind the walls at Fox Studios.

Warner Bros is due to release the highly anticipated film on Christmas Day next year.

Leonardo DiCaprio is every bit the Hollywood leading man

 
Click on picture to see the video!

Source: Herald Sun

Tim Vollmer, The Herald Sun, reports

LEONARDO DiCaprio made his much-anticipated first appearance on the Sydney set of the The Great Gatsby on Friday, complete with period three-piece suit and trim straw boater hat.

The star, who plays mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby, strolled the set with co-star Tobey Maguire, rehearsing lines before hopping into a vintage yellow convertible to film a scene behind the wheel.

While Leo had been conspicuous by his absence earlier this week, he was on deck all day Friday as filming went into full swing.

The stylish DiCaprio looked every bit the Hollywood leading man.

The film set is built on the grounds of Rozelle's abandoned White Bay power station, which has been recreated to resemble a barren wasteland on the fringes of 1920s New York.

The Great Gatsby is expected to inject more than $120 million into the NSW economy over the four-month shoot.

While much of the movie will be shot inside the lots at Fox Studios, the main set that remains unseen is the mansion of Leo's millionaire character, Jay Gatsby.

The Great Gatsby shoot underway in Sydney

Story from The Daily Telegraph

Based on F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel, the movie has attracted a host of Hollywood and Australian stars.

The cast includes Leonardo DiCaprio who plays mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby, Tobey Maguire as Nick Carraway and Carey Mulligan as Daisy Buchanan.

Aussie actors Joel Edgerton, Isla Fisher, Jack Thompson and Gemma Ward have also signed onto the 3-D movie.

Luhrmann said bringing Fitzgerald's story to life was a challenge and adventure.

"Fitzgerald loved the movies and was a passionate believer in the power of cinema," he said in a statement on Wednesday.

"The vision and the goal of our remarkable cast and creatives is to do justice to the deftness of Fitzgerald's telling, and illuminate its big ideas and humanity."

Although the story is set in New York in 1922, filming is taking place in Sydney.

"The opportunity to make the film in Australia with the Bazmark creative team is very important to us; the assistance from Screen Australia and the NSW Government has made that possible," Luhrmann said.