theme music plays baz luhrmann, welcome to hardtalk. i'm very happy to be here, stephen.ant to start this interview in herons creek, this tiny little place north of sydney, where you grew up. it was a long way from anywhere, really. how come you, there, developed this incredibly vivid artistic imagination? mmm, you know, some point midway through my journey, i started to get quite self—conscious about — and you do when you're young and you're trying to be someone and be creative — and i gave up on the self—consciousness of going too deep into the "who i am?" and tried to work that outjust by doing. having said that... laughs how do i keep these answers short, because i've never given a short answer in my life? having said that, it never seemed exceptional, strange or unusual to me. i always imagined, when i was in that tiny little island, which was really a gas station and a restaurant and we had a farm down the road and... and your dad ran the gas station? yeah. my father ran the gas station but what was crazy dad was obsessed that the isolation wouldn't keep us isolated