“It started out riffing on , but recognizing that we also want to unshackle that story and plant it in more contemporary language,” says Baz Luhrmann, legendary film director—and now photographer of September 2024 cover shoot, starring Blake Lively and Hugh Jackman. Fans of the 1955 Alfred Hitchcock classic starring and Cary Grant will immediately clock the homage: a golden-haired (Hitchcock had a well-known ) glamourpuss, diamonds galore, amid the seaside playground of the Principality of Monaco. But Luhrmann, who shot the cinematic spread (formatted with a type-written screenplay entitled “The Heist of the Heart”) entirely at New York City’s Pier59 Virtual Production using LED Volume technology to produce sweeping backdrops of Monte Carlo, gives us a new tale to ogle over.
“It turns out that our thief is, in fact, to use an old term, a ‘femme fatale,’” adds Luhrmann. “It was all about finding an imagined role for that perhaps we’d all like to see her play.” Luhrmann was inspired by Lively’s sphinx-like role in —its sequel is forthcoming–and cast her husband’s o-star Hugh Jackman as the “L’Ombre” to Lively’s “The Cat.
” (A switcheroo of Cary Grant and Kelly’s roles as the cat burglar and the jewelry-dripping target in the Hitchcock original.) Speaking of jewels, in the haute joaillerie-heavy photos you’ll also find a Cartier necklace with an extraordinary provenance: the ruby-laden necklace belonging to Kelly’s friend and fellow MGM movie star, Elizabeth Taylor. “I think the underlying idea—if this film were to be made—is that you have two people living a lie,” Luhrmann explains.
“Both Hugh as ‘Interpol’s Diamond L’Ombre,’ and Blake as the fake heiress, whose glamor, charm, wit, and beauty are a mask for her reality—a young girl from the streets who, from day one, has had to hustle to stay alive and for whom expensive goods, objects of status, and priceless objects give her the license to play a role.” Luhrmann adds, “And yet she and Hugh’s character have had to shut their hearts off to love for different reasons, so I hope these images are both glamorous and beautiful..
. and a little bit tragic and sad.” For Blake’s character, Luhrmann was keen to pay homage to the bold actresses found in classic 1960s films, from Brigitte Bardot to Veronica Lake—“and of course, the glamour of Grace Kelly,” he adds.
“We knew we had to be strong with the hair.” While most the shots show Lively as a Kelly-esque figure sunning at the Monte Carlo Beach in a retro striped Jacquemus swimsuit, or dripping in a gilt LaQuan Smith gown by a craps table at the Casino de Monte-Carlo, there are a couple of shots that flip the script on its head. One features Lively aglow in the moonlight—a cat burglar in a Balenciaga catsuit—and finally, Lively in handcuffs, caught red-handed.
“The Cat’s slender wrists, encircled not with diamonds but with handcuffs,” reads the September issue script. Styled by Tonne Goodman, the shoot’s production designer, Catherine Martin—Luhrmann’s life partner and longtime collaborator—was also key in bringing the story to life. There was no mood board (“actually, we don’t really work with mood boards, we make up quite realistic storyboards of what we want the images to look like to share with the team,” Luhrmann notes) but instead, Luhrmann, Martin, and her “very talented digital realisateur” made realistic boards of what they wanted the images to look like.
" Luhrmann painstakingly poured over this shoot’s storyboards for several weeks, giving them the same meticulous treatment he would one of his feature-length films. For Luhrmann, it’s always all about the details, no matter how nanoscopic. And while no one traveled to the setting of Monte Carlo, a heady symbol of mid-century glamour, for the shoot, Luhrmann has fond memories of the city, “It's funny one, of earliest memories I have of CM is, for reasons I can’t remember now, finding ourselves in Monte Carlo over 30 years ago.
We were at the famed casino and suddenly fireworks exploded from above—and it reminded me how Monte Carlo was the epicenter of true glamour back in the ’60s.”.
