For the role of Gatsby himself, Luhrmann reunited with his Romeo + Juliet star DiCaprio, who, from the 25 minutes of unfinished footage Luhrmann showed me, burrows deep into the role, loosing the obsession at the heart of Fitzgerald’s tale; beneath Gatsby’s smooth exterior roil the same tightly wound furies that hounded DiCaprio’s Howard Hughes in The Aviator. Compared with the 1974 version starring Robert Redford and Mia Farrow, a more sedate affair of tennis whites and lawn-fed languor, which dissolved as tastelessly as a wafer, Luhrmann’s version promises to be a rhapsodic pop opera, bent on wholesale audience ravishment, its roots in the Technicolor spectacle of Selznick’sGone With the Wind but also the theatrical productions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and La Bohème that Luhrmann has staged at the Sydney Opera House.

For the part of Daisy, Luhrmann auditioned just about every A-list actress in Hollywood. “Because of Leonardo, Daisy became a hugely desired role,” says the director, who reportedly saw Scarlett Johansson, Michelle Williams, Blake Lively, Keira Knightley, and Natalie Portman. “In everybody’s mind they have a Daisy Buchanan. It’s like Scarlett O’Hara, how touchy a subject that is. I think of Scarlett as being this precious child star who’s been a star all her life, and that’s true about Daisy. She’s a kind of social supernova; she’s so attractive and dazzling, and she makes you feel as if you’re the only person in the world.” Mulligan’s audition came relatively late in the day. “We did the piece just before the dining-room scene where Daisy and Gatsby kiss. ‘Am I supposed to kiss him?’ she asked me. ‘Yes, go for it.’ She leaned over and she kisses Leonardo.”

Source:Vogue