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Sofia Coppola
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Sofia Coppola is the writer and director of the two critically acclaimed movies The Virgin Suicides (1999, starring Kirsten Dunst) and Lost in Translation (2003, starring Bill Murray). The daughter of legendary filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, Sofia got her start in the movies as an infant in The Godfather (1972). In her younger years she appeared in a number of her dad's movies, including The Outsiders and Rumble Fish (both 1983), The Cotton Club (1984, with Richard Gere) and Peggy Sue Got Married (1986, co-starring her cousin, Nicolas Cage). Her first movie as a writer/director, the somber The Virgin Suicides, proved that she was an able and mature filmmaker, and the sophistication of Lost in Translation (which earned her an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay) made it clear she was an up-and-coming force in the movies. Her film Marie Antoinette debuted at Cannes in 2006 and starred Kirsten Dunst as the French queen.
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The young Sofia Coppola was that very girl, and the world she inhabited in her formative years, though gilded, could have suffocated a lesser talent. She was born Sofia Carmine Coppola on 14 May 1971, into a Hollywood dynasty where her father, Francis Ford Coppola, reigned supreme. Her mother is Eleanor Coppola, a documentary film-maker; her aunt, the veteran Hollywood actress Talia Shire; and her cousins the actors Nicolas Cage and Jason Schwartzman. The likes of Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and Marlon Brando were regular dinner party guests.
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The daughter of Francis Ford Coppola, Sofia Coppola grew up in Northern California. She made her film debut playing baby Michael Francis Rizzi in her father?s film The Godfather (1972). At two years of age, she made an appearance in The Godfather Part II (1974) as a child on a steamship. Over the next few years she appeared in four more of her father?s films, including The Outsiders (1983), Rumble Fish (1983), The Cotton Club (1984) and Peggy Sue Got Married (1986). She landed a role in a short directed by Tim Burton and a small part in the feature film Anna (1987) directed by Yurek Bogayevicz, before replacing Winona Ryder in The Godfather Part III (1990). Unfortunately, she was awarded with two Razzie awards for her trouble: Worst New Star and Worst Supporting Actress.
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After doing costume design on two films, Sofia Coppola studied fine art at the California Institute of the Arts. She wrote and directed her first film, The Virgin Suicides, which debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in 2000. The film starred James Woods, Kathleen Turner, Kirsten Dunst, and Josh Hartnett and was adapted from Jeffrey Eugenides’ best-selling novel. Ms. Coppola finished her second feature film, Lost in Translation, which opened to critical acclaim this past September. The New York Times Magazine recently lauded her as “the most original and promising young female filmmaker in America.”
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Sofia Coppola was born into Hollywood royalty, the daughter of one of the most applauded film directors of the twentieth century, Francis Ford Coppola (1939–). From the beginning, it seemed she was destined, like her father, for a career in the movies. A few weeks after her birth, Coppola took on her first acting role: as an infant boy in her father's epic film, The Godfather (1972). Throughout her life, she continued to live and work under her father's wing, but his wing often cast a long shadow. In 2004 Coppola finally stepped out of that shadow to claim her own celebrity. She became the first American woman to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Director, for her movie Lost in Translation (2003).
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The big break in writer/director Sofia Coppola's career was being born the daughter of Francis Ford Coppola. Just days old, she was the infant baptized toward the end of The Godfather. As a child she was often an extra in the background of her father's movies, and at 15 she was given a small role as Kathleen Turner's kid sister in Peggy Sue Got Married. At 19, when Winona Ryder backed out of The Godfather: Part III, the elder Coppola asked his daughter to play the part. Untrained as an actress and with barely a week before the cameras would roll, she gave a performance that might have seemed adequate for most other films, but surrounded by major league actors like Al Pacino, Diane Keaton, Andy Garcia, and Eli Wallach, Coppola was the weakest link, and she was mercilessly savaged by critics.
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Sofia Coppola