Sofia Coppola was born on May 14, 1971 in New York City, New York, USA as Sofia Carmina Coppola. She is a director, known for Somewhere (2010), Lost in Translation (2003) and Marie Antoinette (2006). She has been married to Thomas Mars since August 27, 2011. They have two children. She was previously married to Spike Jonze. - IMDb Mini Biography By: Jürgen Erhard
Spouse
Thomas Mars (27 August 2011 - present) (2 children)
Spike Jonze (26 June 1999 - 9 December 2003) (divorced)
Trade Mark
Sun filmed through leaves
Character seen gazing out of a car window from the outside, looking in
Character walking down a long hallway
Introduction scene focusing on the main character during an unidentified point in time, shown to express their loneliness
Casts former child actors as her leads (Kirsten Dunst, Scarlett Johansson, Stephen Dorff, Emma Watson).
Frequenty uses pole-dancing scenes in her movies
Trivia
Cousin of Jason Schwartzman and Robert Schwartzman.
Daughter of director Francis Ford Coppola and Eleanor Coppola (nee' Neil).
Cousin of Nicolas Cage, Marc Coppola and Christopher Coppola.
Designer for street fashion label Milkfed, which she calls "a small t-shirt company"
Replaced Winona Ryder in the role of Mary Corleone in El padrino. Parte III (1990).
Sister of Roman Coppola and Gian-Carlo Coppola.
Is the first American woman and third woman overall to be nominated for the Best Director Academy Award.
In 2004 she became the first American woman ever nominated for a best director Oscar. The two other past Oscar nominees were Jane Campion, who is a New Zealander, and Lina Wertmüller, who is Italian.
Sofia and her ex-husband Spike Jonze have both received Oscar nominations for Best Director, having been the first married couple to do so.
With her 2004 Oscar win for screenwriting, she joined her family, The Coppolas, to becoming the second family to have Oscar winners in three generations with her father, Francis Ford Coppola; grandfather, Carmine Coppola; and cousin, Nicolas Cage, all winners. The first family is the Hustons - Anjelica Huston, John Huston, and Walter Huston.
A friendship of many years with Quentin Tarantino blossomed into a serious relationship recently following Sofia's separation from her husband, Spike Jonze.
Is one of a select few who has won both an Academy Award and a Razzie.
Niece of Talia Shire, David Shire, Jack Schwartzman, and August Coppola.
Studied photography at Mills College in Oakland, California, just east of San Francisco, and painting at the California Institute of the Arts (Cal-Arts) in Valencia, California, just north of Los Angeles.
Designer Marc Jacobs named a bag after her: The Sofia Bag.
Is one of two "Star Wars" cast members to direct a cast mate in a movie. Frank Ozdirected Ian McDiarmid in Un par de seductores (1988) and Terence Stamp in Bowfinger, el pícaro (1999). Coppola directed Hayden Christensen in Las vírgenes suicidas (1999) and Rose Byrne in María Antonieta (2006).
Has stated that her favorite band is The Chemical Brothers.
Her father is of Italian descent. Her mother is of British Isles ancestry.
Her first appearance on film was as the baby in the baptism sequence in El padrino(1972). This was the inspiration for a scene in Star Wars: Episodio III - La venganza de los Sith (2005), in which Chancellor Palpatine declares the formation of the Empire while Anakin Skywalker kills the separatist leaders. Coppola appeared earlier in the Star Wars series, as the handmaiden Sache in Star Wars: Episodio I - La amenaza fantasma (1999).
Friend of Zoe R. Cassavetes.
She was one of the cast members who were involved in all three of The Godfather films, along with Al Pacino. She played as the christened baby in El padrino (1972), as a child on a steamboat in El padrino. Parte II (1974), and eventually as Mary Corleone in El padrino. Parte III (1990). Nevertheless, her appearances in the first and second movie were left uncredited.
Great-granddaughter of Francesco Pennino.
Aunt of Gia Coppola.
Granddaughter of Carmine Coppola and Italia Coppola.
Is an alumnus of the children's theatre group MET2 along with Adam Lambert, Nicolas Cage , Matt McFarland, Kylie Tyndall, Keaton Tyndall, Vivian Bayubay, Nathan Norton, Derek Klena, Lauren Klena, & Roma Watkins.
At age 32, became the youngest woman ever to be Oscar-nominated as Best Director for Lost in Translation (2003).
Her favorite films are La ley de la calle (1983), La última película (1971), Dieciséis velas(1984), Lolita (1962) and Al final de la escapada (1960).
Collaborated with French fashion house Louis Vuitton on a collection of handbags (2008) and the resort collection 2012 (2011).
Gave birth to her first child at age 35, a daughter Romy Croquet on November 28, 2006. Child's father is her boyfriend [now second husband], Thomas Mars.
Gave birth to her second child at age 39, a daughter Cosima Croquet on May 18, 2010. Child's father is her boyfriend [now second husband], Thomas Mars.
(August 27, 2011) Married to her longtime boyfriend, Thomas Mars, with whom she has two daughters: 4-year-old Romy and 1-year-old Cosima. It is her second marriage.
Traveled with her parents when her father was shooting on location, in The Philippines for Apocalypse Now (1979), and in Oklahoma, attending public school there, during shooting of Rebeldes (1983).
Lives in an apartment in Manhattan's Greenwich Village neighborhood.
She appeared in two Best Picture Academy Award winners: El padrino (1972) and El padrino. Parte II (1974).
Personal Quotes
On taking her stage name, "Domino", at the age of 11: "I thought it was glamorous."
"You're considered superficial and silly if you are interested in fashion, but I think you can be substantial and still be interested in frivolity." - when discussing the topic of her movie, María Antonieta (2006).
That's the way I work: I try to imagine what I would like to see.
[on María Antonieta (2006)] All I can say is that I set out to challenge myself with each movie, and having to do a period film was a huge challenge. How to do it in a fresh way, and from the point of view of a strange girl in a strange world? If you attempt something new, it's always a risk.
I was going to art school and trying different things. I was interested in a lot of, mostly visual arts. I didn't know what I wanted to do and then I made a short film and felt like it was a combination of all these interests of mine with design and photography and music. But it was really when I read the book The Virgin Suicides that made me wanna make a movie.
I'm always a sucker for a love story.
[on María Antonieta (2006)] I was drawn to the idea of this girl being so young, and that our perceptions of Marie Antoinette, the myth, how she was turned into this villainous queen, are so different to the actual person, and she was just this kid that got sucked into a weird situation.
We were always around my dad, so he wasn't absentee at all. I don't think it was normal, but it was exciting. You always had lots of creative people around, and my parents took us everywhere. I got exposed to so many different cultures and people. I mean, I got to go to Akira Kurosawa's house as a child.
My dad came on the set of Las vírgenes suicidas (1999) and told me, "You should say 'Action' louder, more from your diaphragm." I thought, O.K., you can go now. I'm not going to say it wasn't intimidating, but when you direct is the only time you get to have the world exactly how you want it. My movies are very close to what I set out to do. And I'm superopinionated about what I do and don't like. I may say it differently, but I still get what I want.
There's so many more female directors than when I started. That's encouraging. Maybe it's because it's such an all-encompassing job, and if you have a family, it's harder to do. But there are female surgeons. And there's plenty of women working in the film business.
After seeing "Cinderella," [my daughter] Romy keeps telling me that she wants to be on the Broadway stage. I'm hoping she'll outgrow that. We'll see. Romy is in the Girl Scouts and I was around this group of 6-year-olds, and we were talking about things and a few of them said, 'I want to be famous.' I thought, Where does that come from? I don't think we knew about that when we were 6 years old.
[on The Bling Ring (2013)] When I read the Vanity Fair [magazine] article about these kids, it summed up everything that I think is declining in our culture. And it just doesn't feel like anyone is talking about it. Kids are inundated with reality TV and tabloid culture so much that this just seems normal. When I go to a concert, everyone is filming and photographing themselves and then posting the pictures right away. It is almost as if your experiences don't count unless you have an audience watching them. There are even videos of kids having their sweet-16 birthdays and they want a red-carpet V.I.P. theme. This movie was about an extreme version of this...It frightens me, and it just seems like this trash culture is becoming acceptable as mainstream culture...I don't know if I would have been as interested in this if I didn't have daughters and know that they're growing up in this world. I think that's the way that it's affecting, because these are kids in the movie, they're so young and impressionable.
My mom is very calm and quiet, so I think I got that from her. Because my dad is passionate and loud. ...It was always interesting and I really enjoyed that my parents always included us in their lives. So we got to be around all these interesting people and go on adventures. I mean there definitely were hard times...as a teenager losing my brother. He died in a boat accident when I was 15 and he was 22, and we were very close. I have one brother now, Roman. I think our family is so close because we would go on location with my dad sometimes, and we weren't around neighborhood kids and so we had to hang out with each other and be friends with each other.
[re filmmaking choices] I feel like when I finish one, the next one is always a reaction to the one before. So after I did María Antonieta (2006), which was so decorative with so many characters, then I wanted to make Somewhere (2010) where it was just two characters, really simple. And then after that, which was so simple and slow paced, I felt in the mood to do this kind of gaudy, flashy, faster-paced one. But I feel like I'm usually just naturally drawn to something. I don't know what I want to do next, but I feel like doing something beautiful after this [The Bling Ring (2013)].
[on Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975)] It seems like it should be boring because it's these very long takes of her washing her dishes and doing these mundane things, but it's really fascinating because the actress [Delphine Seyrig] is so great. She's so natural.
María Antonieta (2006) was the only time I've worked more with a studio, so it was important for me to have creative freedom, I never get myself in a situation where I don't have creative freedom. I learned that from my dad: you put your heart into something, you have to protect it, what you're making. I always like to keep the budget as small as possible just to have the most freedom. You know you get left alone, you get to pick the actors you want to use. I like doing personal films, after doing a bigger movie, I enjoy doing smaller, intimate films. I've always written my own scripts, I really like doing everything from the beginning and taking it all the way through, I've probably learned that from my dad.
I try to just make what I want to make or what I would want to see. I try not to think about the audience too much.
There are always things that I wish were different, or I feel like I've made mistakes. But it's just part of it. I don't mind that it's a little homemade.
My friend's 12-year-old son is really into Rick Ross, and I was like, "What's the most thug song that would be the most poseur-ish for this blond girl to be playing?"
The movie I did before The Bling Ring (2013) was really slow and quiet, so I was just in the mood to do something obnoxious and faster, and something kind of in bad taste.
The story of the Bling Ring seemed to say so much about what's happening in our culture today - all the interest in reality stars and kids posting pictures on Facebook all the time.
People tell me how proud of me my father is. Now that I have a kid, I get it. She can make a little drawing and it's so exciting.
[on the criticism for her performance in El padrino. Parte III (1990)] Because I didn't want to be an actress, it didn't traumatize me. It hurt me to be attacked by the press...but the scars were not permanent. It was painful, but it wasn't devastating.
[on El padrino. Parte III (1990)] Let's see. Did I not wanna do it? Um. I was game. I was trying different things. It sounded better than college. I didn't really think about the public aspect of it. That took me by surprise. The whole reaction. People felt very attached to the Godfather films. I grew up with them being no big deal. I mean, I understand they're great films but... I dunno. I'm not surprised. It makes sense that people would have an opinion about it but I got a lot of attention I wasn't expecting. I was going to art school anyway so I was able to get back to what I was doing. It was before the Internet so magazines would come out but then the next month they were gone. There wasn't even as much paparazzi around then.
