SCENE CHANGE
Fairlady|January/February 2021
Sofia Coppola is an award-winning director, a mother, a wife and a warm, funny woman you’d like to have as a friend. Her latest film reunites her with Bill Murray, but this time he’s a father figure. (And no, we still don’t know what he said to Scarlett Johansson at the end of Lost in Translation.)
JONATHAN DEAN
SCENE CHANGE

SOFIA COPPOLA WAS FIVE YEARS OLD IN 1977 WHEN HER FATHER, FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA — FRESH OFF THE WILD SHOOT FOR APOCALYPSE NOW — INTERVIEWED HER.

‘I’m a little fishy, and I swim in the water and have two brothers who are fishies,’ she said, before counting in Cantonese. Later, father asked daughter to record a message for her future self. ‘I am Sofia,’ she said. ‘And when I grow up, I want to be a teacher or a nurse. I like being Sofia, because there’s a lot of fun things that I know how to do.’

Forty-three years later, Sofia is on a Zoom call from Napa in California, where her family is and where she grew up. ‘Oh, my God,’ she says, reminded of the recording. ‘Yes, my dad interviewed me when I was a little kid.’ The extended family has been together for lockdown – her husband, Thomas Mars; daughters Romy and Cosima; and brother Roman (one of the ‘fishies’), with his children too. ‘It’s been okay,’ she says. ‘Our kids are a little younger, 10 and 13. But it’s hard for a teenager stuck at home with us.’ Sofia is in a shirt and specs, in a room that looks like it’s waiting to be decorated. Lively chat fills rooms off-camera.

It is in Napa that her father makes his wine, including the Sofia Chardonnay. ‘Light in spirit. Elegant in character,’ the website reads.

This story is from the January/February 2021 edition of Fairlady.

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This story is from the January/February 2021 edition of Fairlady.

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