After extra actress Lauren Pagone admitted she was “caught off guard” by Francis Ford Coppola‘s behavior on the “Megalopolis” set, the auteur is refuting claims of being inappropriate.
Coppola told Rolling Stone that allegations of him kissing extras against their will are “totally untrue” and were purposefully made public to “damage” the release of the film.
In a May report by The Guardian, multiple anonymous crew members said that Coppola incorporated “old school” tactics to “try to get [female extras] in the mood” for a nightclub scene. That included allegedly hugging and kissing actresses during takes.
“You’re talking about the Guardian piece, which is totally untrue. If you read that piece, you’ll realize that whoever the sources were — and I honestly don’t know who the sources were — it’s the same people who provided quotes for that Hollywood Reporter piece that said all these people were fired or resigned, and that there was a mass exodus, all of that,” Coppola said, citing the below-the-line team leaving in 2022. “And the truth of the matter is, they were looking for some sort of dirt. The young women I kissed on the cheek, in regards to the New Year’s scene, they were young women I knew.”
Coppola continued, “It’s all so ridiculous. Look at the timing of that article. It’s right before we’re about to premiere the film at Cannes. They’re just trying to damage the picture.”
Lionsgate later picked up the distribution rights for the film after its premiere at Cannes; Coppola’s nephew Robert Schwartzman’s Utopia will also assist with the theatrical rollout.
Previous sources told Variety that writer/director Coppola was unprofessional during the scene in question and ruined takes to touch the actresses in frame. One of the sources claimed that Coppola announced on a microphone, “Sorry, if I come up to you and kiss you. Just know it’s solely for my pleasure.”
Coppola added to Rolling Stone that the reports were indicative of his renegade filmmaker status.
“There’s a prevailing tendency in Hollywood to say, if you follow our rules, you’ll have a better chance of a success. ‘Well, what about Francis? He doesn’t follow your rules,’” he said. “‘Well, look, what’s going to happen to him, he’s going to have a failure’ I’m trying to do something different here. Film is change. I mean, the movies that your grandchildren are going to make are going to be nothing like what we see now.”
The auteur also announced two “potential projects” in the works after what was believed to be his magnum opus with “Megalopolis.”
“One is a regular sort of movie that I’d like someone to finance and make in England, because I don’t have a big history with my wife in England. Everywhere else I go, I’m reminded of her all the time,” Coppola said of his late wife Eleanor Coppola. “The other is called ‘Distant Vision,’ which is the story of three generations of an Italian American family like mine, but fictionalized, during which the phenomenon of television was invented. I would finance it with whatever ‘Megalopolis’ does. I’ll want to do another roll of the dice with that one.”
