Sofia Coppola Biography

Date of Birth: May 14, 1971

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. She made one more film appearance, in Inside Monkey Zetterland (1992), before realizing that rather than acting, she wanted to follow in her father's footsteps. She enrolled at the California Institute of the Arts to study Fine Arts.

Her first film was a short that she wrote and directed, called Lick the Star (1998). She made her feature film directing debut with her own screenplay, The Virgin Suicides (1999), starring Hayden Christensen (pre-Star Wars Episode II), Josh Hartnett and Kirsten Dunst. Directing seemed to be the right choice for Sofia, as she won a Young Hollywood Award for Best Director, as well as an MTV Movie Award for Best New Filmmaker.

Coppola, whose cousin is Nicolas Cage, married fellow director Spike Jonze in 1999, then wrote, produced and directed her next feature film, Lost in Translation(2003), a romantic comedy starring Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson. Coppola won a Golden Globe for her screenplay, as well the Lina Mangiacapre Award at the Venice Film Festival for the film. She also received Best Director and Best Original Screenplay nods at the 2004 Academy Awards, winning the Best Original Screenplay Oscar.

In 2003, Coppola and Jonze divorced. She went on to write and direct Marie Antoinette (2006), starring Kirsten Dunst, which won the Cinema Prize of the French National Education System at the Cannes Film Festival. Coppola's latest film, The Bling Ring, is based on the true story of a group of teenagers who robbed the Hollywood mansions of celebrities and stars Emma Watson.

Filmography (director):

The Bling Ring (2013)
Marie Antoinette (2006)
Lost in Translation (2003)
The Virgin Suicides (1999)