Fresh Air - Sofia Coppola On 'Priscilla'

Episode Date: November 6, 2023

Sofia Coppola's new movie is about the relationship between Priscilla and Elvis Presley -- from Priscilla's point of view. The two met when she was 14 and he was 24. Coppola makes films about the internal lives of young women, including The Virgin Suicides, Marie Antoinette, and Lost in Translation, which she won an Oscar for in 2003. This fall she published her first book, Archive, which covers her career in film. Also, rock critic Ken Tucker has an appreciation of a musician you may never have heard of: singer-songwriter Dwight Twilley.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley. When Priscilla met and married Elvis Presley, she was living every teenage girl's dream. And for years, in films, television, and music, their relationship was romanticized, even after their divorce and Elvis's death. But in most depictions, Elvis was at the center of the story, with little interrogation of their age difference,

Elvis being 24 and Priscilla just 14 years old when they met. In the new movie Priscilla, filmmaker Sofia Coppola uses her signature style to look at their love affair from Priscilla's vantage point, a teenager who comes of age during her romance with Elvis. Coppola adapted the story from Priscilla Presley's 1985 memoir Elvis and Me. This is Coppola's eighth feature film. Some of her others include The Virgin Suicides, Marie Antoinette, and Lost in Translation, which she won an Oscar for in 2003 for Best Original Screenplay. Sophia Coppola, welcome back to Fresh Air. It really seems like we can never get enough of the phenomenon that was Elvis. I mean, we just keep telling variations of his story over and over. But there is something so fresh about what

you have done here by centering Priscilla. And I just want to start with talking a little bit about what it was about this story that made you decide that you wanted to tell it. Thank you. Yeah, I think like you were saying, Elvis and Priscilla are such huge figures in American culture and folklore. It's kind of the closest we have to royalty. And I realized when I was reading her book how little we know about her. I just, you know, there's these images in my mind of her and her cat eyeliner and her big hair and beauty and glamour. But I didn't know that much really about her story. I knew she was much younger.

So when I read Priscilla's book, I was really surprised that she was living in Graceland while she was in high school, and I thought, God, all the things we have to go through as a teenager, she was going through while she was living in Graceland with Elvis, and that's just at the time in your life when you're trying to figure out your identity and all these kind of big stages in your life. And that she, her book was really relatable because she goes through things that, you know, most girls go through as you grow up, but in such an unusual setting. That was such a surprising detail to know that she was in high

school living with Elvis. How much did Priscilla Presley have on the film storyline? I see that she was one of the executive producers. I approached her and asked her if I could option the rights to her book to make a film of it. And she, you know, thought about it and agreed because she was, you know, said that she liked my work and knew that I was had a sensitive approach. And, you know, she was still very protective, obviously, of the story. And it's very her life and it's private. But she wrote this book and so she agreed. And then she came on as an executive producer. So she was available to me to answer questions and went through the script.

And it was really important for me that she felt good about the film, that she felt like it represented her story. So it was the first time that I had to think about not only what I wanted to express as an artist, but also taking into consideration how to make sure that it was respectful of her and, you know, accurate to her experience. So Priscilla and Elvis met each other in Germany. He was stationed there, of course, during the war. Her parents were there. That's why she was there. Her parents were apprehensive as any parents would be. And Priscilla says they gave in and let her see Elvis because

she threatened to run away if they didn't. But you also reveal in this very subtle way something else. And that's the power of celebrity, how we can be wooed by a pop star like Elvis. But then there was another part of it that I was really fascinated by. And it's like how members of a network can influence each other. And in this case, it was the military. Was that fascinating to you? Yeah, no, that's a really good point. Because I think before they met him, they were like, no way, absolutely not. They were protective parents. But then he came in full uniform with, you know, very respectful and spoke to her father. And there was that man-to-man military code as well as them being so charmed by him. I think he must have been so charismatic and, you know, lovable. And, you know, they didn't strike me from what she said and what I've read,

the kind of parents that were pushing their kid to try to get into Hollywood. Like you've heard, you know, some stories. I felt like they were productive, but that they were, you know, charmed by him and let up. But I felt like there was a lot of tension of that thing of, you know, which I can imagine. As a mother of a teen, when your kid is convinced that their whole life will fall apart if they don't get what they want and you're having to balance that with what's, you know, healthy for them. So I can imagine what a dilemma, but it's hard to imagine ever letting your kid go into, you know, move in with a pop star. A pop star, a man, it doesn't matter. Of course, with today's eyes,

most of us would say Elvis groomed Priscilla. And that really comes across in the film. But it's also really remarkable to me that somehow you made a world where there's no judgment in the telling of the story. Elvis is a flawed character, but there's no indictment. And I'm just wondering if it was tricky to do because the mythology around him is so strong. Well, I'm glad you say that because I was trying to handle that delicately and sensitively. And I always went back to Priscilla's story. And I felt like my role was just to explain her experience and always go through her point of view and what it was like for her at that age as a teenager. Imagine if this huge pop star that you have a crush on or the sexiest man alive picks you out and the thrill and what she's feeling and not to look at it from any other viewpoint.

Elvis' estate denied the right to use his music. And it kind of seems like that ended up working in your favor. I didn't actually even realize it until after I left the theater. Oh, that's good. Yeah. How did you work around that? You know, I always knew that we might not be able to. So there were a couple of his songs that I'd wanted to use, but I always knew that we might have to have backup plans and figure something else out. And because the focus is her story, it's kind of cool that there isn't even Elvis music in it. But I would have liked to have, there's a song, Pocket Full of Rainbows, of his that I love, I listened to a lot during filming that I wanted to use. But yeah, no, I'd heard that they you know controlling about the material made on him and

they like to that they participate in things that they originate so I understand that they don't want someone else doing their version but I thought you know with Priscilla being such a part of the story that we might have access but I when we started thinking about the soundtrack she talks about Venus playing in the diner when she first meets the friend of Elvis who brings her over. And so I started listening to that. And that started to be the beginning of our soundtrack with my husband's band, Phoenix, worked with me. And they thought of doing an instrumental version that became her kind of little girl theme song in the first part of the story. And then it evolves.

And the whole setting of 60s Memphis was something exciting for me because it's sort of exotic. It's not anything familiar with my upbringing. Yeah. This music wasn't the type of music that you grew up listening to, but you are known for using music in a very interesting way

to kind of use contemporary music to go back in time or different unexpected uses of music. Was there anything in particular with this film that you were like, I think I want to try this now that we know we can't use Elvis, Elvis's music? Yeah,

to me it was just going into that era. I, I didn't listen to a lot of that music growing up, but I loved, I always loved girl groups and, and Phil Spector. So that, that was familiar to me.

And so I thought about, that's my favorite of that era. And, and there's something about the Phil Spector sound that has that has like a grandeur and this big production and kind of swelling and strings. It's really romantic. And I wanted the story to be ultra romantic of her, you know, first teen love and sort of this fairy tale. It looks, you know, perfect on the outside and then it sort of melts in the reality of when she goes into this world. And it has Alice in Wonderland feeling to me, too, her time in

Graceland. I see that, yep. So I was thinking about that kind of Phil Spector sound, and then I remember that Ramones recorded an album with him, and I love that song. So to me, they all have that kind of, that through line of a sound sound in common but i always to me it's always important that the emotion that the music underlines the emotion and and when um benic suggested crimson and clover like to me that's such a goosebumps moment after her first kiss that it has to be really epic so so it was really fun to piece it together sofia i read it wasn't easy to fund this film. I think people might actually be surprised by that. Is it true that you had to slash 10 pages from the script? Yeah, that was

one of the hardest things I ever did. It was a couple weeks before shooting and my producer said we have to cut a week out of the schedule. We have to cut out 10 pages. And I was like, what? It was so hard to do. But actually, it was a great exercise later. It all worked out. We were able to piece it together. And in a way, it was was like eight months pregnant, and she was trying to keep up with them and still be fun. Even though she was eight months pregnant, she was going to ride a motorcycle with them. And I just love the visual of that and just that she was always trying to be the ideal woman at every stage. That is definitely the thing that we take away is there was just a yearning to belong, which is also a teenage thing, too. This wherever you're in, whatever environment, you want to be a part of that ecosystem, that group. Yeah, that's so true.

It's so true at that age. And I think she was just kind of coming into, you know, being a woman. And so she was wanting so much to be his, he had such strong ideas of the ideal woman, and she was trying to be that for him and always trying to kind of reach that unattainable role in his eyes. And I was so impressed that she had the strength to leave him when she did as a, you know, a young woman, because she, woman, because her formative years were so centered around being Mrs. Elvis Presley. This was something that felt like maybe an evolution to the stories that you tell, because

basically she's a young woman who outgrows, I mean, she's outgrowing her teenage fantasy. She finds a way to free herself from this larger-than-life man. And so many of your other movies, I'm thinking about Marie Antoinette, for instance, it acknowledges the powerful men, but the women are really never able to get away. Yeah, that's true. Was that something you identified for yourself in this film and in the storyline, you being interested in it? Yeah, I loved—that was a big part of it to me that she left I was so struck by that especially at that time it was so much harder than it is today and I you know I have friends their mothers went through divorce in the early 70s and how how difficult it was to divorce a powerful man especially she had no income of her own and to

have that that strength that she knew that she had to find her own identity outside of him and make the life that was right for her and her daughter. I was really impressed by that. Hair and makeup played such a huge part in us understanding where we were in the story and watching the film and really the story of them, period. Like when you look back at photos and video, we always can orient ourselves based on how they look. Definitely.

It was, of course, it's always fascinating how interested and involved Elvis was in Priscilla's look. Her hair and her makeup and her clothes. Were there any other surprises in the way Elvis perceived or valued aesthetics or Priscilla's look that really stood out to you? She talks a lot about that in the book. We show in the film,

like he had really definite ideas of how she should look. And she was almost like this doll to him. And she, I think at first it was fun. You know, he would take her to these stores with glamorous dresses and intimidating, but, you know, exciting. And then like trying to, I know that thing when you're young, you're trying he would take her to these stores with glamorous dresses and intimidating but, you know, exciting. And then like trying to – I know that thing when you're young, you're trying to be more grown up or fit in with the older kids.

And so I, you know, approached it like that. But, yeah, he was so particular from his experience in movies, you know, about makeup and whatever. So she was really trying to fit in, as you said, in that world. And it was so helpful to see all these photos of her in the different eras and how tall, sometimes the hair would remind me of Marie Antoinette, like the hair got really tall and she's so known for that cat eyeliner. And one of the details from the book that I loved that is in the film is that she was putting on her false eyelashes, that she was going into labor for her baby. And just the commitment to glamour at all times. I think she was always done. I don't

think she ever went downstairs without full hair and makeup and dressed completely. And she said he always came down in a full outfit. There was no lounging around and outside. That also sounds like something of the time. People just dressed all the time, too. Yeah, people dressed up to travel. And I love that the bags matched the shoes. And yeah, it was such a different era. So it was fun to recreate that.

What was it like casting for Priscilla and Elvis? Because they've been portrayed so much. Yeah, it was daunting. I mean, the first thing I thought of is for Priscilla, how am I going to find an actress that can play 14, believably, to 28? You know, that range. And it's always important to me that the teenager feel authentic and not, you know, that that's done right.

I asked my casting team, you know, for help, and they suggested me meeting Kaylee Spaney because she was an up-and-coming actress that they thought was talented. And I remember seeing her in something else and I thought, oh, I thought she was like 15. I couldn't believe she has such a baby face. And when I met her, she really looked like a kid. And so, yeah, so I felt like she could pull that off. And because she's in her 20s, I knew that she could, you know, express the older woman. And Kirsten Dunst had just worked with her. And so I asked her, you know, if she liked

working with her. And she told me how much she did and how talented she thought she was. So that really gave me the confidence that I felt like that we would work well together because I trust Kirsten so much. And then with Jacob, I thought, no one looks like Elvis. Like, how are we going to do this? And yeah, I was asking all my friends, like, if you have any ideas. And a friend of mine said, check out Jacob Elordi. Who was on Euphoria. Yeah. And I hadn't seen, I had seen one episode with my daughter, but I can't watch it as a mother. I know, right? Yeah. Yeah. So I wasn't that familiar with him, but I, you know, I had a sense of him. And then I met him and he just was so, he was really sweet and thoughtful and very charismatic. You brought up Kirsten Dunst,

who you've worked with many times before, The Virgin Suicides, Marie Antoinette. And you've also worked a lot with Bill Murray, of course, in Lost in Translation, A Very Murray Christmas. I have always been fascinated by people who are able to work with each other over and over again. What is it about these folks that keeps all of you coming back to each other? Yeah, I mean, I've loved working with them. And I always have a great experience on set. I just, we always have a really, you know, lucky to have a great team together. And, but I have a special connection with Bill and with Kirsten. And Kirsten, working with her on my first film in Virgin Suicides, we just, you know, formed a bond that I always love to work with her and always am excited about projects that I can do with her. And she just has a way of expressing some side of myself or something I'm thinking about in a way that is very, we barely have to say.

She just gets it and we have a shorthand. And I love her sensibility and her sense of humor and how she, it's just fun to see what she does with the material. And we kind of grew up together in our career life. And as people, I met her when I was 29, and now we both in that time have had kids, and it's fun to see her now be a mother. So she's like a little sister. And Bill is just someone that really took a chance on me with Lost in Translation

and just really brought so much to the story that I was like convinced. I just said I wasn't going to make that movie if he wasn't going to do it, and I pursued tracking him down for like a year. And he finally met with me and agreed to come to Tokyo for this crazy short shoot. But we were like up all night shooting in the hotel. So we wouldn't disturb guests. And it was just an adventure. And he really just brought so much to it.

And so I'm always grateful. And now I'm happy to have him be someone in my life that I can count on. Yeah, I can't get enough of that story about how you were so nervous that Bill Murray wouldn't show up for the Lost in Translation filming in Tokyo. But even before that, the part of the story that I think I love the most or it cracks me up is I don't even know if it's true but that you were trying to get in touch with him you could not get in touch with him you really had envisioned him for this film that you saw like Bob Costas on a plane that's true I was so desperate I spent like a year I have I've made a little kind of video diary that I have called waiting for Bill and it was I was just like obsessed and asking anyone I knew,

how can I, he didn't have an agent. And he, at the time, had this 800 number where you could leave messages. And then I remember, yeah, sitting, after like months and months of trying to track him down, sitting by Bob Costas and thinking like, well, maybe if he's sports, maybe he knows him through golf. Like, do you know Bill Murray? I was just like a crazy person at that point.

And luckily my friend Mitch Glazer, who's a writer and an old friend of Bill's, looked at some pages I had and thought it was something interesting for him and introduced us. And I always remember the first time he was with him at dinner. And he said, Oh, you know, Sophia wants to meet you. And I just got a call out of the blue saying, Can you come over right now and meet us at this restaurant? I'm here with Bill in New York. And I like ran over. I had someone like that would restaurant? I'm here with Bill in New York. And I, like, ran over. I had someone, like, that would babysit my phone when I was in a class. I was taking an acting class working on this movie.

And I had someone, I forgot about this, but someone had to babysit my phone outside the class in case Bill called. Like, it was so, so it was really the focus of my life for that year. And I was so happy to finally meet him. And he said, I, he might be inclined, you know, to do it. And I remember he was wearing a seersucker suit and always remember this moment. And then he, yeah, he kind of said that, yeah, that he would think about it and that he thought he would do it, but we never had a contract or he wouldn't let us book his flight or anything. So there was that moment where I was spending all this money in Tokyo, starting the production just on the hope that Bill was going to show up. And then when my producer, I got this call, he said, the eagle has landed and Bill showed up

in Tokyo. I was like, thank God. Let's take a short break. If you're just joining us, my guest is filmmaker Sophia Coppola. She's talking with us about her new movie, Priscilla, which she wrote and directed. It's based on Priscilla Presley's 1985 memoir, Elvis and Me. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies.

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That's James Earl Jones in conversation with our host, Terry Gross, more than 30 years ago, speaking about his childhood stutter. You can hear what that meant to Jones for yourself and hear all of our episodes sponsor-free by becoming a Fresh Air Plus supporter at plus.npr.org. This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley, and today we're talking to Sofia Coppola about her new film Priscilla, which is a coming-of-age depiction of Priscilla Presley's years with Elvis Presley. The two met when she was 14 and he was 24. Priscilla is Coppola's eighth feature film. Some of her other films include The Virgin Suicides,

Marie Antoinette, and Lost in Translation, which she won an Oscar for in 2003. Sofia Coppola's films often deal with themes of loneliness, wealth, and privilege, isolation, femininity, and adolescence in America. This fall, she published her first book called Archive, which covers her career in film. It's constructed from Coppola's personal collection of photographs and other archival materials, including annotated scripts and unseen behind-the-scenes documentation. You remarked, Sophia, that you and Priscilla have some similarities in that you both grew up in a bubble of celebrity, of course, in different ways, with you being the daughter of famous filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola. What are the parts of Priscilla's story that felt

familiar in your own life? Yeah, I mean, I can't imagine anything on the scale of what she went through to be around, you know, someone so famous. And that must have been such a shock because her childhood was nothing like that before. You know, I know what it's like, the difference between a celebrated public person and then in private they're a normal person. And I'm seeing the way people acted around my dad

or going to the Cannes Film Festival as a kid. So I had some sense of how people act around celebrity and, of course, nothing to the scale of what Priscilla experienced. And I remember talking to my mom about how, you know, some of her frustrations of being a woman of that era. And it interested me because Priscilla was the same generation of my mom. And the idea that, you know, my mom said that you were, you know, to have a successful husband and a beautiful home that was supposed to

be enough to fulfill a woman. And she, you know, felt so confused that she had, you know, creative expression that she wanted to realize. And, you know, that what was wrong with her that she wasn't happy with just, you know, having a family and a beautiful home and just to know how different the roles of women are. And when Elvis tells Priscilla she wants to get a job and he says, no, I need you to stay at home. And that that was just what was expected of women at that time. Do you see your mom differently now that you're a parent?

Your mom traveled with your dad when he made films. And do you have thoughts on what that must have been like for her? Yeah, you know, I appreciate she always brought all her stuff with us. Like we lived in Tulsa, Oklahoma during the Outsiders.

We weren't there that long, maybe like six months. And she brought all my furniture and all my stuff and like hamster cages like everything and i just think like so that i she always kept our childhood really grounded and i feel so grateful to that because it must have been a pain like that she but she really um kind of what like you know would go to extreme lengths to make sure that we felt like we were at home wherever we were. Right, because your father, as a very successful filmmaker, traveled a lot of places, and you

all always traveled with him. That was something that was important to him. Yeah, we always went on location, which was always fun and exciting because we lived in all these places. But I was homesick, too, and I would miss, you know, we would go to local schools, too, so I was always lost at school. But it was, yeah, it was always an adventure. And it related to Priscilla being an army brat, because that's how I grew up, always going to be the new kid at school. So I can relate to that.

And now I'm so grateful that they brought me to set all the time, because that's how I learned how to make movies. I know you and your father talked a lot about filmmaking early on do you all still talk about it yeah it's really impressive that he never tires of this object he's so still so enthusiastic and every time I see him he's like I was recutting one of my right now he's recutting one from the heart and he's like discovered something new about editing like he's I've just never seen someone that's so excited about the medium that he's working in. So he's really given that love to us. When you were younger, were there any films that you really gravitated towards that you really loved or that your father introduced you to?

You know, my dad was always watching world cinema, foreign films that he loved. So we were always exposed to that. We were, you know, just around and he was watching a lot of cinema, foreign films that he loved. So we were always exposed to that. We were, you know, just around, and he was watching a lot of Kurosawa films and, you know, Italian and the French New Wave. So I can't think specifically. I remember seeing Breathless as a teenager and thinking it was really cool,

and that's still something that I reference when I'm, you know, thinking about cinematography. And I still think about the shots of them kind of around the apartment. It feels very intimate. And there's something about when you hold a camera close to an actor has a different feeling than if you're far away with a tighter lens.

There's like the physical closeness. That's something that I definitely think about. It seems like we see it in your work. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I think so. Just that sort of intimacy and people in there, yeah, at home and the way they are definitely think about. It seems like we see it in your work. Yeah. Oh yeah. I think so that just that sort of intimacy and people in there. Yeah. At home and the way they are when they're alone. Let's take a short break. If you're just joining us, my guest is filmmaker Sophia Coppola.

She's talking with us about her new movie, Priscilla, which she wrote and directed. It's based on Priscilla Presley's 1985 memoir, Elvis and Me. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. This is Fresh Air. This is Fresh Air, and today we're talking to Sofia Coppola about her new film, Priscilla, which is a coming-of-age account of Priscilla Presley's years with Elvis, who began seeing her when she was 14 and he was 24. This is Coppola's eighth feature film, and some of her other films include The Virgin Suicides,

Marie Antoinette, and Lost in Translation, which she won an Oscar for in 2003 for Best Original Screenplay. This fall, she published her first book called Archive, which covers her career in film. It's constructed from Coppola's personal collection of photographs and other archival materials. Sophia, how did you come up with the idea for your book Archive? You know, every time I finish a film, I kind of throw all the stuff from my desk and the materials from prep in a box.

And I guess during the pandemic, I was looking for some photos and sort of going through them. And I found all these packets from a Japanese one-hour photo place, all these packets of photos from Lost in Translation, and I thought I should do something with them and make a scrapbook because I felt like, oh, now there's been enough films that I hoped that young filmmakers or young people that are interested in my work, it might be interesting to see the references and where things, you know, how things are made a little bit. And for me, it's fun to see how continuity photos were Polaroids and location photos and also share the work of all my collaborators, you know, to share the work that we all did together. Yeah. I mean, you mentioned your young fans. I heard there was a line wrapped around the corner during a recent book signing here in L.A., and most of the people in line were young women who were deeply moved. They feel seen by your work. Why do you think generations of new fans continue to connect with you so deeply? Yeah, I was so touched by that.

It was so moving to see these young women because I made those films for young women. And at the time, not very many people saw them. They got very small releases. They young women. And at the time, not very many people saw them. They got very small releases. They weren't really, they didn't really connect at the time. You're talking about like Virgin Suicides and Marie Antoinette. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Those were, they had very, the releases did not, were not successful. They weren't really seen. And then I remember when I was working on Bling Bling, Leslie Mann told me that she wanted to do my film and that her daughter loved Virgin Suicides. And I thought, how does her daughter even know about that movie? It wasn't, she wasn't even born then.

And it was really cool to discover there was a whole new generation that had, you know, had been seeing the films because of the internet. And then, yeah, recently just, you know, that those films have had another life just means so much to me because I didn't make them for young women. And the fact that they still speak to young women today is so cool. Have you watched any of the TikTok tribute edits? You know, people do edits of different films. There's so many edits of Virgin Suicides. I mean, teenage girls are still very obsessed with it. Oh, that's so cool. No, my daughters kind of roll their eyes and they're like, oh, you're trending on TikTok again.

But I don't. Yeah, no, I have to ask them to show me. They showed me some Priscilla ones the other night, so that was fun to see. But I'm kind of oblivious to TikTok. But I'm happy that the mood of it still feels resonant. Has being a mother of daughters shifted or changed your point of view about the interior lives of teenagers? I mean, you're seeing it now from different vantage points as a mom. Yeah, it's so interesting. I mean, I love teenage girls, and it's fun to pass by their rooms and see these still lives that look like, you know,

still life and virgin suicides with, you know, perfume bottles. And it, you know, reminds me of that age, which I still feel connected to. But obviously it's so different now. And I think when I was working on Priscilla, it definitely helped to have both perspectives. And when I was filming the scene of her first kiss, I was so glad that Kaylee is in her 20s because I would never have been able to direct a teenage girl with this older guy.

Even though at the time, I know that feeling that you don't think, but as a mother, I was doing these scenes with the rebellious daughter while I'm living at home. I'm a mom of teenage girls. So many young women, and I'm saying this because I have a teenage daughter in my house, and she's kind of obsessed with you, by the way. Oh, wow. I'm so flattered. But, you know, what really seems especially true is that through your work, young women see a pathway to finding their point of view. That's another part of it. Like you give them language and aesthetics for that. And I'm just wondering for you as someone who has had to really break through really like that nepotism baby talk. Yeah.

Found the clarity to find your point of view. Yeah, I mean, I remember in my 20s really trying to figure out what I wanted to make. And when I read the book of Virgin Suicides, I had such a clear idea of how it should look and feel and what I wanted to express in it. And I had a great photo teacher, Paul Jasmine, who was teaching at Art Center, who was one of the first people that... I was taking photos and told me that I had a unique point of view, which no one outside of my family had ever told me that. It gave me the confidence that, oh, maybe my point of view is worthwhile. And so I started working on Virgin Suicides, which was related to the kind of photography that I was doing at the time. And also spending time in Japan in the early 90s,

there was a photographer hero mix and, and a lot of this kind of girly culture and this kind of snapshots of girls in their rooms. And, and that world was, um, inspiring to me and felt, I felt connected to it, but I wasn't seeing it in any movies. I never saw teenage girls depicted, or rarely, I'll say, rarely depicted in a way that I felt was relatable and kind of true to that experience for me. So yeah, the fact that there's, you know, girls and young women that feel seen, and a lot of them are telling me they want to be filmmakers, and it's so exciting that I think, oh my God, there's going to be a huge wave of all these films made by these young women that I, you know, I can't wait to see. Are you still as innately curious about their interior lives in the same way that you were earlier in your career? Or are there other themes that you're also curious about these days?

I've always liked stories about identity and how people become who they are. So I think it can manifest in different ways. But I do, I don't know if I feel a connection to that, but I do also feel like I need to grow up and do other subject matter. Really? Yeah. I don't know. What does growing up mean? Yeah, I don't know.

I do have older, and I'd love to, I always want to find other things to do with Kirsten. And no, I'm interested in different characters, not just that side. But the part of it I like is, I've always liked stories about transformation, and that's such an extreme time of transformation. And also, I think, you know, you have more time and emotional space to really, you know, think about deep things where, I don't know, when you're older, you're kind of busy doing life. It's true. You know, one thing I was interested in knowing more about is when you were reading Priscilla Presley's memoir, it was at the height of lockdown, right? Is it right that you had COVID? Oh, you know what? I guess it was two years ago.

I was at home with COVID and just like in bed for a week by myself, like contemplating life. And those kind of breaks that you do, which after that, I was like, I have to do that more often where you just take a sick week and just take the week off to be quiet and think about what you really want to do. And I was working on another project that I'd spent really the past two years working on. And it was a big, ambitious, expensive Edith Wharton story. And it was all falling apart. And I just was like, I'll have to muster up the energy to keep going. And then I just kind of paused. And one of my good friends said to me, like, you need to go back to being a director and to you know like you've been spending the last few years being a producer trying to get something together and financing and and like you need to do what you like do what you do and um and when I was thinking I had been thinking a little bit about

this um personal story then I thought in that moment like yeah i could see exactly how to make this and just i got really excited about the actual making of it as a director and the visuals and um and i remember calling my agent saying i want to do this and and just switching gears and um and just jumping into this yeah i'm just very fascinated by space like allowing you the space to think deeply about like what is the project that I'm going to take on and how am I going to take it on? And I'm hearing from you, too, that there is a big difference in the type of mind you need as a producer versus a director. It sounds like a director is when you get in the creative. Definitely, definitely.

I like both. And I do the producing side because I like to have control so that I have the most creativity to make what I want to make. But it's a different mode in that the producer has to be practical, and as a director, you're just interpreting things in a visual way, and it's more intuitive and emotional and about the actors and creating, and the creating the world, which, which I love to do. So, so yeah, it's important to have that quiet moment to figure out what you really want to do. Cause I, I never want to do anything that I don't connect with, but I, my mom told me this, I don't know exactly, but this Agnes Martin quote that she loved, who's a painter that my mom admires. And, and she told me recently that she was obsessed with quote, and it was, do what you want to do, don't do what you don't want to do, and make the space or the quiet to hear that, which I thought is such a good thing to remember. Yeah. You know, what's really interesting is this is the fourth time that you've been on Fresh Air. And it was great, actually, to listen back to your old interviews

because it really feels like we're following you through every stage of your career. You're very far from the nepotism baby moniker. I mean, you have a name in your own right. I mean, I'm just wondering if you're looking at your career in phases, what phase would you say that you're in now? Yeah, you know, I don't, usually I'm just so busy trying to make stuff and fighting to get it made that I don't pause and look at it. And by making this book, it was nice to just have a moment where I looked like, wow, I have a whole

body of work. I didn't realize that you don't usually sit back and see that. But yeah, I'm so grateful because it was really, I remember it was a lot of work and really daunting in my beginning of my career to be taken seriously and to make a name for myself. And that's why I get annoyed with the Nepo baby thing, because I worked really hard to be seen as my own person, and it means a lot to me. Sophia Coppola, I really enjoyed talking with you. Thank you so much for this conversation. Thank you. It's been great to talk to you. I appreciate it. Award-winning filmmaker Sophia Coppola.

We spoke with her about her new film Priscilla. Coming up, critic Ken Tucker has an appreciation of rock singer-songwriter Dwight Twilley, who died last month at the age of 72. This is Fresh Air. This is Fresh Air. Our rock critic Ken Tucker has an appreciation of rock singer-songwriter Dwight Twilley, who died late last month at the age of 72. Over the course of a career that began in the 1970s, the Oklahoma native had only two top 20 hit singles, but was widely considered a key figure in the subgenre of power pop. You may have heard his best-known song, I'm On Fire, played in the most recent season of the TV show Reservation Dogs.

Ken has these thoughts about a rocker who never quite became a rock star. Put your lady on the line Put your name on the glove Put your friend on 99 Oh, then you ain't got no love And you, and you, and you ain't got no love. You ain't, you ain't, you ain't got no love. You ain't, you ain't, you ain't got no love. The Dwight Twilley Band released the song I'm On Fire in 1975.

It was a small miracle, a great pop tune with not one, but two hooks. The first came at the end of the verse, the you ain't, you ain't got no lover phrase that I played to start this review. The second hook comes up just a little later, right where you'd expect it, in a chorus that draws you in. You get singed by this guy who's on fire seemed to come out of nowhere, but had its origin in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where Dwight Twilley had met Phil Seymour after a local screening of A Hard Day's Night. Buzzed on Beatlemania, they formed a band and cut I'm On Fire at Shelter Records, the label co-founded by another Oklahoman, Leon Russell. Twilly had classic teen idol looks, high cheekbones, deep-set eyes, a perfect shag. He was ready to set the world on fire. It never happened. In my eyes Oh, oh, oh, oh

Joking Oh, oh, oh, oh The magic in my eyes In my eyes Baby, in my eyes The Dwight Twilley Band released their debut album Sincerely in 1976, the same year the debut album by the Ramones helped kick off punk rock. Between the abrasiveness of punk and the chart-topping soft rock of the Eagles,

the sound Twilley was making, crisp but pretty, vehement but intimate, fell through the cracks. He was among the first of a subset of power pop artists who made catchy, jangling guitar music that never caught on with the masses, such as Matthew Sweet, Big Star, Shoes, and one of the Phil Seymour joined after he split from Twilley, the Plimsolls. Here's Twilly from that debut. And when you're thinking of me Respect, respect my sanity Love you, love you, love you Three persons is a thought in the sight of romance Oh baby, oh no, no baby

I love that song, Three Persons, for the utterly charming awkwardness of its opening line. Quote, Three persons is a thorn in a side of romance. Uh, say what, Dwight? A bit later, he sings plaintively, Respect, respect my sensitivity. And that is the perfect, boiled-down essence of all power pop music. It's the genre that showcases mostly men singing about mostly women in moments of romantic agony.

A guy's heart gets broken and he doesn't get angry, he doesn't get bitter, he doesn't get revenge. He drops any macho pretense, he suffers and yearns and lays himself open to ridicule while begging, respect my sensitivity. And here's one reason Dwight Twilley never became a rock star. Respect and sensitivity aren't high on most people's list of sentiments to dance to. I've been all over the world Well, I've been upside down So I did it all for a while I thought I knew everything Between the bad and the good I guess I was wrong

Because I misunderstood about girls Girls Well, when I was young My daddy sat down with me He said a good life is hard If you don't know what you need. Well, I guess he was right because the way that it's been, there's still one thing I just can't understand. That's girls.

They want you to tell them that you love them. When I saw on social media that Twilley had died, I discovered that I was friends with him on Facebook. I try to maintain a distance from artists whose work I might review, but I think in this case, with Twilly lacking a record deal or a PR company, I must have accepted his Facebook friend request as a way of making sure that I'd know when he put out new music. Twilly never lost the knack for dramatizing the pain of love rejected. If you're ever looking to find a soundtrack for that situation in your own life,

I hope you'll seek out Dwight Twilley's rock and roll sincerity. Rock critic Ken Tucker. Dwight Twilley died last month. He was 72. On tomorrow's show, Black Thought, a.k.a. Tariq Trotter, the lead emcee for the Roots and House Band for The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. In his new memoir, Trotter shares for the first time how a series of tragedies, including accidentally burning down his family's home at six, have served as a catalyst for creating the sound of the pioneering rap group. I hope you can join us. To keep up with what's on the show and to get

highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at NPR Fresh Air. For Terry Gross, I'm Tanya Mosley.