Sofia Coppola

Filmmaker

Sofia Coppola is the writer and director of the two critically acclaimed movies The Virgin Suicides (1999, starring Kirsten Dunst) and Lost in Translation (2003, starring Bill Murray). The daughter of legendary filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, Sofia got her start in the movies as an infant in The Godfather (1972). In her younger years she appeared in a number of her dad's movies, including The Outsiders and Rumble Fish (both 1983), The Cotton Club (1984, with Richard Gere) and Peggy Sue Got Married (1986, co-starring her cousin, Nicolas Cage). Her first movie as a writer/director, the somber The Virgin Suicides, proved that she was an able and mature filmmaker, and the sophistication of Lost in Translation (which earned her an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay) made it clear she was an up-and-coming force in the movies. Her film Marie Antoinette debuted at Cannes in 2006 and starred Kirsten Dunst as the French queen.

Extra credit: In 1999 she married filmmaker Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich); they filed for divorce in 2003.