Coppola Quotes & Sayings

I have more of a vivid imagination than I have talent. I cook up ideas. It's just a characteristic. — Francis Ford Coppola

I had a number of teachers who hated me. I didn't do well in school. — Francis Ford Coppola

That's a hobby of mine - to do whatever I can for unusual for-hire creative projects. I am waiting for someone to really challenge me - obviously I'm often approached to do film related work, but I would be very happy to design a bar or an amusement park ride. I would love to be an imagineer! — Roman Coppola

I enjoy seeing how my friends - Proenza Schouler, Zac Posen, Rodarte - use clothes to create their vision and art. — Gia Coppola

I was really nervous working with actors, since I come from a photography background. — Gia Coppola

If I were to save one possession in a fire, it would have to be my dad's camera, an old, broken Nikon. I always keep it with me - his personal things mean a lot. — Gia Coppola

Forget the audience, make what you want to see — Sofia Coppola

I always found the film world unpleasant. It's all about the schedule, and never really flew for me. — Francis Ford Coppola

I normally wear jeans and sneakers, but given an occasion, I enjoy dressing up. — Gia Coppola

Although knowledge of structure is helpful, real creativity comes from leaps of faith in which you jump to something illogical. But those leaps form the memorable moments in movies and plays. — Francis Ford Coppola

Anything you build on a large scale or with intense passion invites chaos. — Francis Ford Coppola

When I do a novel, I don't really use the script, I use the book; when I did Apocalypse Now, I used Heart of Darkness. Novels usually have so much rich material. — Francis Ford Coppola

Steven Spielberg is unique. I feel that the kinds of movies he loves are the same kinds of movies that the big mass audience loves. He's very fortunate because he can do the things he naturally likes the best, and he's been very successful. — Francis Ford Coppola

Everyone in my family is in the film business; I knew I wanted to be creative and it was important in my family to be artistic. — Sofia Coppola

I knew I wanted to be creative but didn't know how. — Gia Coppola

I have a lot of game apps I need to delete. — Gia Coppola

I don't think there's any artist of any value who doesn't doubt what they're doing. — Francis Ford Coppola

Making a movie is a lot of problem solving. — Gia Coppola

I had been a kid that moved so much, I didn't have a lot of friends. Theater really represented camaraderie. — Francis Ford Coppola

The short film project I just finished for W Hotels and Intel, I didn't have my script finished until a few days before we began filming. We edited it very quickly and now it's up online. It was great to conceive an idea and have it premiere just a few weeks later, compared to a feature, which takes a year or more. — Roman Coppola

The internet in hotels should be free - and I really resent it when they charge you five dollars for a bottle of water beside your bed. — Francis Ford Coppola

Movie-wise, there is nothing I wouldn't do again. It's not possible to make one perfect movie every time. — Francis Ford Coppola

I think it's better to be overly ambitious and fail than to be underambitious and succeed in a mundane way. I have been very fortunate. I failed upward in my life! — Francis Ford Coppola

I believe that filmmaking - as, probably, is everything - is a game you should play with all your cards, and all your dice, and whatever else you've got. So, each time I make a movie, I give it everything I have. I think everyone should, and I think everyone should do everything they do that way. — Francis Ford Coppola

For everyone, there are those moments when you have great days with someone you wouldn't expect to. Then you have to go back to your real lives, but it makes an impression on you. — Sofia Coppola

Most filmmakers can't afford to try something out that doesn't work. — Francis Ford Coppola

One of the most important tools that a filmmaker has are his/her notes. — Francis Ford Coppola

The goal is not to be famous. The goal is to write. And to love doing it every day. — C.G. Coppola

I love all the movies by director John Hughes. I also love John Landis's movies. — Robert Coppola Schwartzman

When newspapers started to publish the box office scores of movies, I was horrified. Those results are totally fake because they never include the promotion budget. — Francis Ford Coppola

The professional world was much more unpleasant than I thought. I was always wishing I could get back that enthusiasm I had when I was doing shows at college. — Francis Ford Coppola

When you make a film it is like asking yourself a question. When it is finished, you know the answer. Ultimately with all of cinema, we are just trying to learn about ourselves. I have always used the opportunity to make a film to learn more about myself, which I am still doing. — Francis Ford Coppola

To make great movies, there is an element of risk. You have to say, 'Well, I am going to make this film, and it is not really a sure thing.' — Francis Ford Coppola

I wanted to be a ballet dancer. I was bad - I'm not very coordinated. But I always wished I could have been a dancer. — Gia Coppola

Perhaps making movies is a step toward being able to move backward and forward and in and out of linear time. — Eleanor Coppola

Ever since I was little, I've felt very comfortable on a set. The time is stressful - being creative under time constraints. But there is an excitement and energy that you only have a certain amount of time to get what you want. — Sofia Coppola

A period romance film with elements of horror. That was successful, because I feel like Coppola's DRACULA was one or the other. You know? It was never scary it was never a film he got invested in the romance of the characters. He understood it, but he never got invested. So it as a challenge for me to see if I could do that, I still don't know how audiences will sort of react to that. — Cary Fukunaga

I'm so drawn to photography because you can convey a complex story in a single frame. — Gia Coppola

I remember teachers who really singled me out for their discouragement. — Francis Ford Coppola

I always knew my mom was a good actress. — Gia Coppola

I wrote the script of Patton. I had this very bizarre opening where he stands up in front of an American flag and gives this speech. Ultimately, I was fired. When the script was done, they hired another writer and that script was forgotten. — Francis Ford Coppola

Working with a great actor is really educational. — Gia Coppola

Hong Kong is the supermarket of Asia. — Eleanor Coppola

Once I found these sticker things for your nails - Sally Hansen - those were really fun to do. They're really fun to do when you're bored, and it's better than painting your nails because you don't mess up. It looks really good, very professional. I tried a zebra one that was really pretty, but I always get a little bored of it. — Gia Coppola

Anyone who's made film and knows about the cinema has a lifelong love affair with the experience. You never stop learning about film. — Francis Ford Coppola

We do things for good reasons that are bad. — Francis Ford Coppola

I just admire people like Woody Allen, who every year writes an original screenplay. It's astonishing. I always wished that I could do that. — Francis Ford Coppola

When I went to college, my mum was really sad, so she preserved my bedroom, like a weird time capsule. — Gia Coppola

I know that if a film is ready to emerge out of what I write, I'll be able to go off and make it without asking anyone's permission. — Francis Ford Coppola

My family get so mad at me when they come over. All I'll have in is milk and eggs. I mainly keep film in my fridge - it's better for it; it stops it from going old. I'm bad at eating healthy; I usually just run across the street and get cheeseburgers. — Gia Coppola

Work on nothing less than epic scale — Francis Ford Coppola

My big goal in life was always to figure out how I can make a lot of money so I can go off and make films irrespective of the opinion of the three or four critics who seem to rule the roost. — Francis Ford Coppola

We finally settled on Francis Ford Coppola's version of Dracula, which, unfortunately, Gabriel seemed to think was a comedy. I think it was the combination of Keanu Reeves's British accent and Gary Oldman's elderly Count Dracula hairstyle. They're just misleading. — Molly Harper

There's nothing creative about living within your means. — Francis Ford Coppola

I try to just make what I want to make or what I would want to see. I try not to think about the audience too much. — Sofia Coppola

For the most part, I like to record music as I write it. — Robert Coppola Schwartzman

I love so many directors. I love David O. Russell. I love David Fincher, I love Alexander Payne and Jane Campion and my aunt. Spike Jonze. There are just so many amazing directors. — Gia Coppola

It's hard not to be impressed by my older relatives. — Gia Coppola

It's about moments in life that are great but don't last. They don't go on, but you always have the memory and they have an effect on you. That's what I was thinking about. — Sofia Coppola

So much of the art of film is to do less. To aspire to do less. — Francis Ford Coppola

Acting isn't for me. I don't like being told what to do. I'm more interested in set design, more visually driven. — Sofia Coppola

We were raised in an Italian-American household, although we didn't speak Italian in the house. We were very proud of being Italian, and had Italian music, ate Italian food. — Francis Ford Coppola

I knew I wanted to make a movie that hadn't really existed in a while in terms of being a teenager. — Gia Coppola

It's about misunderstandings between people and places, being disconnected and looking for moments of connection. There are so many moments in life when people don't say what they mean, when they are just missing each other, waiting to run into each other in a hallway. — Sofia Coppola

Anyone can create and put stuff out there, so then as viewers and listeners, we have access to a lot of different unique view points. — Gia Coppola

The stuff that I got in trouble for, the casting for The Godfather or the flag scene in Patton, was the stuff that was remembered, and was considered the good work. — Francis Ford Coppola

My name does help me get in the door, but it doesn't do the work for me. — Gia Coppola

There are two kinds of filmmaking: Hitchcock's (the film is complete in the director's mind) and Coppola's (which thrives on process). For Hitchcock, any variation from the complete internal idea is seen as a defect. The perfection already exists. Coppola's approach is to harvest the random elements that the process throws up, things that were not in his mind when he began. — Walter Murch

I'm a huge Coppola fan. But more of 'Apocalypse Now' and 'The Conversation.' 'The Godfather' for me is, like, number three or four on the list. — Anurag Kashyap

I was always a big James Franco fan. — Gia Coppola

I always think upon Lee Strasberg with warmth, and reviewing his wisdom is a pleasure. — Francis Ford Coppola

I kind of feel like we're all humans; we all live on this planet. I kind of always wish there was more of a partnership - a really healthy relationship between people, working together to do things and make it good and change. — Robert Coppola Schwartzman

Sometimes in writing you have difficult periods and then other times it just flows. — Roman Coppola

There's a story that during the filming of Apocalypse Now, Francis Ford Coppola had a sign on his trailer: Fast, Cheap, Good: Pick Two. — Maria Semple

As a first-time director, you act a lot like a teenager. I made decisions because I was hotheaded. My skin broke out. I was trying to understand who I am. — Gia Coppola

Yeah, my real name is Coppola. I changed it because they'd think I was some nepotism-oriented kid. — Nicolas Cage

I grew up in San Francisco and moved to L.A. about 20 years ago, and now my main home is in Hollywood. — Roman Coppola

I don't like shopping, so I'll look online. I like going to the flea market at the Rose Bowl every once in a while. I like the same stores, Opening Ceremony and APC. — Gia Coppola

I had always liked, well, who didn't love Lestat and fall in love with 'Interview with the Vampire,' and 'Nosferatu,' and Coppola's 'Dracula' with the awesome costumes? So I loved all that. — Catherine Hardwicke

A lot of the young people make beautiful films or big films or are able to finance them, but they can't get anyone to distribute them, they can't get anyone to see them, so they go to these thousands of film festivals. So I still believe that even though a young kid might be able to make a masterpiece or something that changes the direction of cinema, the issue of how to get it to people is still not solved. — Francis Ford Coppola

I feel like I can communicate much better using images than words. — Gia Coppola

In America, even the critics - which is a pity - tend to genre-ize things. They have a hard time when genres get mixed. They want to categorize things. That's why I love Wes Anderson's films and the Coen Brothers, because you don't know what you're going to get, and very often you get something that you don't expect and that's just what a genre's not supposed to do. — Francis Ford Coppola

Francis Ford Coppola observed, "The way to come to power is not always to merely challenge the Establishment, but first make a place in it and then challenge and double-cross the Establishment. — Adam M. Grant

I've always wanted to do a project with space imagery because I've always loved these amazing sci-fi electro book covers. I've always loved science fiction. I feel like space imagery has no boundaries. — Robert Coppola Schwartzman

When you stop looking for something, you see it right in front of you. — Eleanor Coppola

But who said art has to cost money? And therefore, who says artists have to make money? — Francis Ford Coppola

You don't have to be loud. If you know what you want, people respect that. — Sofia Coppola

I've been offered lots of movies. There's always some actor who's doing a project and would like to have me do it. — Francis Ford Coppola

Everything I do is personal. I have never made a movie that didn't have very strong personal resonance. — Francis Ford Coppola

It's always more intriguing to imagine what's happening, as opposed to seeing everything, because then you can use your imagination. I always wanted to be at a distance. — Sofia Coppola

"Lost in Translation" by Sofia Coppola. It's a masterpiece. I laughed a lot but was also overwhelmed by the story - a rare combination. — Emmanuelle Bercot

My grandpa told me, 'Learn to love anxiety, because it never goes away in moviemaking.' — Gia Coppola

I do Pilates twice a week; I hike and I go to the gym. My days of being that hardcore-workout person are over. Don't get me wrong, I still want to be the hot mom! — Alicia Coppola

Among today's directors I'm of course impressed by Steven Spielberg and Scorsese, and Coppola, even if he seems to have ceased making films, and Steven Soderbergh - they all have something to say, they're passionate, they have an idealistic attitude to the filmmaking process. Soderbergh's Traffic is amazing. Another great couple of examples of the strength of American cinema is American Beauty and Magnolia. — Ingmar Bergman

I live near San Francisco in the most beautiful spot on earth and enjoy myself in many ways. Yes, I love to work, which for now is to think and read and write, so it's all a dream come true. — Francis Ford Coppola

I wanted to make a love story without being nerdy. — Sofia Coppola

When you form a band, you form a real relationship that's like a marriage. It's an emotional connection, especially when you're young ... because you don't know what's out there. — Robert Coppola Schwartzman

Without a doubt, I was born to want to make cinema, but the kind of cinema I want to make is not like commercial movies, which I enjoy myself, but I wanted to be the kind of filmmaker who wrote original work, sort of like a novelist would who deals with who we are and our times or our relationships. — Francis Ford Coppola

I was a pretty shy, lonely kid. I blossomed about age 17, when I went to college. — Francis Ford Coppola

When I'm in London, Claridge's is a great favourite. I'm a big fan of art deco architecture and the rooms are extraordinary. — Roman Coppola