'Megalopolis' Interview: Francis Ford Coppola and Adam Driver

Moviefone speaks with Francis Ford Coppola and Adam Driver about 'Megalopolis'. "I had made so many films, I was curious what my style was", Coppola said.

Opening in theaters on September 27th is the long-awaited new film from legendary filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola (‘The Godfather’ and ‘Apocalypse Now’) entitled ‘Megalopolis’. It is the first film from the Oscar winning director in thirteen years and a project he has been developing since 1977.

The film stars an all-star cast that includes Adam Driver (‘Ferrari’), Giancarlo Esposito (‘The Mandalorian’), Nathalie Emmanuel (‘The Killer’), Aubrey Plaza (‘Emily the Criminal’), Shia LaBeouf (‘Honey Boy’), Talia Shire (‘Rocky’), Jason Schwartzman (‘Asteroid City’), Grace VanderWall (‘Stargirl’), Chloe Fineman (‘Saturday Night Live’), Laurence Fishburne (‘Slingshot’), and Academy Award winners Jon Voight (‘Reagan’), and Dustin Hoffman (‘Wag the Dog’).

(L to R) Director Francis Ford Coppola and Adam Driver talk 'Megalopolis'.

Related Article: Adam Driver Talks 'Ferrari' and Working with Director Michael Mann

Moviefone recently had the honor of speaking with legendary writer and director Francis Ford Coppola and Adam Driver about their work on ‘Megalopolis’, Coppola’s passion and dedication to get it made, the live theatrical aspect of the film, how he utilized new technology, Driver’s approach to his character, improvisation, and what he learned from working with Coppola.

You can read the full interview below or click on the video player above to watch our interview.

Writer/Director Francis Ford Coppola on the set of 'Megalopolis'. Photo Credit: Phil Laruso.

Moviefone: To begin with, Mr. Coppola, can you talk about the spark of the idea for this film that excited you and what kept you passionate and determined over all these decades to finally get this movie made?

Francis Ford Coppola: When I started, I didn't specifically start with this project. I just thought that since I had made so many films with different styles, I was curious what my style was. So, I just started to note down articles I read, or I had a collection I remember of political cartoons because cartoons tell a whole story in one image, and things I had read. After a while, I found that I was interested in the idea of doing a Roman epic because I had seen them as a kid, and I loved Roman epics. Then at one point, I read a particular Roman story about what was called the Catiline conspiracy. In that, it said that could happen in modern America because modern America has based itself on being Roman. That's when it began to really take shape in this. Then I started to collect possibilities of what it might be like and how it might be done, and ultimately led to this incredible collaboration with my wonderful cast and with Adam and with the various people who supplied everything in the film, and we made ‘Megalopolis’ together.

(L to R) Writer/Director Francis Ford Coppola and Adam Driver as Cesar Catilina on the set of 'Megalopolis'. Photo Credit: Phil Caruso.

MF: Adam, what was this experience like for you working with Mr. Coppola, and what did you learn about filmmaking from watching the specific way that he makes movies?

Adam Driver: I think there's maybe a misconception or an assumption that people make about directors that are like Francis that the atmosphere when you get on set is going to be very dictatorial, that it's going to be “Do what I tell you to do”, or at least that's just what the feedback that I get from people is, "Do you just say everything that he tells you to do?" That's not actually what it's like at all. He's very disarming, which I guess should be no surprise because his movies feel that way. They all feel like everyone is pretty invested in what they're doing because he gives you an incredible amount of trust, which it could easily have been the opposite of, “Move here because I said so, and I have a resume of films that have changed filmmaking as evidence that I know what I'm talking about”. That would've been a very compelling argument, but it's the exact opposite. He makes you part of it because you have some authorship of it, you get obsessed with it and excited, and are invested and want to bring ideas to the table. Because he has such a, this is the understatement of the century, but an incredible film vocabulary that he is very good at picking the things that are in line with what he's trying to make in an incredibly diplomatic way and discarding the things that aren't what he needs. So, the thing I took from it is also, it felt like experimental theater in a way, where you can't make a mistake, and setting an environment for people to feel comfortable to do whatever they wanted within the parameters. It is an experience that I didn't have in film before, and I don't think I'll have again. Trying to take that to other films will be difficult.

Adam Driver as Cesar Catilina in 'Megalopolis'. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Lionsgate.

MF: Mr. Coppola, there is a staged moment in the film where someone from the theater’s audience stands up and interacts with Adam’s character on-screen. Can you talk about the choice to include this unusual experimental theatrical experience and how you were able to execute it?

FFC: Well, it's interesting because the film didn't have that scene at all in it, and it was Adam who said to me, "Remember we shot a sequence where the people asked questions. I miss that. I wish that were back in." I said, "Well, let's go find it and put it back in and see what you think," and we did. Then we put it in, and I agreed with him that it was missing, and it was better with it. It wasn't in it. It was his idea and we put it in, and then the only thing that happened is I thought, "Well, wouldn't it be interesting if a real person brought the microphone over and put it there?" We tried it and it seemed to be exciting. I'm a guy who in a way still has one foot in theater and one foot in cinema and I haven't forgotten my theatrical training as a kid. I love to combine the two, and that's where that came from. We only had it because of this idea about actors and directors, I've heard it said, “Oh, that director got this great performance out of the actor.” Directors don't get great performances out of actors. The actor does the performance. The director's like a coach. He's there to be able to say something helpful, hopefully at the right time, when the actor is trying to achieve something, just like a coach in a sports team says, "Why don't you try thinking this?" If it helps, great. But the actor does the hard part, let's face it. The director is there to just say the right thing at the right moment if you are lucky enough to have the right thing to say.

(L to R) Adam Driver and Nathalie Emmanuel in 'Megalopolis'. Photo: Lionsgate.

MF: Adam, I understand there was quite a bit of improvisation on the set. Can you talk about your approach to playing Cesar, and did the improv help you find the character on set?

AD: There's the version and what we had talked about. Francis told me some inspirations, not directly, but like Walter Gropius was somebody that we talked about. Robert Moses was another person, just to kind of get a sense. But what Francis was saying, he's being a little modest. I think sometimes people say that idea, which sounds romantic, and in practice, never practice it, or they reserve it for press. But Francis really acts on his principles and everything that he's describing is very rare, I think, to get that experience as an actor and to get the freedom to kind of come up with an idea and surprise yourself, and hopefully Francis. But he still is the one that's making that happen, so you wouldn't get that movie obviously, if Francis wasn't kind of conducting all these kinds of wild personalities. So, it all kind of was found by the other actors that I'm acting with, the props, how (Cinematographer) Mihai (Mălaimare Jr.) was shooting it with Francis and all Francis' direction. He kind of set up the rules. The first day of shooting was something really and I remember at one point, Francis said, "We're not being brave enough," and that was like, "Oh, that's probably the best piece of direction I've ever been given," and that set the tone for the rest of the film.

Nathalie Emmanuel as Julia Cicero and Adam Driver as Cesar Catilina in 'Megalopolis'. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Lionsgate.

MF: Finally, Mr. Coppola, obviously the tools used to make films has changed a lot since you began making movies with advances in digital cameras, visual effects, and editing software. Can you talk about how you were able to implement those new tools into your style of filmmaking?

FFC: Well, I think Orson Wells once said that a lot of those aspects of movies, you can learn in a weekend. But fundamentally, the two main components of cinema are acting and writing. That's not something you can learn over the weekend. I mean, you can't have a great movie without wonderful acting. You need some kind of good writing. Everything else is you can take great liberties with and choose to use or not to use. Just because there's some new development that is possibly revolutionary doesn't mean you have to use it or must use it in the way they're using it. We did use a technique that falls in that category, what's known as the volume. It's when they have this huge space and it's a huge LED screen. But we used it a different way. We put the scene that we shot very high, and so if they're walking along up there and fall, they're going to fall 15 feet into a net, and so that the actors would be a little trepidatious about walking around too casually up there. He (Adam) wasn't afraid of it, but Natalie (Emmanuel) was. When she walked, you could feel she didn't want to fall. So, I mean, as I said, you can use things, but you don't have to use them in the way that they were invented for.

What is the plot of ‘'Megalopolis'?

In a decaying metropolis called New Rome, Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver) is an idealist architect who is granted a license by the federal government to demolish and rebuild the city as a sustainable utopia using a new material, "megalon", which can give him the power to control space and time. His nemesis, Mayor Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), remains committed to a regressive status quo. Torn between them is Franklyn's socialite daughter and Cesar's love interest Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel), who, tired of the influence she inherited, searches for her life's meaning.