Since the day The Bling Ring's teaser trailer was released I couldn't stop thinking about a thing: Sofia Coppola did wonders for her actresses' careers. In The Bling Ring teaser we see Emma Watson (the good and smart Hermione Granger and the damaged Sam from The Perks of Being a Wallflower) going "sexy bitch"... and I guess it will be simply wonderful for her career! In fact, all the leading ladies of a Sofia Coppola movie must be thankfull to her. They are talented, they are beautiful, they have everything in order to shine in the big-screen for a long time. We should honour Miss Coppola for showing them to the world.
While none of the "Coppola girls" got an Academy Award nomination at all (not even for a performance outside the Sofia Coppola filmography), all them delivered amazing turns and became major and well-respected names in the cinema industry. Here's my analisys of each one of the "Coppola girls":
- from one of the misterious Lisbon sisters to queen -
Collaborations with Sofia Coppola:
- The Virgin Suicides (1999)
- Marie Antoinette (2006)
People were already impressed by her performance in 1994's Interview with the Vampire, but her turn as Lux Lisbon in Sofia Coppola's directorial debut (1999's The Virgin Suicides) marked Miss Dunst transition to adult roles, working as a goodbye to the age of innocence and as a love letter to her beauty. After (and maybe thanks to) The Virgin Suicidies, she got the roles of Nicole in Crazy/Beautiful (2001) and Marion Davies in The Cat's Meow (2001), delivering fantastic performances that assured her "serious young actress" status. Then she was cast as the iconic Mary Jane Watson, Peter Parker/Spider-Man's love interest, in 2002's Spider-Man and she reached worldwide stardom: the movie received rave reviews, it had a huge fanbase, it grossed $403.7M at USA box-office and $822M worldwide. The success of the first Spider-Man film led Dunst to reprise the role in the 2004 sequel, Spider-Man 2, the movie was critically praised and another commercial success for the franchise, setting a new opening weekend box office record for North America. In the same year, she had a supporting part in the raved The Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind (a movie that won the 2004 Academy Award of Best Original Screenplay), starring opposite Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Tom Wilkinson and Mark Ruffalo. In 2005, her role in Cameron Crowe's Elizabethtown originated the concept of "Manic Pixie Dream Girl", but the critics didn't like the movie and they weren't impressed by Dunst's performance. Then, she re-teamed with Sofia Coppola once again:
Kirsten Dunst appeared as the polemic Marie Antoinette in 2006's movie of the same name. The movie received mixed reviews thanks mostly to Coppola's hyper-stylized approach and modern interpretation of the doomed queen, but Dunst performance as a sad woman living in a material world was well-received for both critics and audiences. After Marie Antoinette, things didn't go fantastic for Dunst: the third installement of the Spider-Man franchise was a commercial success, but critics weren't seduced this time and fanbase members had some complains about this approach and then, thanks to personal problems, Kirsten slowed down her career. Her "comeback" (she never stopped working, but her last projects weren't successful) happened with 2010's All Good Things: the movie was a commercial flop and critics didn't like it, but Dunst performance received enthusiastic reviews and some Oscar buzz. Then, in 2011, Kirsten Dunst seduce Cannes Film Festival with her amazing turn in Lars von Trier's Melancholia and takes home the film festival's Best Actress prize. Melancholia generated huge Oscar buzz around Dunst and she got some major award recognition, but she missed the Oscar nomination.
Right now, I'm expecting another collaboration between her and Sofia Coppola... We don't need another Marie Antoinette, but another The Virgin Suicides-esque movie would be welcome.
- lost in Tokyo in order to be found by the world -
Collaborations with Sofia Coppola:
- Lost In Translation (2003)
An actress who managed to impress since a young age in movies like The Horse Whisperer or Ghost World, Scarlett Johansson delivered the greatest performance of her career (so far) in Sofia Coppola's masterpiece: Lost In Translation. She was 17 at the time the movie was filmed, but she managed to radiate the maturity, beauty and melancholy of a young wife in her mid-20's and the world fell in love for her and her performance. In fact, Lost In Translation was both a critical and commercial success, grossing $44,6M at US box-office (which is a lot for an independent production) and the movie received 4 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director and giving Miss Coppola an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. Johansson got some award recognition (Golden Globe and Critics' Choice nom and BAFTA win), but the Academy didn't recognize her work in LIT. In spite of missing an Oscar nod, Scarlett Johansson won a lot with her collaboration with Sofia Coppola: stardom and career opportunities. In 2004, she starred In Good Company (alongside Dennis Quaid and Topher Grace) and A Love Song for Bobby Long (receiving her third Golden Globe nomination). After Kate Winslet resigned the part of Nola Rice in Woody Allen's Match Point, the role was offered to Miss Johansson and then she became Woody's new muse. Her first collaboration with Mr. Allen gave her some of the best reviews since Lost In Translation, getting her fourth Golden Globe nomination and some Oscar buzz that didn't become into an Oscar nomination. The next year, she appeared in Christopher Nolan's acclaimed The Prestige, in Brian de Palma's The Black Dahlia and re-teamed with Woody Allen for Scoop. After getting mixed/bad reviews for her work in The Nanny Diaries (2007), the next year she stars one of the most praised movies of her career, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, her third and last to date collaboration with Allen (a part the director-screenwriter wrote specifically for her), sharing the screen with Javier Bardem, Penélope Cruz and Rebecca Hall: critics loved the movie and the performances and it became one of Woody's most profitable movies. 2010 was a great year, since she appeared as Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow in the praised Summer blockbuster Iron Man 2 ($312,4M at US box-office) and she won a Tony Award for her Broadway debut as Catherine in the revival of A View From the Bridge. In 2012, Scarlett reprised her role as Black Widow in the acclaimed Joss Whedon directed The Avengers (alongside Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Jeremy Renner and Chris Hemsworth), the highest-grossing movie of 2012 and the third ever ($1,511,8M worldwide) and she got enthusiastic reviews for her performance as Janet Leigh in Hitchcock. This year, she's starring a Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and she's receiving some of her best reviews in years for her performance in the Sundance Film Festival hit Don Jon (Joseph Gordon-Levitt directorial debut). She's going to appear in Jonathan Glazer's adaptation of Under the Skin.
So, let's think: if Coppola didn't cast Johansson in Lost In Translation, the part of Nola Rice wouldn't be offered to her and she wouldn't be the movie star she's today. It's funny to state this, but Sofia is the responsible for the success of one of the biggest names in the business... she must be proud of "her girl".
- Hollywood princess since people saw her "Somehwere" -
Collaborations with Sofia Coppola:
The sweet girl who lived in the shaddow of her older sister, Dakota, Elle Fanning appeared in the Best Picture nominated movies Babel and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and she delivered an amazing performance in Phoebe in Wonderland, but no one payed much attention to her. Then, Elle starred Sofia Coppola's Somewhere, alongside Stephen Dorff and she became Hollywood's darling. Somewhere was far from Lost In Translation's caliber, but it worked as a nice acting showcase for Dorff and, specially, for Elle Fanning, who received her first Critics' Choice Award of Best Young Actor/Actress nod (the first of three, so far) and generated some (small) Oscar buzz around her. While the movie didn't go much far from winning the Golden Lion of Best Film of Venice Film Festival and a couple of mentions from the National Board of Review, it estabilished Elle Fanning as one of the most promising actresses of her generation. After filming Somewhere, Francis Ford Coppola (Sofia's father) cast Elle as V in his most recent directorial effort, Twixt, and then Cameron Crowe casted her in the family comedy-drama We Bought a Zoo, also starring Matt Damon, Scarlett Johnasson and Thomas Hadden Church. Both movies were released in 2011, but none of them featured Elle's most impressive performance that year: Super 8 did! The J.J. Abraams sci-fi movie gave Fanning tons of raves and award recognition (including her second nomination for a Critics' Choice Award of Best Young Actor/Actress) and once again there were people talking about her Oscar chances, but the movie ended scoring 0 Academy Award nominations. In 2012, Elle Fanning starred Sally Potter's drama Ginger & Rosa and once again she impressed, delivering her best (and most critically praised) performance to date - "Magnetic" and "Amazing" are some words used to describe her performance in Potter's latest, scoring her third Critics' Choice Award for Best Young Actor/Actress (3 noms, 3 years in a row! impressive!) and took home the Santa Barbara International Film Festival Virtuoso Award and the Valladolid International Film Festival Award of Best Actress.
Only 14 (she'll be 15 next month), Elle Fanning is a huge promise for cinema, so young, yet so talented. Thanks to Somewhere the world discovered there are two Fanning sisters and started loving Elle: now she's one of the most loved child/young actresses in Hollywood. She will have a bright future and a second collaboration with Sofia Coppola would be delicious to happen, in my opinion. By now, thanks Sofia for giving an opportunity to this young treasure, I guess it wasn't a waste of time at all.
- Hermione Granger goes wild and sexy and steals celebrities -
Collaboration with Sofia Coppola:
A lot of people had doubts about her future as an actress outside the Harry Potter franchise: My Week With Marilyn (2011) didn't give her enough time to develop her character, but then she starred The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012). Stephen Chbosky's adaptation of his own novel showed a girl totally different from Hermione Granger - it showed an honest portray of Sam - and critics and audiences simply loved her work in the acclaimed coming-of-age drama, receiving some major award recognition and generating a considerable Oscar buzz. This year, Miss Watson will appear in Sofia Coppola's The Bling Ring, becoming our fourth "Coppola girl" and, judging by the trailer, Emma is doing something QUITE DIFFERENT from her nerdy Hermione and from the sweet-damaged-flirty Sam. The Bling Ring teaser trailer gives us a wild sexy looking Emma, a bad girl who "goes shopping" at celebrities homes, and I truly believe Watson needed this role in order to break away from her previous characters: it might not be an Oscary part, but I believe it will do wonders for Emma's reputation as an actress. For 2014, she will play Ila in Darren Aronofsky's Noah (also starring Russell Crowe, Anthony Hopkins, Jennifer Connelly and Logan Lerman), an Oscar buzzy part that's generating great expectations around her (we can't forget Mr. Aronofsky's movies always feature great acting performances that get Oscar recognition very often). For 2015, she's attached to star Guillermo Del Toro's Beauty and the Beast, a project that, more than anything, sounds like a huge box-office promise.
While we can say it's too soon to say starring a Sofia Coppola movie helped Watson's career, since we haven't seen the final product (we must wait for June in order to see Sofia's The Bling Ring in order to state if Watson actually did a good work or not), but by now, we can support our hopes in some reports who say she nailed the part and showed a totally different side as an actress, a side we have never seen before. The Bling Ring promises to be the vehicle that will prove Emma Watson is much more than just a girl who benefits from the celebrity status she gained thanks to the Harry Potter movies and that her turn in Perks wasn't only a product of good directing work.
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