Why Coppola is the only man Aubrey would dye for...
DIRECTOR Francis Ford Coppola called Aubrey Plaza his ‘Golden Woman’ on the set of Megalopolis, the controversial film which has got the whole of Cannes talking.
Plaza plays a rich girl called Wow Platinum — an ambitious, manipulative journalist who ends up married to the richest man in the world — in the film, which the director spent decades developing, and funded with $120 million of his own fortune.
Plaza said: ‘They wanted me to be dripping in diamonds, and just be radiating lustre and wealth.’ The character was conceived of as blonde — hence the name — and the White Lotus star, a natural brunette, agreed to a radical change of look.
‘I bleached my hair blonde for Francis and Milena (Canonero, his costume designer). For anybody else, never again. But for them, I did it.’
Coppola ran the show a bit like a theatre school, making actors do repeated takes (and improvise), which she says she and co-star Adam Driver loved.
Though reports suggest that another co-star, Shia LaBeouf, felt otherwise. A making-of documentary is on the way from Brit Mike Figgis.
Plaza said: ‘We would do something that was off the cuff and weird and Francis would say: “I like that! Do it again.” And then all of a sudden we’re shooting in a different location we didn’t even plan to shoot.’
The actress and comedian, who first shot to fame playing gloomy April in Parks And Rec, is now making Honey Don’t! with Margaret Qualley, and hopes to make a ‘feel-bad romance’ called Liarmouth with director John Waters next year.