The saga of Francis Ford Coppola’s kissing of several background extras on the Megalopolis set continues.
After Variety published footage of the encounters, during which Coppola makes rounds during a nightclub scene and kisses several women, one of the actresses in the video, Rayna Menz, told Deadline that it was no big deal: “[Coppola] did nothing to make me or for that matter anyone on set feel uncomfortable.”
The only thing Menz was “disgusted” and “blindsided” by, she said, was that Variety had posted the videos at all, as Coppola was “nothing but professional.”
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But another of the background actresses kissed and hugged in the video, Lauren Pagone, came forward to share a different experience. “I don’t appreciate anybody speaking for me,” Pagone told Variety of Menz’s remarks. “I would never speak for that actress.” Pagone implied that she had been made uncomfortable by the director’s advances.
“I was in shock,” Pagone told the publication, “I didn’t expect him to kiss and hug me like that. I was caught off guard. And I can tell you he came around a couple times.”
Pagone added that she decided to stay silent about it all until Menz painted the incident in a positive light. “I’ve kept my mouth shut,” she said. “I’ve kept quiet. But it’s frustrating that she’s putting out there, ‘Hey, it was great for everyone,’ when she doesn’t know what other people were feeling.”
Pagone reiterated that her experience of being unexpectedly kissed by the director was not pleasant, as she concluded, “You can’t speak for anyone but yourself. My experience was different.”
Coppola described a very different version of his on-set behavior than what the leaked footage shows in an interview with The New York Times last month. “I’m not touchy-feely,” he said at the time, “I’m too shy.”
