“Sorry, if I come up to you and kiss you,” director Francis Ford Coppola boomed into a microphone on the set of his new film Megalopolis, according to an unnamed source who was there. “Just know it’s solely for my pleasure.”
On Friday, Variety published two exclusive video clips leaked from the set of that much-maligned epic that show the 85-year-old filmmaker walking up to a scantily clad background actor and kissing her on the mouth.
The Guardian previously reported witnesses who saw Coppola act in this inappropriate way during the film’s nightclub scene and quoted him as saying he was “trying to get them in the mood.”
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“I’ve worked with really important directors and that behavior is uncommon—the most I’ve ever seen any director do is say something like, ‘high energy, guys,’” the on-set source told Variety. “I’ve never seen anyone on set, and this extends to a camera operator, so much as touch an actor.”
Of course, nothing about the Megalopolis production—or final result, for that matter—has been common. Coppola self-financed the film with $120 million project and then struggled to get a U.S. distributor for it after a string of highly divisive, mostly negative reviews out of Cannes. Lionsgate ultimately stepped in to release the film, which stars Adam Driver, Dustin Hoffman, and Shia LaBeouf among others, later this fall.
“There were very contradicting views expressed, but the audience never stopped going to see the film, and to this day Apocalypse Now is still in very profitable distribution,” Coppola told The Daily Beast of the film’s controversial reception this past April. “I am sure this will be the same situation with Megalopolis. It will stand the test of time.”
As for his on-set behavior, Coppola denied doing anything inappropriate in an interview with The New York Times last month, insisting, “I’m not touchy-feely. I’m too shy.”
The leaked video footage tells a very different story.
