Sofia Coppola Talks to MTV about Somewhere

Over at the MTV website, movie correspondent Josh Horowitz has a good, in-depth conversation with writer-director Sofia Coppola about her upcoming film for Focus Features, Somewhere, which premieres this week at the Venice International Film Festival.

Below is the opening of their chat:

MTV: The title is Somewhere. Did you come up with it early on?Sofia Coppola: Yeah, when I was first writing, that was just a temporary title until I thought of a real title and then it became the title.MTV: Where did this film begin in your mind? What was the genesis?Coppola: I'm not sure if it was the character or the setting for this one, but I think it started with wanting to write about Los Angeles, and I was living in Paris at the time. So thinking about Los Angeles, this character came into mind, that Stephen Dorff plays, and then I wanted to do a portrait of this guy and it took its shape from there. And then the character of his daughter came after, and that evolved into kind of the father/daughter part of the story.MTV: What were you trying to capture about Los Angeles that may or may not have been captured in film before? Do you feel L.A. is ever captured well on film?Coppola: I like Shampoo and American Gigolo, and I feel there hasn't been a portrait of modern-day L.A. And I was just looking at how tabloid culture was while I was living in France. You know, there's always stuff about the Chateau Marmont. I remember going there when I was in college, and now it's so different with our reality TV shows and paparazzi around there. There wasn't Us Weekly when I lived there. It was a different world and I started with wanting to do something set in that world.

You can read the entire interview over at the MTV website.