- Title: Coppola talks about school days with Trump
- Date: 9th November 2016
- Summary: STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN (NOVEMBER 9, 2016) (REUTERS) ****WARNING CONTAINS FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY*** DIRECTOR FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA SITS DOWN STOCKHOLM FILM FESTIVAL POSTER NEWS CONFERENCE IN PROGRESS (SOUNDBITE) (English) DIRECTOR FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA, SAYING: "You know most people when they die they think 'I wish I had done this, I wish I had done that, I wish I had done something el
- Embargoed: 24th November 2016 12:50
- Keywords: Francis Ford Coppola Stockholm Film Festival director Donald Trump
- Location: STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN
- City: STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN
- Country: Sweden
- Topics: Government/Politics,Elections/Voting
- Reuters ID: LVA00157Q5TTZ
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text:Veteran film maker Francis Ford Coppola is in the Swedish capital to pick up the Stockholm Lifetime Achievement Award at the Stockholm Film Festival.
Attending a news conference only hours after the United States election result was announced, Coppola said he was surprised at the result which saw Donald Trump being elected the country's 45th president.
He also he and Trump had both attended the New York Military Academy.
"I do know him, in fact I went to the same military school that he did. I went for a year and a half and I ran away. He was sent there at thirteen so I guess if he was sort of a rich kid sent off to military school at thirteen there must have been a reason," he said.
Coppola also said Trump was a practical person and not an ideologue.
"He's not really an ideologue, he's really very, my impression is that he's a really practical person and I think that's a good thing. (It would be) worse if he were some arch right-wing thinker which I don't think he is, but I know nothing," he said.
Looking back at his career, the 77-year-old said he had no regrets.
"You know most people when they die they think 'I wish I had done this, I wish I had done that, I wish I had done something else'. When I die, I'm going to say in the moment of death I'm going to say 'I got to make movies, I got to see my children make movies and I got to make the kind of personal movies that I wanted to do and I got to be in the wine business' and I'm going to be so busy thinking of all the things that I did that when I die, I won't notice it," he told a news conference.
Coppola said his latest project was also his dream project and is a fictionalised version of his own family's story and begins in Italy.
It is a multi-generational saga beginning in the 19th century and will be shown as a live performance piece.
"It's a cycle of plays or screen plays - that means more than one - and it deals with a family, very fictionalised of a family like mine, and it's beginning in the 19th century going all the way through contemporary time and it juxtaposes the story of this family with the phenomenon of television and it will be performed live in theatres," he said.
The Oscar-winning director's career spans 50 years, highlighted by films such as "The Godfather" trilogy and "Apocalypse Now" and five Oscar wins.
Asked what would be his advice to young filmmakers, he had a short reply: "Get married".
"I was married when I was 22 and I had children so that when I was, you know, so called struggling but I didn't struggle because I was so motivated to take care of my family so I was successful," he elaborated.
But he also had a word of advice to young female directors: "If you were a women I'd say 'don't get married'".
Coppola will be awarded the Bronze Horse at a ceremony on the Wednesday evening (November 9). - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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