The Coppola Kids Have Grown Up To Be Gorgeous
A sprawling family who emigrated to the United States from Italy, the Coppola family tree is best known for the patriarch of the family, the iconic Godfather director Francis Ford Coppola. But Francis Ford isn't the only lauded member of the sprawling family, and there's a reason the Coppola kids, and the whole family, have been described as "Hollywood royalty."
Francis Ford is the youngest son of Oscar-winning composer Carmine Coppola and lyricist Italia Coppola. His elder brother August Coppola was a professor of literature at San Francisco State until his death in 2009, and his actress sister Talia Shire is best known for her portrayal of love interest Adrian Pennino in Sylvester Stallone's Rocky.
But the prolific creativity of the family doesn't stop with Francis Ford and his siblings. Their children and grandchildren have continued to carry the creative torch of the Coppola family, and some members of the famous household may surprise you.
Sofia Coppola
One of the most famous Coppola kids, Francis Ford Coppola's only daughter and youngest child with his wife Eleanor Coppola, Sofia is a screenwriter, director, producer, actress and fashion designer who you may remember from her much criticized role as Mary Corleone in The Godfather: Part III. Nowadays, her path has led her away from roles on screen to a position behind the camera, and her career has flourished for it.
Sofia was the second woman and first American woman to ever win the Cannes prize for best director, and the first American woman to ever be nominated for an Oscar for Best Director for her 2003 movie Lost in Translation, which she wrote, directed, and produced. While she did miss out on the Best Director win that year, she didn't leave empty handed in the end, instead taking home the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. Move over Francis Ford, Sofia's coming to steal your crown.
When she's not making movies and winning Oscars, Sofia is raising a family of her own with French musician Thomas Mars, whom she married in 2011. Sofia and Thomas have two children together, Romy Croquet Mars, born November 28, 2006, and Cosima Croquet Mars, born May 2010. While Thomas Mars's legal surname is Croquet, the girls are known publicly by his stage name, sharing the alias Mars.
Roman Coppola
The youngest son of the Coppola kids, Roman Coppola is a screenwriter, director and producer, and the founder of music video production company The Directors Bureau. Roman lives up to the family name with a career firmly ensconced in the creative industries.
Roman's work with indie filmmaker Wes Anderson has been critically acclaimed and, like his sister Sofia, he was also Oscar-nominated as co-writer of Anderson's film Moonrise Kingdom in 2013. His newest project at the time of writing is another Anderson collaboration, a stop-motion movie called The Isle of Dogs. The film opened the Berlin Film Festival 2018, and holds the accolade of being the first animated movie to ever have the honor of doing so.
Gian-Carla Gia Coppola
Though she's not one of the direct line Coppola kids (instead a Coppola grandkid), Gian-Carla Coppola is better known as Gia Coppola, and is the eldest grandchild of Francis Ford Coppola. Her father Gian-Carlo (for whom she was named) was the eldest son of Francis Ford and Eleanor Coppola and began a filmmaking career at a young age, working alongside his father on The Godfather and Gardens of Stone.
Sadly we'll never know what impact Gian-Carlo may have had upon the world of Hollywood filmmaking, due to his untimely death on Memorial Day of 1986, killed at age 22 in a freak speedboat accident due to a head injury sustained when he was struck by a tow rope. Gia's mother, Jacqui de la Fontaine, was pregnant with Gia at the time of Gian-Carlo's death.
A third generation filmmaker, Gia has wasted little time following in her father's footsteps to break into the Hollywood sphere as a director, screenwriter, and actress. She's friends with actor James Franco, and her feature debut as writer and director was 2013's Palo Alto, a screenplay adapted from a book of short stories by Franco. Like her uncle Roman Coppola, she's also expressed an interest in the musical arts, directing two music videos for Canadian singer-songwriter Carly Rae Jepsen, "Your Type" and "Cut To The Feeling".
Jason Schwartzman
A familiar face, but not perhaps one you would immediately associate with the Coppola kids, Jason Schwartzman is the son of Talia Shire and the late producer Jack Schwartzman. An indie movie darling, Jason works closely with filmmaker Wes Anderson and has appeared in many of his films, including 2007's The Darjeeling Limited, which was co-written by his uncle Roman Coppola.
A musician himself as the former drummer of LA rock band Phantom Planet, Jason is close with his cousin Sofia's husband Thomas Mars. Jason is a self confessed fan of Thomas's band Phoenix, and the two often swap movie recommendations.
Jason Schwartzman has two children with his wife, art and design director Brady Cunningham: Marlowe Rivers, born December 2011, and Una, born October 2014. Little is currently known about the two young girls as their parents do a good job of raising them out of the public eye, so time will tell if they end up following in the Coppola family footsteps.
Robert Schwartzman
Another unlikely member of the Coppola family, Jason Schwartzman's younger brother Robert Schwartzman is Talia Shire's second son with Jack Schwartzman. A sometimes actor who appeared in cousin Sofia Coppola's The Virgin Suicides, Robert is best known as lead singer of the LA rock band Rooney.
A talented songwriter, Robert has lent his hand to co-write and collaborate with many famous artists, including The Jonas Brothers, James Blunt, Demi Lovato, Alexz Johnson, Ocean Grove and Miles Fisher. He runs his own indie label, California Dreamin' Records, which launched in 2009, and collaborates with Coconut Records, his brother Jason Schwartzman's solo project.
Matthew Shire
Matthew Shire is Talia Shire's son with her first husband Hollywood composer David Shire. But while he may not share the Coppola surname, he fits into the family trade perfectly as a screenwriter known for Neighbours from Hell and Mozart in the Jungle.
Matthew met his wife and fellow writer Kate Gersten on Mozart in the Jungle, for which she also writes. The two met in the writers room there in 2014, and were married in July 2016.
Marc Coppola
The eldest son of August Coppola and dancer Joy Vogelsang, Marc Coppola is an actor and radio DJ. As is typical of the Coppola kids, he made his first movie appearance at a young age, a brief appearance as an AFRS announcer in Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now.
That turned out to be a role of providence, as Marc is now best known as a radio personality. He has worked for classic rock station KGB-FM since 2010, and is married to actress Elizabeth Coppola (formerly Elizabeth Brindak), who also made an appearance on the show his cousin Matthew Shire writes for, Mozart in the Jungle. Marc and Elizabeth Coppola have two children: Natasha Coppola-Shalom, who is an actress, and Cayley Coppola.
Christopher Coppola
The middle child of August Coppola and Joy Vogelsang, filmmaker Christopher Coppola is yet another addition to the family legacy and successful Coppola kids. A director and producer of nine feature films and numerous television shows, Christopher is also the president of his own filmmaking company, Christopher Coppola Enterprises.
He's also followed in his father's academic footsteps, becoming a professor and head of the film program at the San Francisco Art Institute. He is married to actress Adrienne Stout, with whom he has two children, Dexter and Bailey Coppola.
Dexter's middle name is Augustus after his grandfather, and he is also a budding actor. And like his father before him, Bailey is following the Coppola trail with a potential career in filmmaking. In 2014 Christopher proudly posted a short film on his Facebook page called A Slice of Life, which Bailey made. Bailey also made an appearance in his cousin Gia Coppola's 2013 movie Palo Alto, playing a minor character named Seth, and makes an appearance in 2018's Summerhouse.
Nicolas Cage
The most famous actor to come out of the Coppola family tree is also the one that people don't immediately associate with being a Coppola — Nicolas Cage, born Nicolas Coppola, the youngest son of August Coppola and Joy Vogelsang.
An actor known for his eccentric personality and volatile on-screen presence, the Coppola blood shows through in Cage's dabbles in directing with 2002's Sonny. Cage marks yet another Oscar-winning member of the Coppola family, scooping the coveted Best Actor award for Leaving Las Vegas at the Academy Awards in 1996. He was nominated for Best Actor again in 2003 for Adaptation for his turn as twins Charlie and Donald Kaufman, but on that occasion lost out to Adrian Brody. He also owns the production company Saturn Films, under which he has produced such movies as The Wicker Man remake and Shadow of the Vampire.
Cage has two sons, actor and musician Weston Coppola Cage, and Kal-El Coppola Cage. Kal-El was born to Cage's ex-wife Alice Kim in October 2005. And if his unusual first name strikes you, that's because Kal-El was named after Superman himself.
Meanwhile, Weston was born in 1990 to Cage's then-partner, model Christina Fulton, and found himself in the public eye in the worst way in 2017 when he was involved with a DUI hit and run which ended with him crashing his car into a tree. Weston is married to producer Danielle Cage, with whom he has two gorgeous sons, Lucian Augustus Coppola Cage and Sorin Reid Coppola Cage.