Key takeaways from AP's interview with Francis Ford Coppola about 'Megalopolis'

NEW YORK (AP) — Francis Ford Coppola believes he can stop time.

It’s not just a quality of the protagonist of Coppola’s new film “Megalopolis,” a visionary architect named Cesar Catilina ( Adam Driver ) who, by barking “Time, stop!” can temporarily freeze the world for a moment before restoring it with a snap of his fingers. And Coppola isn't referring to his ability to manipulate time in the editing suite. He means it literally.

“We’ve all had moments in our lives where we approach something you can call bliss,” Coppola says. “There are times when you have to leave, have work, whatever it is. And you just say, ‘Well, I don’t care. I’m going to just stop time.’ I remember once actually thinking I would do that.”

Time is much on Coppola’s mind. He’s 85 now. Eleanor, his wife of 61 years, died in April. “Megalopolis,” which is dedicated to her, is his first movie in 13 years. He’s been pondering it for more than four decades. The film begins, fittingly, with the image of a clock.

You have by now probably heard a few things about “Megalopolis.” Maybe you know that Coppola financed the $120 million budget himself, using his lucrative wine empire to realize a long-held vision of Roman epic set in a modern New York. You might be familiar with the film’s clamorous reception from critics at the Cannes Film Festival in May, some of whom saw a grand folly, others a wild ambition to admire.

“Megalopolis,” a movie Coppola first began mulling in the aftermath of “Apocalypse Now” in the late 1970s, has been a subject of intrigue, anticipation, gossip, a lawsuit and sheer disbelief for years.

Here's details and excerpts of The Associated Press' interview with Coppola and the film's stars.

If Coppola has a lot riding on “Megalopolis,” he doesn’t, in any way, appear worried. Recouping his investment in the film will be virtually impossible; he stands to lose many millions. But speaking with Coppola, it’s clear he’s filled with gratitude. “I couldn’t be more blessed,” he says.

“Everyone’s so worried about money. I say: Give me less money and give me more friends,” Coppola says. “Friends are valuable. Money is very fragile. You could have a million marks in Germany at the end of World War II and you wouldn’t be able to buy a loaf of bread.”

“On our first day of shooting, at one point in the day he said to everybody, ’We’re not being brave enough,” Driver recalled in Cannes. “That, for me, was what I hooked on for the rest of the shoot.”

Giancarlo Esposito, who first sat for a reading of the script 37 years ago with Laurence Fishburne and Billy Crudup, calls it “some deep, deep dream of consciousness” from Coppola.

Esposito was surprised to find the script hadn’t changed much over the years.

Every morning, he would receive a text from the director with a different ancient story. On set, Coppola favored theater games, improvisation and going with instinct.

“He takes his time. What we’re used to in this modern age is immediate answers and having to know the answer,” Esposito says. “And I don’t think Francis needs to know the answer. I think the question for him is sometimes more important.”

“I’m a creation of Hollywood,” says Coppola. “I went there wanting to be part of it, and by hook or crook, they let me be part of it. But that system is dying.”

In recent years, Coppola has experimented with what he calls “live cinema,” trying to imagine a movie form that’s created and seen simultaneously. In festival screenings, “Megalopolis” has included a live moment in which a man walks on stage and addresses a question to a character on the screen.

“The movies your grandchildren will make are not going to be like this formula happening now. We can’t even imagine what it’s going to be, and that’s the wonderful thing about it,” says Coppola. “The notion that there’s a set of rules to make a film — you have to have this, you have to have that — that’s OK if you’re making Coca-Cola because you want to know that you’re going to be able to sell it without risk. But cinema is not Coca-Cola. Cinema is something alive and ever-changing.”

“Megalopolis” will be released by Lionsgate in theaters Friday, including many IMAX screens.

Francis Ford Coppola attends the premiere of "Megalopolis" on Monday, Sept. 23, 2024, at AMC Lincoln Square in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

FILE - Director Francis Ford Coppola poses for portrait photographs for the film "Megalopolis," at the 77th international film festival, Cannes, southern France, Friday, May 17, 2024. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP, File)

This image released by Lionsgate shows Giancarlo Esposito as Mayor Cicero in a scene from "Megalopolis." (Lionsgate via AP)

FILE - Director Francis Ford Coppola poses for portrait photographs for the film "Megalopolis," at the 77th international film festival, Cannes, southern France, Friday, May 17, 2024. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP, File)

This image released by Lionsgate shows Adam Driver in a scene from "Megalopolis." (Lionsgate via AP)

This image released by Lionsgate shows a scene from "Megalopolis." (Lionsgate via AP)

FILE - Director Francis Ford Coppola poses for portrait photographs for the film "Megalopolis," at the 77th international film festival, Cannes, southern France, Friday, May 17, 2024. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP, File)

Key takeaways from AP's interview with Francis Ford Coppola about 'Megalopolis'

This image released by Lionsgate shows writer/director Francis Ford Coppola, left, and actor Adam Driver on the set of "Megalopolis." (Phil Caruso/Lionsgate via AP)

Key takeaways from AP's interview with Francis Ford Coppola about 'Megalopolis'

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Lawyers for a Missouri man scheduled to be executed Tuesday evening have filed another appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court that alleges there were racial bias and constitutional errors at his trial.

Marcellus Williams, 55, has long maintained innocence in the 1998 death of Lisha Gayle, a social worker and former newspaper reporter who was repeatedly stabbed during a burglary of her suburban St. Louis home. The execution is opposed both by Gayle's family and the prosecutor's office that put Williams on death row — an unprecedented combination.

“The family defines closure as Marcellus being allowed to live,” the clemency petition stated. “Marcellus’ execution is not necessary.”

Williams is among inmates in five states who are scheduled to be executed in the span of a week — an unusually high number that defies a yearslong decline in the use and support of the death penalty in the U.S. The first was carried out Friday in South Carolina. The others are scheduled to take place in Texas on Tuesday, and in Oklahoma and Alabama on Thursday.

Williams' hopes of having his sentence commuted to life in prison suffered dual setbacks Monday when, almost simultaneously, Republican Gov. Mike Parson denied clemency and the Missouri Supreme Court declined to grant a stay of execution.

Attorneys working on Williams’ behalf filed motions late Monday challenging the state Supreme Court’s decision.

“We have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stay Marcellus Williams’ execution on Tuesday based on a revelation by the trial prosecutor that he removed at least one Black juror before trial based on his race,” Tricia Bushnell, an attorney for Mr. Williams, said in a news release.

The prosecutor in the 2001 murder case, Keith Larner, testified at an August hearing that he struck one potential Black juror partly because he looked too much like Williams — a statement which Williams’ attorneys asserted showed improper racial bias.

Bushnell said Larner removed six of seven Black prospective jurors. The jury ultimately had 11 white members and one Black member. Larner contended that the jury selection process was fair.

The Missouri attorney general's office filed a response Tuesday saying the only effect of a stay of execution would be another delay in a case “that has already been delayed many years through Williams’ litigation of meritless claims.”

The state Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision Monday afternoon, affirmed a lower court ruling rejecting Williams’ arguments.

Parson accused Williams’ attorneys of trying to “muddy the waters about DNA evidence” with claims that courts have repeatedly rejected.

“Nothing from the real facts of this case have led me to believe in Mr. Williams’ innocence,” Parson said in a statement.

Parson, a former sheriff, has never granted clemency in a death penalty case. Williams’ execution would be the third in Missouri this year and the 100th since the state resumed executions in 1989.

St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell has sought to set aside Williams’ sentence, citing questions about his guilt. His office joined lawyers from the Midwest Innocence Project in asking the U.S. Supreme Court to grant a stay.

“Even for those who disagree on the death penalty, when there is a shadow of a doubt of any defendant’s guilt, the irreversible punishment of execution should not be an option,” Bell said in a statement.

This marks the third time Williams has faced execution. He was less than a week away from lethal injection in January 2015 when the state Supreme Court called it off, allowing time for his attorneys to pursue additional DNA testing.

He was hours away from being executed in August 2017 when then-Gov. Eric Greitens, a Republican, granted a stay and appointed a panel of retired judges to examine the case. But that panel never reached a conclusion.

Questions about DNA evidence also led Bell to request a hearing challenging Williams’ guilt. But days before the Aug. 21 hearing, new testing showed that DNA on the knife belonged to members of the prosecutor’s office who handled it without gloves after the original crime lab tests.

Without DNA evidence pointing to any alternative suspect, Midwest Innocence Project attorneys reached a compromise with the prosecutor’s office: Williams would enter a new, no-contest plea to first-degree murder in exchange for a new sentence of life in prison without parole.

Judge Bruce Hilton signed off on the agreement, as did Gayle’s family. But at the urging of Missouri's Republican attorney general, Andrew Bailey, the state Supreme Court blocked the agreement and ordered Hilton to proceed with an evidentiary hearing, which took place Aug. 28.

Hilton ruled on Sept. 12 that the first-degree murder conviction and death sentence would stand, noting that Williams’ arguments all had been previously rejected. That decision was upheld Monday by the state Supreme Court.

Prosecutors at Williams’ original trial said he broke into Gayle’s home on Aug. 11, 1998, heard water running in the shower, and found a large butcher knife. Gayle, a former reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, was stabbed 43 times when she came downstairs. Her purse and her husband’s laptop computer were stolen.

Authorities said Williams stole a jacket to conceal blood on his shirt. Williams’ girlfriend asked him why he would wear a jacket on a hot day. The girlfriend said she later saw the purse and laptop in his car and that Williams sold the computer a day or two later.

Prosecutors also cited testimony from Henry Cole, who shared a cell with Williams in 1999 while Williams was jailed on unrelated charges. Cole told prosecutors Williams confessed to the killing and offered details about it.

Attorneys for Williams said that fingerprints, a bloody shoeprint, hair and other evidence at the crime scene didn’t match Williams.

Salter reported from O’Fallon, Missouri.

FILE - This photo provided by the Missouri Department of Corrections shows Marcellus Williams. (Missouri Department of Corrections via AP, file)

Lawyers seek Supreme Court intervention hours before a Missouri inmate's planned execution

FILE - Joseph Amrine, who was exonerated two decades ago after spending years on death row, speaks at a rally to support Missouri death row inmates Marcellus Williams on Aug. 21, 2024, in Clayton, Mo. (AP Photo/Jim Salter, file)

Lawyers seek Supreme Court intervention hours before a Missouri inmate's planned execution