Kirsten Dunst, Marie Antoinette: Sofia is not the type of person who wants to show soldiers knocking down doors and people getting beheaded. It’s not in the visual vocabulary of what she likes to see in her movies.
Coppola: I grew up with bands like New Order and The Cure so it was exciting to use them in this context. The opening image is based on a Guy Bourdin photograph of a woman lying back with a maid at her feet. The idea was to introduce the queen via this decadent perception we have of her. The Gang of Four song [“Natural’s Not in It”] was meant to embody that punk energy and establish the tone of this story. It has this spirit of, We’re the kids who took over the castle and we can do whatever we want.
Dunst: Sofia was staying at the Chateau Marmont and I came over to hang out. She sorta shyly handed me Antonia Fraser’s book and said, “I really want you to read this and play Marie Antoinette!” I’d do anything for Sofia, but I was definitely intimidated. At that point I really only knew Marie as the “let them eat cake” lady.
Barrett: I didn’t just get to design historical interiors but also opera sets, horse-drawn carriages, all kinds of stuff I’d never done before. We pieced sets together throughout France because we had to fill four days a week with other scenes. Then we’d go back to Versailles every Monday to shoot everything that couldn’t be recreated, like Marie’s arrival or anything in the Hall of Mirrors.
Coppola: I visited the Costume Institute at the Met and looked at some dresses from that time period. They were much more vibrant than you’d imagine because historical paintings always seem to depict them as so dull.
Katz: There was a very good chance we were gonna get turned down. But one of the reasons the palace said they approved us was because Sofia’s film didn’t sound like another dusty costume drama. They said “Versailles is not a museum, it’s alive.” They didn’t want a movie that felt like a museum piece and Sofia presented a really vibrant take on a person we’ve only really seen in paintings before.
Shannon: I really began to understand what it must’ve felt like to be a child star from my conversations with Kirsten. We talked about her growing up at the Oakwood apartments with her mom and grandmother near the studios and making money to help support them. She learned to bring friends to set because she would get lonely as a kid. I loved hearing her perspective. I feel like I learned so much talking to her even though she’s younger than me.
Shannon: There was a very “work hard, play hard” mentality. The studio got my family an apartment in the 15th arrondissem*nt and I only had to work a couple scattered days over a month, so it kinda felt like having my maternity leave in Paris. Everybody lived in different neighborhoods so we’d compare notes on the best restaurants and supermarkets.
Nighy: I was finishing my second year of literature studies at the time, so during shooting I was also preparing for a six-hour Chaucer exam. I got to stay in a very nice hotel and wear these gorgeous costumes everyday and then go home to read Chaucer every night. What a loser, right?
Byrne: I arrived mid-shoot and on the weekends everyone would go dancing at this one place in Paris I can’t remember the name of—I bet Kirsten would. We were all around our early twenties, so it was a perfect time to be young and dumb in Paris.
Dunst: We would go out dancing at this nightclub called Le Baron. We had the best time.
Dornan: It takes a lot of shots for me to start dancing, and I remember dancing quite a lot, if that tells you anything.
Coppola: Le Baron was really small club, so it kinda felt like it was our place that we would go to all the time. It was like our version of The Peach Pit in 90210. We were all young and didn’t have many responsibilities outside of the movie, so we went there almost every weekend. The Phoenix guys would come, too, and that’s when Thomas [Mars, the band’s lead singer and Coppola’s husband] and I first got together.
Schwartzman: I went to Le Baron maybe four times total, but the others went much more. I was busy trying to crate-train my dog.
At the end of filming, the wigmakers gifted Jason Schwartzman an 18th-century wig for his dog, Arrow.
“It Needed to Sound Organic”
While Marie Antoinette’s soundtrack is best remembered for its use of ’70s punk and ’80s pop hits, music supervisor Brian Reitzell also coordinated the handful of 18th-century compositions featured. With the assistance of film composer Roger Neill (20th Century Women), the duo indulged in the film’s stylistic contrasts by putting their spin on classical and contemporary pieces for several key scenes.
Melery: Costumes, fine china, dolls, games, dog beds, fans. We sold a lot of fabrics to another period movie that was coming to France right after Marie Antoinette and set in the same period. Quite a lot of people in the crew bought small items. I kept some papier-mâché flowers and a shoebox covered with my favorite fabric.
Dunst: It’s become a movie people turn on when they just want something nice to look at. It’s like a piece of art you can watch.
