For the winners and nominees at the 76th annual Academy Awards, the original screenplay category was truly a family affair. A win for Sofia Coppola, who won her first Oscar that night for writing “Lost in Translation,” not only made her the third generation of Coppolas to take home an Academy Award, but the writers of the nominated “In America” included a father and two of his two daughters.
Coppola, daughter of five-time winner Francis Ford Coppola and granddaughter of Carmine Coppola (who won his Oscar for original music in 1975 for “The Godfather Part II” with Nino Rota), was involved in the family film business since childhood. She had appeared as a baby in her father's “The Godfather” (1972), was in “The Godfather II” as an immigrant girl and had a larger role in 1990's “The Godfather III,” a performance that earned her few fans. So winning her Oscar for writing her second feature (Coppola also directed) in the Feb. 29 show must have been particularly sweet.
Coppola accepted the award from presenters Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins (who had won his own Oscar earlier that night) while wearing a plum floor-length Marc Jacobs dress, and she truly was all smiles.
He thanked the academy and his father “for everything he taught me,” along with his brother Román and “all my friends who were there for me when I got stuck at 12 pages and encouraged me to continue writing.” She also mentioned several filmmakers who had inspired her: Michelangelo Antonioni, Wong Kar-wai, Bob Fosse and Jean-Luc Godard. “Every writer needs a muse,” she added. “Mine was [‘Translation’ star] Bill Murray.”
One person who wasn't thanked, and it wasn't a real surprise, was her ex-husband (and fellow director) Spike Jonze, whom she had divorced the previous year. In interviews she gave that year, she noted that he had been a factor in the creation of one of the characters in “Translation.” “It's not Spike,” she told Entertainment Weekly at the time. “But there are elements of him there. Elements of experiences. There are elements of me in all the characters.”
Their competition also included some relationships, specifically Jim Sheridan and two of his daughters, Naomi and Kirsten. Their lives also proved to be an inspiration for the nominated film “In America,” for which the three shared writing credit. It was the sixth nomination for the elder Sheridan, which he has not won, and the first for Naomi and Kirsten. Since then, both women have continued directing.
However, the other nominees did not share any particular family ties. Denys Arcand received her first nomination for “The Barbarian Invasions,” which she wrote and directed. “Barbarian” ended up winning an Oscar for what was then called a foreign language film. Steven Knight (“Dirty Pretty Things”) was also up for his first nomination and failed to win, but he clearly found strength elsewhere: He is co-creator of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” game show franchise. And Pixar's Andrew Stanton, Bob Peterson and David Reynolds were nominated for “Finding Nemo,” but went home empty-handed. Stanton won an Oscar that same night when “Nemo” won best animated feature, and would win a second award in 2009 for writing “Wall-E,” while Peterson has been nominated for an Oscar twice. This was Reynolds' only nomination so far.
