Francis Ford Coppola believes his early marriage changed his life and career, yet thinks young women should not get married early.

Francis Ford Coppola is a visionary in the vast landscape of modern filmmaking and all of Hollywood. The director of The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, and Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the filmmaker-screenwriter is the recipient of five Academy Awards and more. And his latest movie, also a self-financed passion project, Megalopolis, is set to premier at the Cannes Film Festival.

Francis Ford Coppola

Yet despite his talent, the filmmaker gives much of the praise for the career he has made to his late wife, Eleanor Coppola. But in an old interview, despite remarking how marriage changed his life for the better, he asked young women to not marry early.

Francis Ford Coppola Doesn’t Think Women Should Get Married Early

Francis Ford Coppola enjoyed a long and loving marriage with his late wife, Eleanor Coppola since 1963, after having met each other on sets of Dementia 13. The two have always been supportive of each other and were deeply involved in each others’ careers.

And the award-winning filmmaker feels that it was his early marriage to his late wife that became the reason he was able to reach such incredible heights in his decades-long career. Back in 2011, the filmmaker was interviewed at the Toronto International Film Festival (via Huffpost) and was asked by a young woman what advice he would give to her.

“Well, if it’s a guy, I say get married …. I was married at 22, and I was desperate to have kids. I had so much fun with my kids. The fact that I was married and had this family of little kids, I was very responsible, I wanted to have a house they could live in, so I worked very hard.”

He went on, counting the many reasons why his early marriage had a positive influence on his career. Yet, when it comes to young women, he remarked,

“If you’re a young woman, I would say, don’t get married, because then you have this guy who’s trying to get you to do everything for his career. And you’re not going to have any time for your own career.”

Not only was Coppola not wrong, but his advice also reflected the cruel reality of today’s society. Even though times have considerably changed, patriarchal norms still dictate much of our lives, with the most obvious example being the pay disparity in Hollywood.

Francis Ford Coppola’s Passion Project is Finally Ready for Release

Francis Ford Coppola has made several incredible movies yet the filmmaker feels it is the upcoming Megalopolis that is the best work he has ever done. The award-winning filmmaker has been working on the screenplay since the 1980s and has even invested $120 million of his own to finance the film.

After multiple rewrites and whatnot, the movie is finally finished and its first trailer was just released some time ago. A dream script that he envisioned while making his iconic Apocalypse Now, the movie is sort of a Roman megapolis set in modern-day America.

Starring Adam Driver, Aubrey Plaza, Shia LeBeouf, and more, the movie contains an excellent ensemble cast and tackles themes like politics, architecture, philosophy, and love. Set to debut at the Cannes Film Festival 2024, the release date for the movie is yet to be made known (via The Guardian).