Sofia Coppola covers the August issue of Vogue Australia, and she looks stunning and natural on the front of the Love issue. The rest of the editorial hasn’t been released yet, but you can see some crumply-looking reader snapshots of the editorial at the Fashion Spot. I’ve always thought that Sofia is a very underrated beauty with her somewhat offbeat looks, and she’s certainly had to deal with a lot of unfair criticism of her looks and acting skills — people were really nasty about her performance in The Godfather III and never took into account that Sofia was pulled into the movie on the first day of filming after Winona Ryder dropped out with no warning at all. I think (and I could be wrong) this criticism was part of the reason why Sofia decided to move behind the camera.

For the most part, this has been a wise move because Sofia is a genuinely talented director, and her early movies The Virgin Suicides and Lost in Translation really hit the mark. Then somewhere around Marie Antoinette, she seemed to lose the plot. Now Sofia is promoting The Bling Ring, and she also appears in a feature in the August issue of Interview magazine. This talk, which was led by artist Richard Prince, isn’t terribly informative or exciting, but the accompanying shoot is captivating. The stylists on this shoot and photographer Craig McDean really knew what they were doing and made Sofia look great. Here are some interview excerpts:

Why she made The Bling Ring: “I was on an airplane and there was this article in Vanity Fair. I remember hearing about those burglaries on the news, but I didn’t pay it that much attention. I was caught by the article, though. I always love stories about teenagers getting into trouble … [laughs] And this one seemed so absurd. The quotes of what the kids were saying in the article seemed so out there and interesting. I thought, Someone’s got to be making a movie of this–it’s such a pop movie. I thought, We should get the rights if someone hasn’t already. I never thought that I would make the movie. But the article stayed in my mind, and I finally met the journalist and she gave me all of the transcripts from her interviews. Just reading all of these pages along with the police reports … I’ve never worked on anything that was based on a crime before–it was a different experience for me. So I tried making it into a script. I’d just finished my last movie, Somewhere, and had a few things in mind for my next project already. But this sort of grabbed all of my attention. That happens to me. I have a few different ideas on the table and one takes over. In this case it was the transcripts and the quotes from the kids. I used a lot of it as the dialogue for the movie. I was really struck by how everything got so out of control.”

On making Emma Watson unrecognizable: “That’s important because I don’t like when actors stand out. I find it distracting when there’s a famous actor in a film. So I’m glad she blended in.”

On the victims’ experiences: “Going through your underwear drawer … It’s creepy. Yeah, the fact that one of them stole Paris Hilton’s bra and was wearing it … they went to her house maybe five or six times. I think Orlando Bloom was because his girlfriend was a Victoria’s Secret model, and one of them said, ‘I want Victoria’s Secret-model clothes.’ I think it was more about these kinds of tabloid-style icon girls. I wanted it to feel like you were with them in the closets and rooms. That was really Paris Hilton’s place. She let us come into her house. She really has a nightclub in her house. Paris really did [leave her key under the mat]; hopefully she doesn’t anymore. And in none of those houses were the alarms set.”

These young adults really didn’t care about sex: “Yeah, I didn’t feel like sex excited them. It was about the stuff–and dressing sexy and getting attention in clubs, and maybe being discovered. But it was never about sex. It was about being sexy to get where they wanted to go.”

She likes filming quick and dirty: “It was about six weeks. We do everything low-budget, so we do it as quickly as possible just to have more freedom. There are always things that I wish were different, or I feel like I’ve made mistakes. But it’s just part of it. I don’t mind that it’s a little homemade. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Do you think about the audience or their opinions when you make a work? I try to just make what I want to make or what I would want to see. I try not to think about the audience too much. But for Bling Ring, I did want it to appeal to about the same age as the characters. I also hoped that people my age would be into it in the same way I was interested in the story. I wanted the audience to get into it and then not until later kind of stand back and think, ‘Maybe there is something else going on here …’ I wanted it to be seductive at the beginning.”

[From Interview Magazine]

Like I said, this discussion isn’t particularly illuminating, but ironically, interviews in Interview magazine are generally hit and miss anyway. What I really like about Sofia is that she’s not a Botox queen, and she realizes that she’ll never be a glamour puss and doesn’t try to fake it either. I mean, Sofia wore this t-shirt dress to her recent NYC premiere, and she completely owned it. Just like she does with this shoot.

Photos courtesy of Vogue Australia and Interview magazine