Sofia Coppola is a fan of Britney Spears! The daughter of filmmakers Eleanor and Francis Ford Coppola is herself an actress and filmmaker. She’s won an Oscar, two Golden Globe Awards, a Golden Lion and a Cannes Film Festival Prize, and is now using her platform to comment on the singer’s biopic “Toxic,” which one fan called “cheeky.”
In an interview with Elle, Sofia said she was “a little obsessed” with Britney Spears after watching documentaries made about her life and reading her memoir, “The Woman In Me.” In 2007, Britney made headlines by shaving her head, which Sofia called the “punk moment” in history.
“She became this symbol of women’s rights. “It would never happen to a man,” she said, without specifying what “it” meant, although she could talk about her conservatorship. In the year following her mental health crisis, she was subjected to a controversial 13-year court-ordered conservatorship, which lasted until November 2021.
Coppola has cheeky response to Britney Spears biopic
Although “Wicked” director Jon M. Chu is currently working on a biopic based on his bestselling novel, little is known about the project. In 2025, Chu told Entertainment Tonight that Britney would be “very involved” in the project when it comes to fruition.
“I haven’t really started anything yet, but she will be very involved in it. I have ideas and things, an approach, but it’s very early,” he said at the time.
In her interview, Sofia said, “I guess Jon Chu does it,” but added, “I hope so, yeah, I would love to do that story.” A fan posted the screenshot of the interview on Reddit with the caption: “I love his cheeky commentary on the biopic.”
Fans debate who should create the biopic
Many fans immediately weighed in on the comments with their opinions. Most expressed a desire to see Sofia lead the project. “I always imagined Sofia would be the one to direct the biopic. I don’t see Jon Chu doing it right at all, and not just because he’s a man,” one fan commented.
“Sofia understands, childhood and womanhood, the feeling of being trapped. She would really pack a punch with her performance and direction. It would mean a lot,” agreed another user.
“She’s my favorite director. The movie would be stunning. But Jon Chu can really lead a musical number. So I guess everything about the performance will be brilliant in his vision. But yes, Sofia would create a better movie if there was more focus on her struggles,” a third fan added.
They went on to write, “I think it’s going to be more of a show with Jon Chu. Kind of ironic. The real Britney has always been that delicate flower (I don’t mean weak or shy. Just burdened with so much more than she should have been dealing with) behind all the manufactured show. That’s the real story. I hope he finds it.”
Britney Spears explains why she shaved her hair
In a clip from “The Woman In Me” shared by PEOPLE magazine, the “Lucky” singer explained why she shaved her head.
“I had been stared at so much growing up. I had been looked at up and down, people telling me what they thought of my body, since I was a teenager,” she wrote. “Shaving my head and acting out were my ways of pushing back.”
“Under the tutelage, I was made to understand that those days were now over,” she continued. “I had to grow my hair and get back into shape. I had to go to bed early and take all the medicine they told me to take.”
Britney said conservatorship made her feel like a ‘shadow’ of herself
Elsewhere in her memoir, she spoke about the difficulties of performing on stage during her conservatorship, including her Piece of Me residency in Las Vegas.
“I was doing little creative things here and there, but my heart was no longer in it. As for my passion for singing and dancing, it was almost a joke at that point,” she writes. “Thirteen years have passed without me feeling like a shadow of myself.”
“I think now about my father and his associates having control of my body and my money for so long, and it makes me sick,” she continued. “Think about how many male entertainers spent all their money gambling; how many of them suffered from drug addiction or mental health issues. No one tried to take away their control over their bodies and their money. I didn’t deserve what my family did to me.”
