Francis Ford Coppola Says He Purposefully Cast 'Canceled' Actors in New Movie 'Megalopolis'

Francis Ford Coppola is addressing the controversial cast of his new movie Megalopolis.

The upcoming movie features cast members Shia LaBeouf, Jon Voight, and Dustin Hoffman, all of whom have found themselves in some headline-making controversies.

Shia has been publicly accused of assaulting former girlfriends, Jon is a devout supporter of Donald Trump, and Dustin has allegedly assaulted former co-stars.

In a new interview, Coppola explained why he purposefully included “canceled” actors in the movie.

Keep reading to find out more…“What I didn’t want to happen is that we’re deemed some woke Hollywood production that’s simply lecturing viewers,” Coppola told Rolling Stone. “The cast features people who were canceled at one point or another. There were people who are archconservatives and others who are extremely politically progressive. But we were all working on one film together. That was interesting, I thought.”

Coppola went on to say that Shia has a very method process that he respects.

“I did a weird thing with Megalopolis because I could only rehearse with about a third of the cast, maybe a little more. I had Aubrey Plaza. I had Nathalie Emmanuel. I didn’t have Adam [Driver]. But I had given everybody understudies like it was a play, and I said, ‘What I’ll do is, I’ll do the rehearsal, and regarding the actors I don’t have, I’ll use the understudies,’” Coppola explained. “It was a very creative, interesting week of rehearsals. You could see the actors find the characters. Shia really took to it.”

He continued, “I had no experience working with him prior to this, but he deliberately sets up a tension between himself and the director to an extreme degree. He reminds me of Dennis Hopper, who would do something similar, and then you’d say, ‘Just go do anything,’ and then they go off and do something brilliant.”

Coppola went on to admit that while he and Jon have differing views on politics, it didn’t get in the way when they worked together.

“This steers me toward politics, and my publicist will yell at me if I start talking about politics,” Coppola explained. “This movie won’t cure our ills. But I honestly believe that what will save us is the fact that we’ve got to talk about the future.”

“We want to be able to ask any questions we have to ask in order to really look at why this country is divided right now, and that’s going to provide an energy that will defeat those people who want to destroy our republic,” he continued. “I made this film to contribute to that. And all I want is for this movie to start a conversation. You can’t have a utopia without a conversation.”

Megalopolis will be released in theaters on Sept. 27.

Find out why Lionsgate had to remove, and then apologize for, the movie’s latest trailer.