Gia Coppola floated an idea for a sequel to her well-received third feature, The Last Showgirl, this afternoon during a Q&A session at the San Sebastian Film Festival, where she is serving on the Competition jury.
“I always had a fantasy that the sequel to The Last Showgirl would be: Shelly and Annette rob a casino. And it’s a heist film,” Coppola quipped.
Coppola debuted The Last Showgirl at Toronto in 2024 before bringing the film to San Sebastian, where it won the Special Jury Prize. The film follows a veteran Las Vegas showgirl called Shelly (played by Pamela Anderson) who must switch up her life’s routine following the unexpected closure of her three-decade-long show. The film’s ensemble cast featured Kiernan Shipka, Brenda Song, Billie Lourd, Dave Bautista, and Jamie Lee Curtis, who plays the role of Annette.
Coppola spoke effusively about working with Anderson and Lee Curtis, both of whom she said taught her a great deal about the filmmaking process and were steadfast in their support on set.
“Jamie was moving lights if we had to keep moving fast,” Coppola said of Lee Curtis on set. “And Pamela was down to just run around Las Vegas, even after the day of the shooting finished, to just get extra bits.”
Coppola added that the two veterans were a huge “service to the movie” and allowed her to create a “very intimate” production environment.
Elsewhere during the session, Coppola spoke at length about DoP Autumn Durald Arkapaw, now best known for her blockbuster collaborations with Ryan Coogler (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and Sinners). But Arkapaw’s first feature credit was actually Coppola’s 2013 indie feature Palo Alto.
Coppola said she first worked with Durald Arkapaw on a short version of Palo Alto, and she was only hired to stand in for a cinematographer she had already hired, but had to leave the production due to scheduling conflicts.
“Autumn came along and I told him, never mind, I’m going to go with her,” Coppola recounted. “She’s my best friend. We talk pretty much every day and can be real with each other. I call her the cactus because she can be so mean. But she protects me in that way, too, because she can be mean to everyone else and then gets me what I want.”
To illustrate her point, Coppola recounted the pre-production stage on The Last Showgirl, which Durald Arkapaw also shot. The film was shot on celluloid, but Coppola said she had some reservations about shooting on film after some pushback from the film’s producers.
“Autumn, my cactus, said, No, you wanted film, so we’re gonna do film. I’ll threaten to walk off this movie unless we shoot on film,” Coppola said of Durald Arkapaw’s reaction at the time. “She explained that it wasn’t actually riskier than shooting digitally. You just need to know what you’re doing. And I’m so grateful that she advocated for me in that way.”
We spoke with Durald Arkapaw about shooting The Last Showgirl and Sinners earlier this year. You can read that conversation here.
San Sebastian runs until September 27.
The post Gia Coppola Talks Close Collaboration With ‘Sinners’ DoP Autumn Durald Arkapaw & Floats Idea For ‘The Last Showgirl’ Sequel: “Shelly And Annette Rob A Casino” — San Sebastian appeared first on Deadline.
