Coppola on Oscar nod: 'It's really hard to believe it's true'
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Sofia Coppola and Rozz Katz
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(CNN) -- Sofia Coppola is the first American woman ever nominated for a best director Academy Award. The daughter of famed director Francis Ford Coppola won a Golden Globe Sunday for best original screenplay for her film "Lost in Translation," which is also a best picture nominee.
Coppola and producer Ross Katz spoke to CNN's Anderson Cooper shortly after the nominations were announced Tuesday.
COPPOLA: This morning was so exciting but it's really hard to believe it's true, so I'm really happy to be with the other nominees.
COOPER: Bill Murray has gotten so much attention for the film. I understand he was very difficult to cast. What was it like trying to actually get him to be in the picture?
COPPOLA: He's just elusive, Bill Murray and not in touch with everyone. He kind of has his ...
KATZ: Or anyone.
COPPOLA: He has his real life separate from his work life. It was hard to track him down.
COOPER: I thought you guys were big Hollywood hot-shots. You can't just, call Bill Murray up and say, please be in the picture? You've got to woo him?
KATZ: Even if we were big Hollywood hot-shots, that's kind of the great thing about Bill. He does keep his work life very separate from his home life. He does a lot of other things other than working. To say he's elusive is an understatement.
Sofia said she wasn't going to make the movie unless he was in it so she literally wrote him letters, sent him photographs, and called everyone he may have ever been in contact with to say, 'Have you seen Bill or spoken to Bill?' in order to get him there. He did get the messages. Thankfully, he read Sofia's beautiful script...
COPPOLA: Thankfully he wasn't scared of me by the time...
KATZ: Yes. You're like, who's this woman coming after me?
COOPER: I'm glad he didn't think you were a stalker or anything, Sofia. What was it about Bill Murray that made him right for the role?
COPPOLA: I just always loved Bill Murray and he has such a unique mixture of being hysterically funny and then so heartfelt and sincere and soulful. So the part really called for both those things. I just wanted to see Bill Murray in Japan in a Kimono. He's just so lovable.
COOPER: When you got the Golden Globe for best screenplay you thanked your father, you called him a great screenwriting teacher. What did he teach you? What did you learn from him?
COPPOLA: Ever since I was really young he always talked about screenwriting and filmmaking and was always offering his -- what he had learned.
COOPER: The film, Ross, has gotten just amazing reviews around the world. There has been some criticism of late. Some have sort of said it was racist in some ways, that the depiction of Japanese people was sort of one dimensional. When you hear that, your response?
KATZ: My response to that is I think that -- thankfully an awful lot of people agree -- that Sofia has crafted this incredibly beautiful, very elegant story about connection and what it feels like to be in a place where you can't sleep, you don't speak the language. We've shown the film in Japan to a Japanese audience. The response was great.
