‘Not many people had gay fathers who died of Aids’: Andrew Durham and Sofia Coppola on the movie Fairyland | Video

WSofia Coppola joins our video, her friend and filmmaker Andrew Durham – who directed, Fairylandhe’s out – he’s telling me about being nine or 10 years old, accidentally outing his dad as gay.

“Did you hear the news, Sofia?” asks Los Angeles coldly. “What about Pietro? The Italian boy that my father may have been dating when we lived in England?” At home in New York, Coppola leans on his forehead. “Oh, yeah. A long time ago, I think. I forgot…”

The story is in German: after all, their video was adapted from Alysia Abbott’s 2013 book Fairyland: Memoir of My Father, in which the author describes her childhood and youth with her promiscuous father, the writer and poet Steve Abbott (played by Scoot McNairy), who came out after her mother’s death. Alysia (Nessa Dougherty in the first half of the film, then Emilia Jones in later scenes) grows up among her father’s friends and lovers in a blizzard of glitter and glittering feathers. At one of his birthday parties, he blows out the candles while the adults blow their minds on acid.

It is closely related to the life of Durham itself. Like Abbott, he grew up in the Bay Area of ​​San Francisco in the 1970s. After his parents separated, he spent weekends with his father, Jerry, a museum curator. Also like Abbott, in later life Durham breastfed her father after contracting HIV. Both Steve and Jerry died in the same year, 1992.

It’s no surprise that Coppola, who chose the novel, thought Durham would be the perfect director for the film. They have known each other since the 1990s, when Durham produced Coppola’s TV show, Hi-Octane, and his first short, Lick the Star, about a middle school clique. Since then he has been an actor in many of his films. He said: “His taste and subtlety have not changed with time. This is the mark of a true auteur.”

Despite rumors to the contrary, Coppola never considered directing Fairyland himself. Durham misrepresents Alysia’s dismay when she realizes this: “Well, who I wouldn’t do that be?”

Coppola, who recently turned 55, takes on the story. “We went to meet Alysia and I was, like, ‘You know, Andrew’s going to direct and he’s never done a movie but it’s going to be great.’ At first, he was like ‘Errr …‘ But they were very happy.” Durham admits: “We had similar things in our lives. I always thought it was just me. I have not met many people who had gay fathers who died of Aids. “

Although this was Coppola’s first film venture, he was excited at the prospect of following his father, Francis Ford Coppola, director of Apocalypse Now and the Godfather trilogy. “It’s in the tradition of what my father did at (his production company) Zoetrope, promoting things you love and believe in.” Fairyland, too, is a Zoetrope maker and dates back to the original 1970s logo, much to Durham’s delight. “One thing Sofia and I have in common is us hate bad logo.”

The film continues the example of the bittersweet father-son story in Coppola’s filmography: Elsewhere, who won the Golden Lion in Venice, stars Elle Fanning as the wise 11-year-old son of a feckless film icon (Stephen Dorff); On the Rocks is a light-hearted caper about a reformed roué (Bill Murray) helping his daughter (Rashida Jones) focus on her potentially unfaithful husband; and Oscar-winner Lost in Translation, starring Murray and Scarlett Johansson as lonely souls who connect in Tokyo, echoing the father-daughter dynamic even as the film edges closer to romance.

This busyness is not surprising when Coppola’s father is larger than life, not only in the films but also in the places where Durham and Abbott live. “I always remember my father wearing these corduroy suits,” he said. “We lived in San Francisco in a big old Victorian house. Famous European filmmakers were coming and going. My family friends dressed in vintage 1940’s late 1970’s clothing. I still remember this little boy of these fanatics.”

Coppola’s parents (her mother Eleanor, a filmmaker and actress, died in 2024) insisted that she and her two brothers participate in every part of their lives, from West Coast shindigs to film sets in the Philippines. He wanted us to be close to him.

Durham, several years Coppola’s senior, had an uneventful childhood. When he was seven, his father moved his family from Palo Alto to Guildford in Surrey while he worked at the V & A Museum in London. Durham now thinks that this spell in the UK played a big part in Jerry’s sexual development. “My father grew up on a cattle ranch in Wyoming.

Enter Pierro. “We all loved him. He had a nice house with these big gardens where we used to play croquet. When we went back to California, we’d get air mail – the blue and red ones with the letter and the envelope. It was a sight for me as a kid. I saw one crushed in the trash at home, so I took it out and showed it, my dad to the App of love.”

Durham doesn’t know what he and his older brother were told at the time. However, after their parents divorced, the boys spent weekends with their father in San Francisco. “Not only were there men (around) but there were these amazing parties and we were going to theaters and the hottest new restaurants. It was sophisticated and glamorous.”

Settled in bohemian civilized life, I wonder what each of them found to rebel? “Oh, I never rebelled,” says Durham. Really? “No! Yes I did!” He dyed his hair blue and joined the punk scene. “And I know Sofia was a sneaky teenager too,” she laughs. What did this involve? He said: “I don’t know if I really want it to be published.”

In Fairyland, young Alysia cringes when her peers make homophobic jokes. How did Durham solve the same problem? I was lucky enough to have a group of close friends, so it wasn’t a problem at all. Although after some time I realized that some people were not comfortable with my friends when they were hanging out at my father’s house.

It was especially poignant for Durham to revisit his father’s death while he was working on the final stages of the film. He admitted: “It’s still a surprise to me. “When I was writing, I would get to the third play and it was very difficult for me because I was drawing on what I experienced in taking care of my father.” He added some hurtful points not in Abbott’s book. “One is the oblivion that affects Steve in the end. I remembered that you suffer from this kind of mental disorder when the virus attacks your brain. It was like these guys had Alzheimer’s over the weekend. It was crazy.”

Another scene, about the early HIV drug AZT and its punitive effects, was taken from a conversation between Durham and his father.

He said: “I was very worried about AZT because it seemed to kill everyone. I told my father, ‘You have an immune system. And he said, ‘I’m not taking it for me. I’m taking it because we’re rabbits. We have to take it.'” yours generation, etc. after that.’ As a young man in his 20s, that was a deep feeling. Now everyone is on PrEP. But they need to understand where it came from – and the sacrifices that were made to get there. “

The two agree that the film’s themes can’t help but resonate with the climate of fear surrounding queerness today. Are they surprised that these issues are still being discussed in 2026?

“The older you get, the more you realize that this pendulum swings back and forth,” says Durham.

Coppola added: “It’s amazing. “That’s why I felt it was so important in this film to show all kinds of families, because there’s so much racism now.