The Coppola Dynasty; Romy Mars shows her Uncle’s self-awareness in viral TikTok post

It would appear that irreverence is a family trait that runs through the Coppola dynasty; from Jason Scwartzman’s peculiar turns in Rushmore and The Darjeeling Limited, Sofia Coppola directing Lost in Translation - a movie about being bored in Japan - and of course Nicolas Cage and his range of interesting movie roles. Though this writer believes there is no such thing as a bad Nicolas Cage performance, just a bad movie that Nicolas Cage is trying to keep afloat.

So when Romy Mars, the daughter of Sofia Coppola and musician Thomas Mars and sister to Cosima Mars, took to TikTok this week to discuss being grounded by her parents, we’re sure her Uncle Nic (born Nicolas Kim Coppola, but changing his name to avoid calls of nepotism) nodded with approval over her self-awareness being deemed a “nepo-baby.” Romy Mars’ post has gone viral, earning praise for sending up the ideas many other famous babies are currently experiencing - being born into privileged families.

The now deleted TikTok post starts innocuous enough, explaining that she is grounded - but much like her Uncle, things take a wild turn shortly after. “Make a vodka sauce pasta with me because I’m grounded, because I tried to charter a helicopter from New York to Maryland on my dad’s credit card because I wanted to have dinner with my camp friend.”

She then goes on to reveal that she had to google the difference between onions and garlic, because she gets confused between the two at times (a shot perhaps at Brooklyn Beckham’s pursuit of becoming a chef), followed then by revealing that she isn’t meant to have a public-facing social media account because of calls she is a nepo-baby; cue a smash cut her mother Sofia would be proud of with Roy holding a Grammy Award belonging to her father.

“TikTok is not gonna make me famous” she proclaims towards the end of her video, before cutting off comparing the inside of her shallot (because it wasn’t an onion or a garlic clove in the end) to the intricate workings of a male scrotum; or a more crude word to describe that area. Her TikTok posts finish with Romy pointing the camera at a person she says is Ari, her babysitter’s boyfriend, because “my parents are never home, so these are my replacement parents.”

Though the original TikTok has been deleted, Twitter users have manage to screengrab what could be described as a micro-movie, with Romy Mars demonstrating not only her self-awareness that is considered, by technical terms, a nepo-baby but managing to meta-reference the cause celebre that the likes of Brooklyn Beckham and Maya Hawke have stirred as children of famous parents.

The new generation of Coppola’s - Romy Mars and Gia Coppola

Romy Mars is the latest generation of the Coppola Dynasty, one of those lineages of American showbiz akin to the lineages of the Baldwins, Arquettes and Cusacks. But what are the other Coppola's as part of her generation also doing?

Cayley Coppola and Natasha Shalom

The children of Marc Coppola and Elizabeth Seton, Natasha is best known for playing Bella in the award winning film Gli Zii. She starred as Perdix in Chrome: The Series and played Delia in Vertical's 'Rich Boy, Rich Girl.' 

Her film 'Extra Innings' won Best Feature Film at the 2019 Manhattan Film Festival. She was selected to be a part of the Talent Corner at the 69th Cannes Festival. Natasha trained at the prestigious Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, and then received her BA Honors in Acting from London's Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.

Cayley Coppola has had quite as prolific of a career so far compared to Elizabeth, but IMDB have listed her as being featured in an upcoming production entitled Young Monsters, the directorial debut of Christine Vartoughian.

Bailey Coppola and Zack Ferry Coppola

The children of Christopher Coppola and Adrienne Stout, Bailey Coppola has already worked with his cousin, Gia Coppola, in her feature film Palo Alto in 2013 while picking up bit parts in a number of feature films, with more of a preference according to IMDB for working on short films. There is little information out there regarding his brother Zack Ferry Coppola.

Weston Coppola Cage and Kal-El Coppola Cage

We reach the offspring of the one and only Nicolas Coppola Cage; a renowned fan of Superman, it comes as no surprise that he named one of his children Kal-El, the Kryptionian name for Clark Kent. Kal-El made his acting debut in the 2018 film Teen Titans GO! To the Movies, voicing a young Bruce Wayne, but has yet to follow up on the roles according to IMDB.

His half brother however, Weston Coppola Cage, has had a bit more of a prominent career and one that has crossed paths with his father a number of times; he’s appeared alongside Nic in the 2005 movie Lord of War and has contributed to the soundtracks of Nic-Flicks such as Joe, Drive Angry and Vengeance: A Love Story.

Gian-Carla Coppola

Out of all the new generation of Coppola’s, “Gia” is the one that is making a bit of a name for herself. Coppola's film career began when she directed a short film for her friend's fashion label, leading her to be hired to make short films for Opening Ceremony which starred Kirsten Dunst and Jason Schwartzman (her father's cousin), Zac Posen (who said that "she’s going to be the next Coppola force to be reckoned with"), Diane Von Furstenberg, Rodarte, and Elle China.

Her feature film debut, Palo Alto, was released in 2013 and based on James Franco's short story collection of the same name. She drew inspiration from films such as American Graffiti, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, The Outsiders, and The Virgin Suicides - all movies that have a family connection to them.

She followed this up with 2020’s Mainstream; set in West Hollywood the film follows struggling young filmmaker Frankie (Maya Hawke) who achieves success after meeting up with Link (Andrew Garfield) a strange and bold man living off the grid. The film received negative reviews from critics and was a box office bomb, grossing just $40,209 against a $5 million production budget

Marlowe Rivers Schwartzman and Una Schwartzman

The children of Jason Schwartzman and Brady Cunningham, both children have not made tentative steps into the world of show business; perhaps though when they’re older it might not be film and television that takes their interest. Jason Scwartzman is a musician also, with his band Phantom Planet having created the earworm that was used in cult teen drama The O.C. You might remember it, it was called “California” if we remember correctly.

Oh yes… good luck getting that song out of your head once again.