Doc Talk Podcast: Mega Conversation With ‘Megadoc’ Director Mike Figgis On What He Learned Observing Coppola At Work On $120M Epic

Since his earliest days making films, Francis Ford Coppola has been willing to risk it all — his reputation, perhaps even his sanity and certainly his finances — to make a project come to life. In his 80s he did it again, putting up his own money to realize a film he had dreamed of for decades, Megalopolis.

Alas, the big gamble hasn’t paid off commercially, at least at this stage. Setting aside whether Coppola failed or not, the grandeur of his vision – and the vexing problems he faced throughout production – are captured for posterity in Megadoc, directed by Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Mike Figgis (Leaving Las Vegas, Liebestraum). It’s now playing in select theaters.

Figgis joins the latest episode of Deadline’s Doc Talk, explaining what it was like to be on set as Coppola worked on Megalopolis. He witnessed the director’s growing frustration with his VFX department and his clashes with actor Shia LaBeouf, hired to star in the drama as the cross-dressing, politically ambitious Clodio Pulcher.

Figgis tells us whether he read the screenplay for Megalopolis before he arrived on set, and if so whether he understood it (many an actor involved in the project seems to have found the story baffling). He shares insights about Coppola that he gleaned in conversation with George Lucas and how Coppola’s bipolar diagnosis impacts his work.

The Megadoc director also tells us about his interactions behind the scenes with Jon Voight, cast as Hamilton Crassus III (an actor Figgis describes as “the most charming, articulate, right-wing Republican Trump supporter”) and “loose cannon” Aubrey Plaza, who stars in the intriguing role of Wow Platinum. And Figgis reveals what Dustin Hoffman (Nush “The Fixer” Berman) said to him that he found “fascinating, coming from a film history, kind of psychological point of view.”

That’s on the new episode of Doc Talk, hosted by Oscar winner John Ridley (12 Years a Slave, Shirley) and Matt Carey, Deadline’s documentary editor. The show is a production of Deadline and Ridley’s Nō Studios.

Listen to the episode above or on major podcast platforms including Spotify, iHeart and Apple.