‘I was thinking a lot about my father and that whole generation of men’

Rashida Jones was going through a difficult, complicated time while making her new film. The LA-born actress was a new mum, having given birth to her son with Vampire Weekend frontman, Ezra Koenig, in summer 2018.

Then, in May 2019, during the same period as filming, her mum — the actress Peggy Lipton — died from cancer, aged 72. And 44-year-old Jones, known for comedies such as Parks and Recreation and The Office, acknowledges how this impacted her work on On The Rocks, written and directed by the remarkable Sofia Coppola.

“In any regular circumstance, you hope you can bring the best, most honest complex parts of yourself without fear of failure to a role,” suggests Jones, whose father is music legend Quincy Jones. “And then when things become even more difficult, and you’re dealing with your personal life, I guess the hope is that you can trust the people that you’re with to bring all of that to set and to a character, and that they will find a way to infuse that into the character.

“I felt very lucky to be in Sofia’s hands, and working with the people I was working with because there was a level of safety and support where I felt like I could just be myself, whatever that was that day — because sometimes it was messy — and that, hopefully, channelling it there would actually add to the character ultimately.”

And it worked. Jones is brilliant in On The Rocks, an emotive, heartfelt comedy in which she plays young mother Laura, who thinks she’s happily hitched — until her husband Dean (Marlon Wayans) starts logging late hours at the office with a new co-worker and she starts to worry he is having an affair.

So, she enlists the help of her charming, larger-than-life playboy father, Felix (Bill Murray), and together they investigate the situation, leading to a night-time adventure across New York, taking them from uptown parties to downtown hotspots.

Much of the laughs come from the generation clash between Laura and Felix, as Coppola, known for Lost In Translation and The Virgin Suicides, expertly explores the father-daughter relationship, and how unique and important it can be.

Discussing how she came up with the idea of the movie, the filmmaker recalls: “I had a friend who told me a story about spying on her husband with her father.

“It just made me think I would like to see a kind of comedy caper with the father-daughter buddy adventure, and the idea of having such different perspectives on the topic of relationships and men and women between these two generations. So I was trying to put those elements together in something that was hopefully fun and light but still has the depth of these themes.”

Jones and Coppola had met off an on over the years, having first worked together 18 years ago. It was back when Coppola was working on Lost In Translation; she was doing a workshop, and Jones was actually the actress performing the scene.

“At the time it was such a formative experience for me, to be able to work with this great young filmmaker,” gushes Jones. “And then to have this full-circle moment where we can reconnect and work on this thing, in a deeper way, it’s really kind of a dream come true.

“And just to watch Sofia work and run a set as somebody as kind of an aspiring director, it’s really, really, really great.”

“I was really glad to really spend all this time with Rashida, and have a great partner in making this film,” says Coppola, who is married to French musician, Thomas Mars (they have 2 children together). It helps that she’s a writer so when I sent scripts to her, I could get her feedback!”

Another friend who Coppola got on board for this latest project was Bill Murray, who starred in Lost In Translation (a hugely successful collaboration; Murray earned an Oscar nomination for Best Actor while Coppola won the Best Original Screenplay Oscar).

Murray has been talked about in the press for how notoriously enigmatic he is; it’s been said before he doesn’t have an agent or a manager, and he reportedly doesn’t have a mobile number, instead only being reachable via a private 1-800 number.

Coppola laughs when this is brought up, quipping: “I got him an agent, finally! I mean I thought it was time, he’s done enough in his career, so I got him one. It was hard but I did.”

Ghostbusters star Murray is not present for the interviews for On The Rocks, which take place over Zoom, and Coppola attests “he’s so hard to pin down”.

“He’s always mysterious and you never know when he might show up, which is part of the fun of when he is around, but he’s always great to work with because he always brings a magic and an unexpectedness to what he does.

“Felix was just a mix of different people. And then Bill brings so much life to the role, so it was fun to see that character come to life through Bill. It needed someone loveable because of course that kind of person also has a dark side and says things that you don’t agree with, and he could pull it off in a way that you can stomach it all.”

Coppola’s own father is 81-year-old Francis Ford Coppola. The American director, producer, and screenwriter is behind some of the most acclaimed films of all time; the Godfather trilogy and Apocalypse Now. She grew up in a world where there were a lot of men similar to Felix: “The ones who drink martinis and cigars and are connected with a kind of old-world way of life you don’t see as much now”.

Expanding on this, and the themes of the film, she says: “I was thinking a lot about my father and that whole generation of men, that ‘martini generation’ who were such characters but also part of what could be a very objectifying culture.

“And I was also thinking about how your relationship with your father affects your relationships and marriage. How do we relate to these men in our lives who we deeply love, but who we don’t always see eye-to-eye with when it comes to how men and women relate? That’s integrated into a madcap caper that I hope kind of whisks you away and into the city.” On The Rocks is available to watch now on Apple TV+.