Sofia Coppola
© AFP Pascal Guyot

Washington, Oct 16: Film director Sofia Coppola has denied any similarities between the lead character of her new movie Marie Antoinette and the late princess Diana.

Critics who watched the movie suggest that the lead character played by Kirsten Dunst, portraying the legendary French queen is a hybrid of both Diana and socialite Paris Hilton.

Coppola believes that the monarch, who was executed in 1793 at the height of the French Revolution cannot be linked as 18th-century France is nothing like the present celebrity-obsessed world.

"I know people who have seen the movie and have compared her to Diana and Paris, but I don't see that connection because they belong to a unique phenomenon of our time,“ Contactmusic quoted her as saying.

"I just liked uncovering the human side of this famous, notorious queen. I got the Antonia Fraser book and then thought about the challenge of making a period movie.

There's so much more to her story. I wanted to focus on the teenage years because that's what really struck me,” she said

"Imagine what it would be like to be 14 and sent to marry someone who's not interested in you - all of the stuff she went through and how she turned to partying and frivolity as a way to make herself feel better or as an escape. It was fun but overwhelming too," she added. (ANI)