When Elephants Visited the Set of Marie Antoinette

Photographer Andrew Durham shares never-before-seen images from the set of Sofia Coppola’s film.

Twenty years ago, Andrew Durham was given unprecedented access to the palace of Versailles during the shooting of the film Marie Antoinette, directed by his lifelong friend Sofia Coppola. He captured intimate moments between takes, after hours in the city of Paris, and at the film’s premiere at Cannes — many never seen until recently, with the publication of his new book, Making Marie Antoinette. Below, in his own words, he shares with us the stories behind some of these images.

I had one little camera in my back pocket. That is all I had. I wasn’t even hired to do this, Sofia just asked if I would come and document the set. We’d been friends for many years and she always loved the snapshots I took of all of our friends and just going out, our vacations together, nightclubs. I’d also known Jason Schwartzman since he was probably 13 years old. And Kirsten Dunst a little bit because she’d been working with Sofia. There was a level of comfort I had with the people. 

I went around and shot whatever I wanted. The world was so incredible. There was so much eye candy. And then you’d look left and there’s camera equipment and extras with 18th-century wigs smoking cigarettes and on their phones. 

Because unit still photographers are trying to match the lenses of the movie camera and everything, and it’s difficult to take lenses off, they will come in with three or four cameras fitted with different lenses. That can be intimidating to people because here they come and it’s like a photoshoot. There was a unit still photographer on set, and she was doing that. But I do think I sort of became invisible a little bit. Maybe that is why the images feel a bit more intimate. 

I flew myself out to France and stayed in Sofia’s apartment in Paris. These photos are something Sofia and I wanted to have just for our archives, to maybe throw in a shoebox and look at 20 years later. I did not need to document every shot or what was happening in every scene. 

There’s a lot of images where the people in it don’t even remember being photographed because it did not feel like a photoshoot. And this film was shot before the iPhone came out. I think if this movie had been made once we had the iPhone and social media, there would have been more photography going on on set and it would have had a different vibe. I lucked out because it made these photos 20 years later a bit more precious, I think. 

Sofia is one of those people that even when she was 20, she couldn’t wait to be 40. It’s the opposite of so many people. They’re dreading getting older, but she was so excited to be a 40-year-old woman. She just thought that would be the coolest thing ever. I think she was surrounded by some interesting, strong women in her life as a kid and was excited to get out of her 20s and 30s and be that 40-year-old. Having a certain level of elegance and sophistication is hard to pull off in your 20s and 30s because you look like you’re playing dress-up. By the time you’re 40, you really own that. 

This moment kind of came back to me when I was watching some of the footage from Eleanor Coppola’s documentary. They were having a conversation and Sofia was getting advice from Marianne Faithfull on “How do you stay so cool? How do you do it?” 

Sofia at this point is relatively young and is asking one of the icons, the queens of coolness, “How do you just keep so relevant and cool? What are your secrets?” 

Marianne was passing on her wisdom and how to maintain it. “You’ve got to be in charge. You’ve got to stay intelligent, stay smart, and stay focused, but always keep your naughty side and always have that edge.” Sofia was eating it up. 

What I always loved about Sofia is that she just had this innate sense of coolness. It is in her DNA. She was a bit of a black sheep in her family and a bit of a rebel. So I thought it’s funny to see her asking Marianne Faithfull this when I could already tell that Sofia had it. She was just looking for affirmation. 

When you are shooting a movie, there is a lot of waiting around. People are rehearsing with actors, setting up lights, looking at lenses. There is a lot going on, and because of that I could just walk and walk and walk. 

I would walk around, and here I stumbled on Jason Schwartzman rehearsing with the elephant. When the elephant showed up on set, the day got a little slower. It’s like when somebody brings their new baby to work. Everything stops. We had some pretty big-name actors in the film, but they were all outshined by this elephant. Poor Sofia was trying to get the shot, and everything slowed down because this elephant had arrived. And if you blink, you miss the elephant in the movie. 

The irony of things like this is that several years before I went on safari in Kenya. I went to Africa and never got as close to an elephant as I did on this set. I was just excited to be up close with one of these incredible creatures. I know that Jason was having an incredible time too. 

I think the scene going on behind the black drapes was Marie Antoinette’s birthday party where they are gambling, and this was a break from that. Hal Weaver is the actor on the right and in the center is the French socialite Mathilde Favier. 

There was so much going on, whether the props department were working on setting up the flowers, setting up the food, the dog trainers were getting the pugs ready, or some of the actors were just hanging out talking. 

Because of the costumes they were in and everything, that was the fun. They’re off on their cell phone or having a cigarette, but in 18th-century costumes. 

As I was going through the negatives for this book, I saw something I completely had forgotten about. 

It was the craziest thing where Sofia and I were just standing outside having a conversation when they released all of the extras for lunch or something. They came spilling out of what I think was the opera scene in broad daylight with all of their wigs and costumes. Our jaws just dropped. 

I had completely forgotten about that moment. I was so happy to put that in the book because it was something I don’t even remember from that day. It’s like going back and looking at a yearbook. Sometimes you get the old yearbook and go, “I forgot I was friends with that person!” 

You have to catch at least 20 minutes of sleep in between takes. 

There’s a few photos of people sleeping in the book, and it was important for me to include because I started working on movies after film school as a production assistant. I remember even just being a PA, we were the first to show up on set and the last to leave. We would find little spots on the set to take naps. We were all on walkie-talkie so we could say, “Let me know if they need me, but I’m going down for 20 minutes.” It’s really hard work because you have so much to accomplish in such a short period of time. 

People work really hard on movie sets and I know the book makes it look like we’re all having a lot of fun and going out to nightclubs and things like that. It looks like a lot of fun, but you can’t forget these people are working so hard. 

Sofia is so good at honoring her crew and celebrating with her crew. She’s like, “Okay, we’ve got to get these last shots of the fireworks. Let’s make sure we have Champagne on set when we call wrap.” That’s just her style. 

We were in Paris and I think we were either walking to set to shoot at the Opera House or walking from the makeup trailers. I couldn’t resist putting them on that scooter. I was like, “Get on the scooter, let’s take the shot.” The set gave you so many great opportunities, and everyone was so photogenic. For me, I could look in any direction and there was some sort of eye candy, including us afterwards when we would go out at night in Paris. 

Making Marie Antoinette (Important Flowers, 2026) by Andrew Durham is published by MACK.