As with any film, certain material winds up on the cutting room floor. In this case, one watch didn’t even have the chance to make its on-camera debut. That watch is a vintage fake Rolex Oyster Perpetual Date given to Sofia by her father, director Francis Ford Coppola, the maestro behind The Godfather.
“Originally,” Schanker says, “the plan was that the watch Bill gives to Rashida for her birthday is an old Rolex. Sofia asked for it to be an old copy Rolex. So I showed her pictures of old Rolexes because, well, that could mean a lot of things, ‘old Rolex.’ I wanted to make sure it fit with what she had in mind. I showed her pictures, and she said, ‘You know what? I have a watch just like this. I’m going to bring it in.’ And that was the one we originally intended to use.”
As it turns out, they scrapped Sofia’s stainless steel bracelet replica Rolex Oyster Perpetual Date when it came closer to the day of shooting.
Based on Jones’ personal style, Schanker and Coppola introduced a different watch: a vintage, tonneau-shaped case, Jaeger-LeCoultre replica with black leather strap. Schanker sourced – and rented – this watch himself, and presented it to the crew at initial show-and-tells during pre-production.
While a Rolex with Coppola family provenance is cool, an old patinated JLC might be even cooler. “Your watch! I used to love this watch,” Laura says, as she opens her present. “You used to love to wear that. I think it might fit you a little better now,” her father replies. “I bought that after my first big sale.” Right there is the distillation of everything that makes watches special: heirlooms, memories, and family. Unlike a aaa quality replica Rolex, this watch has an uncommon look, the kind a child would remember on her father’s wrist.