The Zodiac Dispatch: When Coppola met Murray
For the next instalment of her bimonthly column, astrologer and Berlin member Clarisse Monahan explains how film-maker Sofia Coppola and actor Bill Murray’s synastry explains their decades of cinematic success
By Clarisse Monahan Illustration by Daiana Ruiz
For many girls of a certain age, an upcoming Sofia Coppola movie elicits the kind of excitement that I imagine boys from the 1970s felt about a new album by Led Zeppelin or Aerosmith. And so it goes with this girl, who has already purchased tickets to see the Berlin premiere of On The Rocks, Coppola’s latest feature, starring Bill Murray. To mark the two decades that these two have worked together to wondrous applause, this week I’ll examine the synastry between Coppola and Murray.
In astrology, synastry looks at the chemistry, or lack thereof, between two people. In reading two charts for their synastry, we might pay attention, for example, to where our romantic partner’s Venus (Planet of Love) aspects our Moon (Emotional Centre). If Venus is conjunct (or aligned) with our Moon, this tends to promote good, loving synastry. If Venus is squaring our Moon, then we tend to see opposition or difficulty between partners who may, say, have trouble voicing feelings around each other.
Murray and Coppola have excellent synastry in a professional sense. She is Taurus and he is Virgo – both earth signs, suggesting a stable ground on which to work and communicate. More strikingly, their natal charts both have Saturn (the Disciplinarian) conjunct their Suns (Self). A Sun/ Saturn conjunction tends toward disciplined and responsible types, along with a world-weary personality. Bill Murray’s understated, ironic sense of humour is the perfect example of this.
'In the glamorous-loving world of Hollywood, it makes intuitive sense that the Saturnally serious Earth energies of Coppola and Murray would be drawn to each other'
In the glamorous-loving world of Hollywood, it makes intuitive sense that the Saturnally serious Earth energies of Coppola and Murray would be drawn to each other. Their synastry bears this attraction out quite elegantly in that their respective Sun/ Saturn placements ‘trine’ each other. An exact trine in astrological synastry is like finding a four-leaf clover in terms of compatibility, and indicates harmony, ease, and understanding. Sun/ Saturn trines in particular are characterised by things like non-emotional problem solving and mutual respect.
The Sun/ Saturn trine also has to do with endurance. Relationships with the kind of Sun/ Saturn bond exemplified by Murray and Coppola are always long lasting. So, even if On The Rocks turns out to be a rickety affair, the pair – given their long-enduring Saturn synastry – are certain to stick around to make more films together.