Cailee Spaeny and Jacob Elordi on enjoying Priscilla and Elvis Presley in Sofia Coppola’s new biopic
First got here Elvis, now comes Priscilla.
A 12 months after Baz Luhrmann’s gaudy musical biopic monitoring the rise of Elvis Presley and his complicated relationship with supervisor Col. Tom Parker, writer-director (Misplaced in Translation, Marie Antoinette) arrives together with her personal imaginative and prescient of the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll, primarily specializing in the music icon (Jacob Elordi) and his much-younger spouse, (Cailee Spaeny), instructed by way of her eyes and based mostly on Priscilla’s 1985 memoir, Elvis and Me.
“It’s like the best present, and likewise such a large quantity of stress to tackle by way of figuring out that she was going to observe the movie after this was throughout,” Spaeny tells Yahoo Leisure in an new interview. “However she was extremely supportive alongside the best way.”
Positive sufficient, Spaeny — a 25-year-old Missouri native who debuted on the large display in Pacific Rim: Rebellion (2018) and has since been seen in The Craft: Legacy (2020) and Mare of Eastown (2021) — discovered herself seated immediately subsequent to her topic at Priscilla’s world premiere on the Venice Movie Competition in September. “It was wild,” admits Spaeny. “I used to be white-knuckling it the entire time.
“However after the film ended, she appeared visibly moved, and I feel she noticed her life by way of what we did, and that is all that issues.”
Neither actor took as a right the magnitude of enjoying the Presleys.
“They’re kind of impenetrable,” Spaeny says. “They’re like American royalty. So I feel for figures like that, we’ve by no means actually seen anybody like Elvis once more. He’s such an icon. So I simply don’t assume we take the time to consider who they have been as individuals and who they have been behind closed doorways. And I feel that’s so fascinating about this story, particularly telling it by way of her lens. I feel individuals can be fascinated and it is refreshing to see the human facet of them.”
Whereas Luhrmann’s Elvis included some warts, Priscilla is a far much less shiny portrayal of the rock pioneer. After the 24-year-old Elvis is seen wooing Priscilla, the 14-year-old daughter of an Air Drive officer stationed in West Germany, after which marrying her eight years later, he’s usually portrayed as a controlling, manipulative and philandering husband. (They divorced in 1973, 4 years earlier than Elvis’s dying.)
Elvis star Austin Butler obtained an Oscar nomination for Greatest Actor and got here beneath scrutiny for going so deep into character that he was nonetheless talking with Presley’s twang months later. Enjoying a special Elvis in Priscilla additionally struck a chord for Elordi, greatest identified for his position in HBO’s Euphoria.
“For me, I had nothing however this overwhelming quantity of affection for him that simply grew and grew and grew and to the purpose the place it grew to become and can ceaselessly be,” says Elordi. “It sounds sticky, however there may be this non secular connection that I will have ceaselessly. Admiration and love.”
Priscilla opens in theaters Nov. 3.
