The long-awaited Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla is finally out in the UK. Following the Elvis revival of 2022, we finally get a story that primarily focuses on the young, impressionable girl Priscilla Ann Wagner, as falls in love with the giant that was Elvis Presley.
Adapted from the memoir “Elvis and Me” and executively produced by Priscilla Presley herself, we get a no-holds-barred view of the lifestyle that was often eclipsed by the star power of Elvis Presley.
Priscilla is played by future award winner Cailee Spaeny, who sits down with us to explain exactly what we should be take in while consuming this story:
Priscilla to me is a story of how society can fail in protecting young women, but playing the character were there any experiences you drew from personally to drive that narrative?
Well, I think that's what I found so interesting, the background of this movie is Graceland in the sixties, Elvis Presley and she’s a fashion icon. She’s living this glamorous life in this heightened setting. The time that I spent researching her life and reading the book that she put out in the eighties, there were so many personal connections I had with it along the way.
These milestones that a lot of women go through, like the experience of falling in love for the first time and not even knowing it, but giving yourself up along the way and then looking around and realizing that you need to put the pieces back together and find out who you are. One of the things she said was she didn’t even know what her own taste was because she was thinking about his the whole time. It’s very moving, and I found her story touching when she found the strength to leave someone like him, especially in that time, it was a different era. I thought I was going to have a difficult time relating to her but those human moments are universal.
The period, as you’ve touched on, is often used as an excuse for how people were treated. However, watching this film you can see exactly how these actions can happen again today and spiral out of control. Do you think audiences will take away lessons from the story and apply them to today's setting?
I think what we tried to do is put a nuanced human story on screen that sort of sits in a grey area and I think we were allowed to do that because this is a true story, this is someone's real life. I think fact is stranger than fiction a lot of the time, it allows us to be honest and nuanced. There’s a lot that I related to it, and I think a lot of young people and young women specifically will relate to the story. I always hope when I’m making a movie that it sparks conversation and there’s a conversation that’s to be had on the way home whether it’s the person you’re going with or even just with yourself, those are the movies I find most interesting.
Thinking about those conversations, when you were initially approached with the script did you have any apprehensions due to the gravity of Elvis’ fanbase or were you immediately onboard with Sofia’s vision?
Knowing that it was going to be in the hands of someone like Sofia, someone who brings so much nuance to this story and care. Sofia took the time to make sure Priscilla felt comfortable in the way that we told this story and that she felt represented well because it's long overdue for her side of the story to be told. Seeing Sofia go about it in this way, gave me a lot of comfort.
I also felt excited about it. I grew up an Elvis fan with my family and grew up going to Graceland as a kid. I think it was just sort of shocking to me that I didn't know the other side of it. Like I said before, we tried to pull back the curtain on these people and tried to bring the human story out of it. We tried to show all the lows but also the highs and I think Sofia does it in this really sort of beautiful impressionistic way. It's like you enter this sort of dream, memory-type world, never staying on a beat too long.
I knew that I trusted Sofia with everything, which was a nice feeling. You don't always get that every time you work with a director but I knew she was gonna be sensitive.
