Cailee Spaeny on Playing Priscilla: “She Gave Her Life up for Elvis”

If Baz Luhrmann’s bombastic, frantically edited Elvis was a film designed for TikTok and Twitter virality, then Sofia Coppola’s melancholic Priscilla harkens back to the era of Tumblr. A dreamy, anachronistic drama told from the perspective of a teenage girl, Priscilla suffuses the viewer in extreme feelings – romantic longing, destructive jealousy – while presenting clothes and furniture so lush and overwhelming it’s like an extravagantly padded cage.

“The way Sofia made this movie, it feels like a memory,” says Cailee Spaeny, the 25-year-old actor who depicts Priscilla from the age of 14 to 27. “It’s all about emotions, and the quiet spaces in between. You go down an Alice in Wonderland whirlwind into this tunnel, except it’s Graceland – and then she comes out the other side, seeing things more clearly.”

Adapted from Priscilla Presley’s memoir Elvis and Me, Coppola’s eighth feature starts in 1959 with Priscilla as a shy schoolgirl who inexplicably finds herself dating the biggest musician in the world – even though he’s 24 and she’s 14. In a German cafe, Priscilla, whose father is stationed on an Air Force base, is invited by one of Elvis’s friends to a party that the singer is hosting, and in a household with a household name she finds herself instantly besotted. On military duty, Elvis claims that Priscilla, an American, is curing his homesickness, yet the power dynamics are clearly skewed: as the relationship ensues, the balance topples further in the King’s direction.

When depicting conflict, Coppola’s camera is often angled to highlight the height disparity between Spaeny and her towering co-star, Jacob Elordi. “I think Elvis might have more dialogue than I do, even though the story is about Priscilla,” says Spaeny, speaking in Corinthia Hotel during the London Film Festival. “We were trying to see how she saw him through her perspective, and how she idolised this man who was so many different things to her. She gave her life up for him, and realised she wanted more.”

If you recognise Spaeny, it’s probably from small roles in big projects (Devs, Mare of Easttown, Vice), but Priscilla is a career-changing movie. Awarded the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at Venice, Spaeny is utterly convincing both as a naive schoolgirl and a wounded 27-year-old exiting Graceland. An additional challenge was that the film was shot out of chronological order. Or did it help?

“Did it help?” she says, repeating my question, slightly baffled. “Interesting.” I defend my suggestion: you can pick and choose what to keep or deviate from between noticeable age shifts. “In a funny way, it did inform the next scene. If I was 14 in the morning, I knew how distinct to be after lunch when I’m pregnant.” One key alteration involved body language. “When you’re 14, you’re a child who’s not sure of yourself. You don’t move in the same way. You have trouble making eye contact. By the time she’s 27, she’s a mother that’s lived in the public eye, she’s had a baby, and she has a different sort of confidence.”

That said, 14-year-old Priscilla, having met Elvis, also possesses a swagger as she struts down the school corridor to the sounds of Crimson and Clover. During the shoot, Coppola blasted the Tommy James & the Shondells song on set, as she did with Dolly Parton during a climactic scene. “Maybe not everyone in the crew understands what we’re doing,” Spaeny says. “But when you’re playing the music and seeing the visuals, everyone leans in more and wants to get involved. That’s special to see. The juxtaposition between Crimson and Clover and a country Dolly Parton song helps you understand that we’re making a Sofia Coppola film here.”

It’s especially apparent it’s a Sofia Coppola film during Priscilla’s years of isolation, a theme that’s redolent of The Virgin Suicides, Lost in Translation, and Marie Antoinette. In Graceland, Priscilla is effectively imprisoned; she’s drowsy from drugs, her clothes are picked for her, and she reads in newspapers that Elvis is having affairs with co-stars on movie sets. The infidelity particularly stings as Elvis refuses to have sex with Priscilla until their wedding day in 1967 when she’s 21 and he’s 32.

I share an observation with Spaeny: in the film, the number 14 is never said out loud, but, when Priscilla turns 17, she literally clarifies her age. It’s as if the film doesn’t want to emphasise the age gap? “But she says that she’s in the ninth grade when they meet, and he says, ‘You’re a baby.’” That’s true, I say, although in the UK we’re a bit confused by “ninth grade”, and have to do maths involving the film Eighth Grade. “Of course, she’s one year older than that character [in Eighth Grade]! But she also feels really young, I think, when you look at her, and then she clearly looks like an adult.” As for why the film doesn’t have a sex scene, Spaeny says, “It’s a question for Sofia. But, in my opinion, it’s more tasteful if those things are necessary and push the story forward.” She adds, with a laugh, “We kiss quite a lot in the film, though!”

Spaeny’s acting career is already hugely promising, not just from the Priscilla bump. She’s already shot Alien: Romulus, in which she stars and is effectively a new Ripley, and Alex Garland’s Civil War – Spaeny’s co-star Kirsten Dunst personally recommended her to Coppola for Priscilla. 

With only time left for one question, I ask about the opening shot. Before Coppola places the viewer in Priscilla’s shoes, she reveals what’s underneath them – the camera lingers on a close-up of her foot landing on plush carpet. Margot Robbie has boasted of doing her own feet-acting in Barbie. Did Spaeny? “I did my own feet-acting,” says Spaeny. “I feel good about my feet. But while I was doing the shot – it was a really important shot, because it’s the opening of the film – somebody on set looked me up on Wikifeet, which I didn’t know was a thing. And I have a very high score. So I was feeling pretty good on that day.” Is she glad to know about Wikifeet? “No. I wish that wasn’t in my head, but I’m glad that people like my feet. I’m with Margot Robbie.” I apologise for bringing it up, now I know that she would like to eliminate Wikifeet from her brain. “That’s OK,” she says, laughing. “The movie’s doing well, and my feet got a high score. Life is good.”

Priscilla comes out in UK cinemas with special 35mm previews in select cinemas. The film will be released widely on 1 January 2024.