The star of Sofia Coppola's Priscilla, who won the Volpi Cup at the Venice Film Festival for her performance, reflects on the experience of working with Coppola as well as her co-star Jacob Elordi.
After breaking through on Alex Garland’s sci-fi TV series Devs, Cailee Spaeny was cast in her next film project: a dystopian epic entitled Civil War, slated for release in 2024. While shooting the film, Spaeny grew close to co-star Kirsten Dunst, who recommended her to Sofia Coppola for the role of Priscilla Presley in a biopic she was preparing to cast. A year later, she won the Volpi Cup at the Venice Film Festival for her performance. For Spaeny, it’s a full-circle moment.
LWLies: I’d love to know about your relationship with Sofia Coppola’s films. When did you discover her?
Spaeny: I was already a massive fan – she was my dream director. When I was a kid, I said, if I could work with any director in the world, it would be Sofia. I didn’t go to any acting classes, I just stayed in my room all day and watched films. And then I came across The Virgin Suicides, and it just rocks you as a young teenager. And I was in this funny daze for a while. For the first time, I asked myself who was behind the camera. I never put any thought into that because I was just watching performances. Then I watched her whole filmography and was fascinated by her, and was really shocked by the way that she portrayed young people, and young women specifically. She gave them permission to be complicated and dark and have wants and needs and deep desires and be layered and complicated. It was just refreshing to see, and as a kid, it gives you permission to explore your own personhood, and feel comfortable in your own skin.
It must have been very surreal working with Kirsten Dunst on Civil War.
That was such a strange way to enter Priscilla, because she put it in a good word for me. You know, she played Marie Antoinette when she was 23, and then I was 24 when I played Priscilla. It felt lovely to go in with her blessing. Funnily enough, I was with Kirsten one day when she found out that I could be potentially playing Priscilla, and she was wearing a shirt that the Rodarte sisters [Kate and Laura Mulleavy] made. She told me, they were inspired by Graceland when they made this shirt, and you just found out you might be in Priscilla… it felt so special. It’s been really nice to have these women around me.
The young star of Priscilla details the iconic allure of her role and having the chance to work with one of her teen heroes.
I feel like there’s some truth to that cliché about it being like having a family, working with Sofia. It’s true. That is what Sofia does, you know, she works with the same people over and over again, and that says a lot about her as a person and how she really takes care of her cast and crew. And people want to do a good job for her. I think they feel really inspired by her and nourished creatively. She put so much trust in Jacob and I to play these roles, at times when we didn’t trust ourselves. But she has such a clear vision. When you put on a Sofia Coppola movie, you know it’s a Sofia Coppola movie. Even on the days that I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off, I knew that she had a plan. That she was gonna find a way.
Priscilla Presley produced the movie and it was based on her memoir, so you had a lot of access to reference materials. How did that impact your research process?
It’s a blessing and a curse because you get this wealth of information and there are golden nuggets along the way. When she was telling me how she felt on certain nights, or inside jokes they had, or even just watching her relive certain times with Elvis, that was priceless to have. But then at the same time, knowing that at some point she was going to watch the film was unbelievably hard to take in and difficult to sit with. The pressure was a lot. I just wanted to get it right for her because I think her story deserves to be told, and I wanted her to feel safe, and like it was in the right hands. But I remember one time we were on the phone, and she said, ‘I have all the faith in the world in you, and you can call me whenever you want. Whether you want to talk about this, or you just want me to talk about anything. I’m right here.’ I think I got really lucky, in terms of playing a real-life person and having that person be around. She is a genuinely kind soul.
I read an interview with you from when Devs came out, and you would have probably been about 20 at the time. You mentioned you were a big One Direction fan as a teenager…
[laughs] Did I mention that?! Was I going around saying, ‘I love Harry Styles’?!
Well, I was wondering, were you able to relate your own experiences as a teenager growing up in middle America into this portrayal of a teenage girl being swept up in this flurry of chaos?
Yeah, I think that was one of the few things I could relate to, in terms of situation. Emotionally there were tonnes of things I could pull from my own life, and I think that makes it universal to all women, but in terms of her being swept away from this life she was living as a lonely Air Force brat, getting catapulted into this strange, sometimes suffocating dream world like Alice in Wonderland… the only thing I could compare it with was coming from Middle America and getting thrown into this industry and trying to navigate it and hold on to yourself. It can be incredibly stressful and isolating.
How old were you when you had your first major role?
I was auditioning for four years before Pacific Rim Uprising, so there was a build-up, but I didn’t have a passport. I didn’t know what I was doing. I was 18 years old, still living in Missouri and I got plucked out and thrown right into the deep end. It was a baptism of fire.
I’d love to know about your preparation process with Jacob, creating this relationship over the course of a decade, where these characters are in and out of each other’s lives.
As soon as I knew that he was cast in the film, I knew it was really important to get a hold of him. So I sent him an email, and I just said, ‘Hey, I’m so excited to work with you. Can we start hanging out?’ which is always a bit of an awkward thing to do. But I set up friendship play dates, like, we went to the movies, and we took horseback riding lessons together because Elvis loved horses. I really went for it. And he was game! Jacob has an amazing work ethic which is incredibly inspiring to be around. We’re similar in the way that we prep things – we both really go all the way and we would call each other and cross-reference notes. He was just someone I could really lean on. And I thought he did an absolutely amazing job of creating this version of this mythic person, not as he’s seen in public, but how he is behind closed doors.
I’ve seen the incredible reference materials that Sofia creates for every film before she even starts shooting. What inspiration did she provide for you besides Priscilla’s memoir and photographs?
Sofia always had this photo book right beside her, but she kept it pretty close to her, like a secret safety net of these reference films and shots. She has such a deep knowledge of film, it’s kind of intimidating, but also a great resource to have. There were two moments though: there was a shot from Sid and Nancy – I hadn’t seen that film before; I loved it – of them walking off the boat, arm in arm. Sofia used that as a reference for when Elvis and Priscilla were in Vegas for the first time. I remember she actually played the soundtrack on the set in Toronto, on these huge loudspeakers. We’d be walking and these big flashbulbs would be going off and we’d get to the limo, and Jacob and I would look at each other like, ‘Oh, we’re doing it!’ We really felt the world. Sofia really puts you right into that space, which is such a gift for an actor. And then there was another shot from Barry Lyndon, when they’re in the back of the carriage, and he’s smoking and blowing smoke in her face. And there’s a shot with Elvis and Priscilla in the back of a limousine and things are going downhill, and he’s smoking a big cigar. I’m just sitting back there, as we’re drifting apart in the story. Sofia always had those references just ready to go.
Sofia’s scripts are very minimal, which can be very difficult for an actor because you have less dialogue to rely on. Was this a new challenge for you?
You know, reading the script, I was talking to Jacob one day in prep, and I said, ‘I think you have more lines than me in this movie!’ But you’re with Priscilla for the whole journey. A lot of it takes place in the still, silent moments. When you read the script, you’re a bit like, ‘There’s not much here,’ but Sofia has such a clear vision and to me, when I watched the film, those quiet moments were the most powerful. I love that shot when she’s putting on false eyelashes right before she’s about to give birth – it says so much about the time, and who she is, and the pressures she had on her but also her calmness and confidence while she’s doing it – like she knows exactly how to deal with this world.
Published 26 Dec 2023
So much of Marie Antoinette is so good, but a story this rich and dramatic deserved more.
A star is born in Sofia Coppola's biographical drama based on the relationship between Priscilla and Elvis Presley, with Cailee Spaeny delivering a remarkable performance.
Baz Luhrmann’s sweaty, opulent take on the King of rock ’n’ roll is not a biopic but a fairy tale.
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