Though she wasn’t seated on the dais this afternoon, and reasonably within the viewers, Priscilla Presley loomed massive over the Venice press convention for Sofia Coppola’s movie, Priscilla, which screens in competitors right here tonight.
Presley at one level choked up when she took the mic and instructed the Venice press corps, “It’s very difficult to sit and watch a film about you and about your life and about your love. Sofia did an amazing job, she did her homework… And I really put everything out for her that I could.”
Written and directed by Coppola, Priscilla is predicated on the 1985 memoir Elvis and Me co-authored by Presley and Sandra Harmon. The story begins when teenage Priscilla Beaulieu meets Elvis at a celebration and the person who’s already a meteoric rock-and-roll celebrity turns into somebody solely sudden in personal moments: an exhilarating crush, an ally in loneliness, a weak greatest buddy. From Priscilla’s standpoint, the movie appears on the unseen facet of an incredible American fantasy in Elvis and Priscilla’s lengthy courtship and turbulent marriage.
Coppola mentioned she was drawn to the undertaking as a result of she was “so struck with how the setting is so unusual but she goes through all of the things that all girls go through growing up into womanhood — her first kiss and becoming a mother — all of these moments I could relate to, but in this very unusual setting that we’re so curious to know.”
Presley mentioned of her age when she first began seeing Elvis, “It was very difficult for my parents to understand that Elvis would be so interested in me and I really do think because I was more of a listener, Elvis would pour his heart out to me, his fears, his hopes, the loss of his mother which he never ever got over, and I was the person who really really sat there to listen and to comfort him. I was a little bit older in life than in numbers and that was the attraction. People think, ‘Oh it was sex, it was this.’ Not at all. I never had sex with him. He was very kind, very soft, very loving but he also respected the fact I was only 14-years-old.”
Presley additionally clarified that when she left years later, “it wasn’t because I didn’t love him, he was the love of my life. It was the lifestyle that was so difficult for me… We had our daughter and I made sure that he saw her all the time, it was like we never left each other. I want to make that clear.”
The movie stars Cailee Spaeny as Priscilla Beaulieu Presley and Jacob Elordi as Elvis. The forged was capable of journey to Venice to help the film after having obtained a SAG-AFTRA Interim Settlement. Commenting on the strike, Coppola mentioned, “It’s hard work to fight for fair compensation and I hope it’s resolved soon because there’s so many people, they all want to get back to work.”
Mentioned Spaeny of taking up the position, “It was very daunting, but I got very lucky to have some time with Priscilla. She was very generous with her time and very kind to me and supportive.”
Elordi commented, “The whole prospect facing me was this kind of huge mountain and it really was, ‘Put the blinders on and just go all out.’ There was no space not to do that.”
He drew applause when he spoke of the connection between Priscilla and Elvis, “The most impressive things to me is the scale of this love and the power of this love. And even to this day even though he’s not here, when you talk to Priscilla you can still feel the love. It’s true and it’s undying and it’s just beautiful… It’s this tether that ties two people together and I think that’s for eternity.”
Priscilla hits home theaters on October 27 by way of A24. Mubi has additionally taken rights throughout a number of territories together with the UK.
