\nCailee Spaeny wears 120 costumes in the film!:<\/strong> For the 30-day shoot in Toronto, Stacey Battat, Coppola\u2019s longtime costume designer (who once worked at W<\/i> as a style assistant), had to fabricate, commission, or organize 120 looks just for Priscilla. Coppola tapped into her fashion relationships: Chanel made Priscilla\u2019s wedding dress in the same style as the original, and Valentino created suits and knitwear for Elvis, who is played by Jacob Elordi, known for his work on Euphoria<\/i>. \u201cWe had about 100 outfits for Elvis and his pals, the Memphis Mafia,\u201d Battat recalled. \u201cMy joke was that the Memphis Mafia had more costumes than they had lines.\u201d<\/p>\n
Priscilla Presley influenced both Sofia and Cailee:<\/strong> Both Coppola and Spaeny had spent time with Priscilla Presley herself. \u201cShe was open and complimentary of my work,\u201d Coppola recalled, \u201cbut she was a bit tentative. I sent Priscilla the script, and she went through it page by page and gave me specific details, like \u2018I didn\u2019t have a teddy bear on my bed.\u2019 But, in the end, I did reinvent some things, like Elvis\u2019s bedroom. I wanted him to have a man cave\u2014very dark and mysterious.\u201d<\/p>\n
During production, Priscilla offered to tell Spaeny exactly what she had felt before every scene in the script, before any encounter with Elvis. \u201cWe had many phone calls, but once I started filming, I stopped speaking to Priscilla because it became too overwhelming,\u201d said Spaeny. \u201cIn the end, it had to be Sofia\u2019s vision.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was harder for women to leave their husbands back then:<\/strong> \u201cI was so impressed that Priscilla left Elvis,\u201d Coppola explained. \u201cShe was always trying to be his fantasy, his ideal woman. I think about my mom\u2019s generation and how hard it was to be independent. Women without any power or money at that time had nothing when they left their husbands. Priscilla had courage, and that seemed, to me, to be a universal theme.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
[Via W Magazine]<\/p>\n
There was a tweet making the rounds on my corner of the internet recently about how long marriages in “ye olden days” weren’t necessarily happy marriages. They were long marriages because it was harder for women to get out of them. Even though Priscilla was famous, she was isolated, and it did take courage for her to leave Graceland. I excerpted the part where Cailee and Sofia talk about her involvement because I sensed…an undercurrent. It comes across like Priscilla wanted more control than Cailee or Sofia were interested in giving. What Cailee says is especially striking–that she stopped speaking to Priscilla because Priscilla was overwhelming her. I know why Priscilla wanted to be so closely involved–it is her life story after all. At the same time, artists are always going to interpret things differently and bring their own perspectives to a story.<\/p>\n
Embed from Getty Images<\/p>\n
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photos credit: IMAGO\/Manfred Segerer \/ Avalon, MPP\/Avalon, Getty and via Instagram\/W Magazine<\/small><\/p>\n