Sofia Coppola on Portraying Elvis in ‘Priscilla’: “I Really Tried Not to Make Him the Villain”

Priscilla (2023) was critically acclaimed for the director’s vision Sofia Coppola in skillfully pulling back the curtain on the title character’s life with the star Elvis Presley. However, it was also met with some criticism over the depiction of Rock king (played by Jacob Elordi), who is seen being abusive towards Priscilla (Cailee Spaeny).

Speaking to Richard Curtis at London’s BFI Southbank on Saturday, Coppola talked about finding the right balance in your representation of Elvisespecially in the tense scenes between the couple (via Variety).

I really tried not to make everything black and white. I really tried not to make him the villain. I couldn’t see her (Cailee Spaeny) being treated in that cruel way. But it’s a love story for her and it had a lot of ups and downs, so I tried to balance it so that it had emotional moments and dark moments.”

Coppola based his script on Elvis and I (1988), memoir by Priscilla Presleyas well as in their own conversations with Priscilla. She said it was important to her to keep the film as true to the film’s experience as possible. Priscilla.

“It’s all based on how she describes her life in the book. I was really surprised that she expressed all of this in the book and no one seemed to notice,” he continued. Coppola. “Like, no one seems to know about her story, we don’t know much about her. Just because she was so young – the power dynamics of their relationship were already complicated, but being that much younger and he could just send her away if she didn’t like something. She was in a very difficult position, I thought, and the fact that she overcame that and had the strength to go out and make her own life and not be beaten down by it, I think that’s really impressive.”

Produced by A24, the film was made with the full support of Priscilla Presley and received rave reviews for showing a different side of her love story with Elvis.