Cailee Spaeny on playing Priscilla Presley: ‘Their marriage was strange and shocking’

Cailee Spaeny doesn’t want to talk about “the lineage”. Since 1999, a handful of young, female actors have been turned into stars by the filmmaker Sofia Coppola – she of cinema’s pink hues, aimless heroes and fractured girlhoods. Kirsten Dunst graduated from kiddie movies with The Virgin Suicides. Scarlett Johansson became Scarlett Johansson with Lost in Translation. Elle Fanning unlocked new depths to her work with Somewhere. But ask Spaeny if she’s thought about what it means to be a Coppola muse and she shudders.

“Honestly, I just needed to make sure the film turned out OK,” the 25-year-old laughs. A month before we meet, Spaeny could be found sitting anxiously at the Venice Film Festival and about to see for the first time. She busied herself by comparing nerves with ’s Jacob Elordi. In the film, , two halves of a famed, dysfunctional and – if we’re being frank – uniquely bananas marriage. “We kept