Sofia Coppola missed an appearance promoting her newest film Priscilla to be with her mother, Eleanor Coppola.
The film’s stars Jacob Elordi and Cailee Spaeny, who play Elvis and Priscilla Presley, fulfilled their scheduled appearances at a New York Film Festival press conference Friday, while producer Youree Henley read a statement from Sofia.
“I’m so proud to have our film at the New York Film Festival in my hometown,” Sofia said in her statement. “When I saw The Power of the Dog here as the first film on screen since the pandemic, it reminded me of the power of cinema and what we love about the communal experience. I’m so sorry to not be there with you, but I’m with my mother, to whom this film is dedicated.”
Despite Sofia’s absence, Spaeny and Elordi explained what it was like to fill the shoes of such iconic figures. Spaeny said Priscilla was gracious with her time, and detailed a meeting with her that lasted over four hours.
“Just being in front of her and in her presence was so informative in how I tried to do my own version of her story,” Spaeny said. “She’s a woman from a different time, different generation. She’s American royalty, really.”
Elordi said if you “want to see an Elvis impersonator, you can go to Vegas,” because he wasn’t attempting that with his performance.
“The biggest thing for me was trying to identify, to find, where the human being was under all the glitz and the gold and the voice and the caricatures and all of these things,” Elordi said. “Cailee and I spoke about – there were days where we would just imagine that it was a Sofia Coppola marriage drama, completely separate from, you know, Elvis and Priscilla.”
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