PRISCILLA Star Cailee Spaeny for INSTYLE Magazine

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You might not know Cailee Spaeny yet, but after her award-winning turn in Sofia Coppola’s PRISCILLA,  you most certainly will. The 25-year-old star of the new Priscilla Presley biopic sat down with INSTYLE ahead of the film’s release to discuss what it was like working with her dream director Sofia Coppola, why Jacob Elordi was the perfect partner, and how Priscilla Presely reacted to the film. Plus, Jacob Elordi and Sofia Coppola speak to INSTYLE and share their thoughts about working with Cailee Spaney on this film and her future potential as a star actress.

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On how Cailee couldn’t have asked for a better partner than Jacob Elordi: “They have such a specific relationship,” Spaeny explains. “There are definitely tumultuous times, but there was also great love there, and I don’t think I could have done those scenes if I didn’t trust him as a person and as an actor. But I did, absolutely.”

On how important Priscilla Presley’s reaction was to her: “I wanted Priscilla to watch this movie and to feel safe, and feel like she was watching her story through my performance,” she says. Presley told Spaeny ahead of filming that she had “all the faith in the world” that Spaeny would be great, and served as something of a cheerleader early in the process, but didn’t see the finished product until its premiere. “Nothing prepared me mentally for the moment of me watching the film for the first time with Priscilla Presley sitting right next to me,” Spaeny says. “It was such an out of body experience.”

On how Sofia Coppola’s films resonated with teenage Spaney: “Especially growing up in southern Missouri in the church, I felt like no one had ever really seen or accepted the teen angst a girl can have, the sadness within young teenage girls,” Spaeny says. “It wasn’t until I watched Sofia’s films that I was like, Oh, someone has acknowledged that you can be a young, cute girl but also have real darkness and angst in you, and this longing for another life or love or whatever it is.”

Jacob Elordi: “Working with Cailee was a dream. Her attention to detail and her care for the work is astounding.” “I know they will love her,” Elordi says. “She’s the real deal.” “Cailee is incredibly sensitive and deep, somebody who feels everything and has seen lives well beyond her own, like Priscilla,” the actor says. “It inspired a very real need for tenderness and care in me that felt not too dissimilar to the relationship we played in the film.”

Sofia Coppola: “When my friend Kirsten [Dunst]  told me I had to see Cailee for the role, I paid attention,” Coppola says. “I knew when I met Cailee over breakfast that she’d be perfect. She was obsessed with Priscilla and had done her research.” “[Spaeny] would switch her body language and her voice. Everything,” Coppola says. “It was really impressive to watch her transform during the day. She was really good at capturing what it feels like to be a kid.”

[Photo Credit: Jack Grange for InStyle Magazine]

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