Jacob Elordi & Cailee Spaeny Break Down 'Priscilla' Scene with Director Sofia Coppola

Vanity Fair

Sofia Coppola, director of the biographical drama film about America's most iconic rock n' roll couple Elvis Presley and Priscilla Beaulieu, discusses everything about the chair throw scene along with stars Jacob Elordi and Cailee Spaeny. Get the full breakdown of the set, the lighting and the emotions that went into creating the memorable scene.    Director: Funmi Sunmonu Director of Photography: AJ Young  Editor: Cory Stevens, Katie Wolford Talent: Sofia Coppola, Cailee Spaeny, Jacob Elordi Producer: Juliet Lopez  Line Producer: Romeeka Powell  Associate Producer: Emebeit Beyene  Production Manager: Andressa Pelachi and Kevin Balash  Director, Talent : Lauren Mendoza  Camera Operator: Lucas Vilicich Sound : Justin Fox  Production Assistant: Liza Antonova, Fernando Barajas Post Production Supervisor: Edward Taylor Post Production Coordinator: Jovan James Supervising Editor: Kameron Key

Transcript

00:00 - Hi, I'm Sophia Coppola.

00:01 - I'm Kayleigh Spaney.

00:02 - I'm Jacob Elordi.

00:03 - And this is Notes on a Scene.

00:05 - What do you mean you don't know if you're lying yet?

00:07 - I don't know, there's just something about it,

00:12 a catchiness that it's missing.

00:14 - Watch out!

00:15 [crashing]

00:16 - This scene takes place in Elvis Presley's office

00:19 with padded walls, and he's listening to some demo records

00:23 that he's not pleased with, and it's from her book,

00:26 her story, she described this moment.

00:28 - I had lots of different conversations with her

00:29 before I started filming, how she was telling that line

00:33 of being supportive, but also speaking her mind,

00:36 and I think this scene here is her sort of, yeah,

00:39 taking those first steps of having an opinion

00:42 and voicing it.

00:43 ♪ Old Baldy called me up to say ♪

00:47 ♪ That Big Bad Man is back in town ♪

00:49 - So we had to have demos that were not good songs,

00:51 so that was fun to pick the songs

00:53 that he would be repelled by.

00:55 And I know Jacob worked a lot to get Elvis's voice right,

00:58 and when we watched the film with Priscilla the first time,

01:01 what struck her the most was how much his voice sounded

01:03 like Elvis, so that was a big thrill, I think.

01:05 - Yeah, it was a great relief.

01:07 - These songs are all garbage,

01:09 each one's worse than the next.

01:11 - I'm pretty lucky to kind of be in his register anyway,

01:14 but I think for me it was trying to invent

01:18 what he would sound like behind closed doors,

01:20 because everyone has a performing voice

01:23 and a speaking voice.

01:24 - Our whole story was really behind closed doors,

01:25 what they were like in private,

01:26 and so everything we could look at is them.

01:29 There were home movies without sound

01:31 that kind of showed us how they interacted,

01:33 and you could get a kind of feeling,

01:35 the essence of them and how they were together,

01:38 and that helped a lot.

01:39 - Each one's worse than the next.

01:41 - Well, these aren't finished yet.

01:42 ♪ Setting 'em up ♪

01:44 - Play another one.

01:45 ♪ Pistol on the bomb ♪

01:47 - We had an incredible prop department,

01:48 and you can see here,

01:50 they recreated pictures of Elvis with his mom,

01:52 and we had an actress play his mom, who's not in the movie,

01:55 and they made gold records with your face.

01:57 Was that fun to see your face?

01:57 - Yeah, yeah, all of it. - Gold records.

01:59 And Elvis really liked all these animal figurines,

02:01 so his office is filled with those,

02:03 and you'll see throughout the movie these animal figurines.

02:06 - Look at that.

02:07 ♪ Well, he used to love to love me all night long ♪

02:10 ♪ Now she's saying I'm different ♪

02:12 - I love working with Philippe Lesordart,

02:14 cinematographer, just the lighting.

02:16 We built all these sets, so they're not real locations,

02:18 but he made them feel like real places,

02:19 and also because the art department did such a great job,

02:22 and the rooms are filled with smoke,

02:23 which I forgot about.

02:24 I believe we always had a lot of smoke to diffuse a light

02:26 and give a soft look, but it definitely had an atmosphere.

02:30 We always wanted him to look cool 'cause he's Elvis,

02:32 so he had to always look cool,

02:34 and I think Jacob did a great job

02:35 with just kind of inhabiting the way he moved

02:39 with a sort of panther kind of, well, I don't know what,

02:42 but he definitely moved differently when he was,

02:44 when he showed up as Elvis and had a presence about him.

02:47 - The set and the space that Sofia and the team

02:50 provided for us, like the things that you kind of pick up

02:53 on, so much of it by this point was happening naturally

02:56 because when you came to the office,

02:58 it immediately had a darker tone because it's like,

03:01 this is, every scene in the office was he'd be sitting

03:03 and brooding.

03:04 Every bedroom scene, the fun was informed

03:06 because like every scene we did in there

03:08 was kind of like that, and then when we shot in Graceland,

03:10 we were always coming through the front door,

03:12 so there was always an explosion.

03:13 So I think a lot of it is honestly subconscious

03:16 because the space that was provided for us.

03:18 - The atmosphere.

03:19 - The atmosphere informed a lot of

03:22 - That's cool.

03:23 - What was happening, you know,

03:24 for those kind of minute things, I think.

03:26 Turn it off.

03:27 [siren blaring]

03:28 I want you to send me a goddamn decent song.

03:30 Solo, what do you think?

03:32 - I don't know if I like it.

03:37 - So this is a moment that she talks about in the book

03:39 where she's a young girl and she's trying to,

03:44 you know, assert an opinion and he is surrounded

03:47 by his buddies that all always say yes.

03:49 - Which I think those, the actors who played

03:53 the Memphis Mafia brought so much of the atmosphere

03:56 to the movie because it was such an important element

03:58 for her to feel like it was always a sort of guys club.

04:01 These actors were brilliant at sort of making that

04:03 come alive, what it must have felt like

04:05 in that time for her.

04:07 - Yeah, they were great.

04:08 They were always coming up with funny jokes

04:10 and real like kind of corny guy jokes.

04:12 And so it really is like her coming into the guys world

04:15 in this scene especially because you're in his office

04:18 and trying to participate but always surrounded

04:20 by all the guys.

04:21 We had walls with pictures of Priscilla from all her eras,

04:24 from her as a kid to the end of the story in her late 20s.

04:28 You know, pictures from graduation,

04:29 all the pictures of her life where her hair and makeup

04:32 would kind of tell us where we were in the story.

04:34 And you spent a lot of time in this.

04:36 - Sometimes I felt like we were in the makeup chair

04:39 more than we were doing the scene.

04:41 But it was such an important part of Priscilla's journey

04:43 and how really a marker where she was emotionally

04:47 and where she was with him

04:48 and how she was presenting herself.

04:50 - Priscilla told us that Elvis would never come downstairs

04:52 not fully dressed in a look.

04:53 Like he loved to dress up and it was important to him.

04:56 And also it was kind of a sign of respect

04:59 that you dressed and it was that time.

05:02 So that's how they really lived.

05:03 We wanted to show how they really lived

05:04 even in their private life.

05:06 - What do you mean you don't know if you're lying yet?

05:08 - I don't know.

05:11 There's just something about it,

05:13 a catchiness that it's missing.

05:15 - Watch out!

05:16 (door clattering)

05:19 - I remember we had to shoot that scene

05:20 and he really has to throw a chair.

05:22 Priscilla said he didn't ever throw a chair at me.

05:24 It was at the wall next to me.

05:25 It was pretty clear he never tried to hurt her

05:27 but he lost his temper and threw it at a wall

05:30 near her in her direction.

05:31 And so we were shooting it, the stunt people

05:34 didn't want Jacob to really throw a chair.

05:35 But then it was important for us

05:37 that Jacob really throw the chair

05:38 'cause so much of the performance

05:39 I would imagine is affected by it.

05:41 - Yeah, yeah.

05:42 Originally they had wanted to get to the point

05:44 and then have a stuntman step in and throw the chair

05:47 but there's like a velocity sort of to the scene

05:50 the way it moves from the start.

05:52 To kind of cut it would have, I think,

05:54 taken away that impact.

05:56 - And also to see his switch

05:59 'cause a lot of the movie are in his more gentle,

06:01 vulnerable side and so we want to feel like

06:04 you're always in Priscilla's point of view

06:06 and to be shocking when someone's mood shifts like that.

06:09 We only had like four chairs.

06:10 - Oh yeah, how many?

06:11 - The pressure was on.

06:12 We only had a few takes.

06:14 - I think just feeling the shift in the scene

06:17 and the sort of highs and lows of how she navigates him

06:22 and I think this is her sort of starting to handle things

06:26 a little bit differently.

06:27 - I'm sorry, baby.

06:28 Are you okay?

06:31 I'm sorry, baby.

06:32 I got my moments temper.

06:33 - Yeah, I'm okay.

06:34 - You okay?

06:35 - Mm-hmm.

06:42 - And at the end of the scene, we stay on her face

06:44 so you're just with her.

06:44 It's always kind of going back to her

06:46 and what her emotions are

06:48 and that was something in the editing

06:49 of like how long do we stay with her

06:51 and finding that balance

06:53 but we always wanted to be looking

06:54 through her point of view.

06:55 - This was a very sensitive time, his career

06:58 and I think she had to know how to navigate him

07:00 and so I think she wanted to be supportive

07:03 but also be honest.

07:04 Priscilla would always say you try to lift him up

07:09 in these moments 'cause it was so emotional

07:11 for Elvis so she's trying to cool down the situation.

07:14 She doesn't want to escalate it anymore

07:17 but also I think it's important at the end

07:19 to see that she's really internalizing this moment

07:23 and it's not nothing.

07:25 - I feel like you show so much on your face

07:26 at the end of the scene where he's apologetic

07:29 and she's, you're kind of digesting what--

07:30 - Yeah, what do you do with that apology

07:32 after that's happened.

07:33 - Yeah, what she's in and I feel like you're so good

07:35 at showing both things.

07:37 A lot of things that don't go together at the same time

07:40 so I feel he showed that kind of torn emotion

07:43 and also I think as the actress you know

07:44 he's gonna have an outburst but the character doesn't

07:47 so you have to, I'm sure it's a challenge

07:49 to be able to be in the moment.

07:51 - The real chair throw helped though for the reaction.

07:54 - Yeah, that's good to know.

07:57 - Watch out!

07:58 - Thanks for watching our Notes on the Scene.

08:02 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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