Jacob Elordi says he ate about a pound of bacon a day in order to play Elvis Presley in Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla.
In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly’s Around the Table series, Coppola and Elordi explained that they learned Elvis used to eat a lot of bacon when they spoke with Priscilla Presley.
“Priscilla told us that Elvis liked really burned bacon,” Coppola said.
“I averaged like a pound of bacon a day,” Elordi added. “It’s not that noticeable because I’m quite long. But I was the biggest I’ve ever been.”
Elordi, Coppola, and Cailee Spaeny also had access to Elvis and Priscilla’s home movies and photographs when making the A24 movie, which Elordi says also influenced his performance.
“Probably the most helpful part was ignoring the mythology and trying to find out where the real person lies in that,” Elordi explains. “We had the freedom of going to a place where he wasn’t so well documented, behind closed doors, so I could play with it a little bit and try to make it a bit more grounded and attempt to make it sound more human.”
What is Priscilla about?
“When teenage Priscilla Beaulieu meets Elvis Presley at a party, the man who is already a meteoric rock-and-roll superstar becomes someone entirely unexpected in private moments: a thrilling crush, an ally in loneliness, a gentle best friend,” the official synopsis reads. “Through Priscilla’s eyes, Sofia Coppola tells the unseen side of a great American myth in Elvis and Priscilla’s long courtship and turbulent marriage, from a German army base to his dream-world estate at Graceland, in this deeply felt and ravishingly detailed portrait of love, fantasy, and fame.”
Written, directed, and produced by Coppola and based on Priscilla Presley’s 1985 Elvis and Me memoir, Priscilla stars Spaeny, Elordi, Dagmara Domińczyk, and Rodrigo Fernandez-Stoll. The movie is currently playing in United States theaters.
