Jacob Elordi, the interview: Saltburn, Priscilla and the English accent

After being simultaneously cast in Priscilla Of Sofia Coppola And Saltburn Of Emerald Fennell, to Jacob Elordi there was the doubt that he wouldn't be able to star in two important films, one after the other.

The Australian actor, who achieved success with his role in Euphoriahas ended up shooting the two films just three weeks apart. He first went to the UK for Saltburn, where he plays Felix, a wealthy Oxford student who invites a classmate from humble origins (Barry Keoghan) in his sumptuous estate for the summer. Then he turned into the King of Rock and Roll for Priscilla that resumes the complicated relationship between Elvis and Priscilla Presley (Cailee Spaeny).

If there is something that the two roles have in common it is Elordi's charm, capable of moving with ease from the interpretation of an elegant English boy from the 2000s to that of an icon of American music from the 1960s.

Priscilla And Saltburn are earning Elordi the attention of multiple festivals, but regardless of where this path takes him, the actor says the enormous challenge of these back-to-back projects has transformed him. “I had to climb this gigantic mountain and there comes a moment when you realize you've done it and that people like it,” he says. «I think I've gained… maybe confidence is the wrong word, but I'll use it. I feel much more confident. I have had some confirmation of my abilities and I hope not to lose them.”

Do you think these two roles have something in common?
«It's a funny question. I did Priscilla three weeks later Saltburn. So in my head they are strangely and inevitably connected. I would shoot all day in London and then come home to my Elvis cave, which was my hotel room, where all the photos of Priscilla were. However, if we exclude the fact that they both had huge houses, in Saltburn and Graceland, I'm not sure that Felix has much of Elvis Presley.”

Is it difficult to close one story and jump into the next one? I mean, in a perfect world, would you need more than three weeks?
«Having had little time in the end turned out to be an advantage, it helped me. If I had had more time perhaps I would have found myself in difficulty, because I would have thought too much about everything. In Saltburn I had to have a British accent which I lost very quickly when I switched to the Memphis drawl. But with only three weeks available, I couldn't worry about it too much. At the time, before starting filming the two films, I feared that it would be impossible, because they were too close together.”

Saltburn

Courtesy of Amazon Content Services.

Saltburn it's fun to watch because it's visceral. What is it like watching the film with an audience?
«I snuck into a screening in my hometown, and it was incredible. I hadn't done it since I went to see the first of his new films Star Wars. It was a little surreal to do it with Saltburn because it's a new story and I didn't imagine that people could be so involved in the plots. I could hear them panting and screaming.”

What convinced you that Felix would be an interesting character to tackle?
«I met Emerald a couple of years ago in Los Angeles, we talked about the project in general terms and she remained vague. But she intrigued me. Then I received the script and realized I couldn't miss it. A couple of months later I found myself in the UK and auditioned for Emerald, which was my first audition outside of Covid. I had been missing for a long time, so it was terribly unnerving. It made me understand what acting really means, finding yourself in an environment working for a role.”

I spoke with Emerald in a podcast and she told me that she brought something to the audition that many other actors lacked: Felix may seem like the object of desire, charismatic and all, but she was able to show his weak side too. What do you think of Felix?
«I try to go beyond the starting ideas, I think I always have. I certainly did that with Elvis: I try to find some sort of back door into the character. I try to find them when they are 10 years old, 11 years old, 12 years old, I try to find the child in them. The thing that was clear to me with Felix is ​​that despite being born and raised in conditions of privilege, he was hiding something that went beyond his bravado and confident manner. There was a sensitivity that we needed to develop and learn to know, knowing that often people with that kind of sensitivity developed it starting from great insecurities or difficulties in understanding their place in the world.”

Who inspired you, how you prepared to shoot Saltburn?
«I called Emerald because she knows the world much more than me. She sent me a list of movies and books to read. Then I went to Palm Springs for two weeks, locked myself in the house, walked around a pool trying to find the right accent. I read Return to Brideshead and I studied that type of English literature and that privileged environment as best I could. I arrived in London four weeks before filming started, I was living in Chelsea and I would go to cafes and listen to people talking and ordering. flat white. It was the final piece of the puzzle to understand that we couldn't go too far.”

Priscilla

Priscilla

Phillipe Le Sourd

Was there a particular scene that intimidated you or that you had to work harder for?
«I think it happened when we arrived at the country mansion, because that's when my family comes into the picture. It was a more personal concern: Okay, I have to be English with Rosamund Pike And Carey Mulligan. If anyone will see you, it will be Rosamund Pike. Does he understand what I mean? It made me a little anxious to show up at home, because that's where it all started and that's where you start to grasp the parts of Felix that are distant from the college bravado.”

When it came to Priscilla, Was there a piece of research that proved really valuable in your preparation?
«The music critic's books were incredibly useful to me Peter Guralnick (The Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley And Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley, ed.), full of information. However, while I was reading them, a great sadness came over me, because I could sense the fall towards hell. Elvis' life was a tragedy in many ways. Then the things that helped me find the human being I wanted to portray were the amateur videos titled Elvis by the Presleys. There was all this silent Super 8 footage of him over the years. He was seen playing with Priscilla, swimming and eating. You could see the child in him. There was all this and then also a song that connected me to him the whole time. His version of Bridge Over Troubled Waterwhich I listened to every day before going on set.”

There are songs he has listened to before Saltburn?
«Emerald had prepared a playlist of songs from 2007 for us, but I already knew what awaited me and therefore I had already done an intensive treatment with the Smiths and David Bowie. Lots of 80s British rock-pop.”

What do you expect for your career?
«I expect it to be constantly evolving. At the moment I'm enjoying the good fortune of being able to choose a little. I just want to work with real artists. I have loved art all my life and I want to work with directors who have an original point of view or a particular sensitivity towards certain themes and who want to leave a mark on the world and history. For me, films are this.”

Source: Vanity Fair

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