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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