Jacob Elordi nearly went to bat for “Priscilla,” literally.
Sofia Coppola revealed that Elordi, who portrays Elvis Presley in the indie A24 film, was almost part of a raffle pickleball game to raise funds for the production budget.
“He can play pickleball,” Coppola told the Wall Street Journal. “Our budget was always strained, low budget, and I was like, ‘I wonder if I could raffle off a pickleball game with Jacob to raise money to get one more day of shooting.’”
She continued, “We didn’t, but he was a good sport. He indulged me, even though he’s not an enthusiast. I think he associates it with, like, Malibu moms.”
“Priscilla” is an adaptation of Priscilla Presley’s 1985 memoir “Elvis and Me.” Coppola wrote and directed the film, with Presley executive producing. Cailee Spaeny plays Priscilla in the feature, which won the actress a Volpi Cup and is set to screen as the Centerpiece film at NYFF.
The film was made for less than a reported $20 million. Coppola told Vogue in 2022, “We’re making a low-budget film. Not everything can be quite as epic as it was in Priscilla’s real life, so we have to recreate it in a crafty way. Priscilla is the real focus of it. There are some aspects of Elvis’s career included but it all sort of plays out in the background of their relationship and her developing her identity.”
The “Virgin Suicides” director added that Elordi was not cast due to his breakout role in “Euphoria,” nor his pickleball skills. In fact, Coppola only watched one episode of “Euphoria” before declaring that Elordi plays a “real dick in that show,” which is contrary to his real-life persona.
“He’s so sweet and humble as a person. I thought nobody was going to look quite like Elvis, but Jacob has that same type of magnetism,” Coppola said. “He’s so charismatic and girls go crazy around him, so I knew he could pull off playing this type of romantic icon.”
In addition to “Priscilla,” Elordi can next be seen in Emerald Fennell’s satire “Saltburn” alongside Barry Keoghan and Paul Schrader’s “Oh, Canada” with Richard Gere, which is an adaptation of Russell Banks’ 2021 novel “Foregone.”
