Designing Elvis’s world in ‘Priscilla’

Life and Art from FT Weekend

Forhecz Topher

Tv & Film, Arts, Society & Culture

4.6 • 601 Ratings

🗓️ 4 December 2023

⏱️ 18 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla came out in the US recently and will be out in the UK in January. The film, which follows Elvis Presley’s wife Priscilla through their relationship, is visually stunning, and today, Lilah speaks with its celebrated lead production designer, Tamara Deverell. To recreate Elvis’s homes, including the infamous Graceland, Tamara had to imagine it all from Priscilla’s perspective. Tamara tells Lilah about her creative process and why she sees Priscilla as the story of many women in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, as told through hair and makeup.

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We love hearing from you. Lilah is on Instagram @lilahrap. You can email her at [email protected].

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Links (all FT links get you past the paywall):

– ‘Priscilla’ is out now in the US and will be out in theatres in the UK on January 1.

– Earlier this year, Sofia Coppola gave an exclusive interview to the FT’s HTSI: https://on.ft.com/412E2jU

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Special FT subscription offers for Life and Art podcast listeners, from 50% off a digital subscription to a $1/£1/€1 trial, are here: http://ft.com/lifeandart

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Original music by Metaphor Music. Mixing and sound design by Breen Turner.

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Life and Art from FT Weekend. I'm Lila Raptopoulos.
0:05.5	The new Sophia Coppola film Priscilla is a visual dream. The story is about Elvis's wife, Priscilla
0:11.6	and it spans from moments before they meet when she's just 14 years old until she eventually leaves him in
0:18.6	her late 20s. During those years, she's mostly living in Graceland, Elvis's family home in Memphis,
0:24.3	as his girlfriend, but also sort of his captive.
0:27.3	It's a world of lush carpets, velvet couches, pink and cream.
0:32.2	And today, we're talking to the production designer who helped create the stunning worlds in this movie.
0:37.4	Tamara Deverell.
0:38.9	Tamara was nominated for an Academy Award last year for her work on Guillermo del Toro's
0:43.2	Nightmare Alley, and she's currently working with him on a new version of Frankenstein.
0:47.8	She's with me now to dig into Priscilla. Tamara, welcome to life and art. It is so nice to have you.
0:53.1	Thank you. Nice to be here.
0:55.3	So I'm excited to talk to you about this because this movie to me was just visually so delicious. I kept thinking of it as delicious. Every detail feels really intentional and it really transports you to a time and a place like a lot of Sophia Coppola's movies. So I'm excited to hear
1:11.4	how the decisions get made. Maybe we can start with how you first got involved. Like what
1:17.2	initially drew you to the project? You know, it's funny. I really was looking not to work at that time.
1:22.7	I had finished Cabinet of Curiosity with Guillermo del Toro, and it was a very taxing show. And then I got this call
1:30.0	from the producer here in Toronto. And he said, do you want to come work on this Sophia Coppola thing?
1:36.9	And I was like, I really wasn't going to work. And I was kind of saying no, actually, really hard to say
1:42.7	no to. And then I'm like, okay, don't watch any of her movies again. Don't talk to her. You can't. Okay, I'll talk to her. So then I was like, even my husband who also wanted me to take time off said at least talk to Sophia. And from the moment I started talking to her, it was just like, okay, this woman is amazing. and I really would miss out terribly if I didn't do this job.
2:04.7	So I did it.
2:06.1	And working with Sophia, I think she's a dream director.
2:10.5	I mean, honestly, for a production designer coming in on it, you know, she had some visual references very specific.
	...

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