I’ve been waiting for new photos of Jacob Elordi for a couple of weeks now – here he is in LA yesterday – because we need to talk about Jacob and Elvis Presley. It was announced this month that Sofia Coppola's next film, titled Priscilla, will be based on Priscilla Presley’s memoir, Elvis and Me. Cailee Spaeny will play Priscilla opposite Jacob’s Elvis. First to the gossip…

 

We are fresh off a summer of Elvis. Austin Butler’s performance in Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis is considered one of the strongest of the year and immediately people started talking about an Oscar campaign. Austin remains at the forefront of the conversation now that the Venice, Toronto, and Telluride film festivals are over, and there is no way Warner Bros won’t be supporting a campaign behind Austin for a Best Actor nomination. Austin has set the Elvis standard, for both critics and Elvis fans (me included). And Austin and Jacob have a connection. 

Jacob dated Kaia Gerber for a year. They broke up in November 2021. In December 2021 Kaia and Austin were seen together for the first time. Austin breaks through with Elvis. And now Jacob is going to play Elvis?! And remember this from Halloween 2020?!

 

This is an Elvis throwdown!

No but seriously, throwdowns and gossip aside, Jacob will be coming into Elvis in the wake of Austin’s award season run. Sofia’s Priscilla is expected to start production in Toronto this fall. It’s possible we could see the film a year from now when Austin’s Elvis is still fresh. This is some pressure, for sure. 

But that said, these are not similar projects. Baz’s Elvis was all about Elvis (and too much about Tom Parker). Elvis and Me (which, as I’ve mentioned many times, is the book that brought me to Elvis in the first place, so this film is going to f-ck me up, I know it) is Priscilla’s story. Priscilla is #1 on the call-sheet here, with Elvis in the supporting role. 

Elvis and Me reads like a romance novel. So Jacob’s Elvis is not a rockstar but a love interest first, as opposed to Austin’s Elvis which focused on Elvis’s musicianship. In Sofia’s film, I’m not sure we need a lot of Elvis in performance and singing because if we’re centering Priscilla’s point of view, we don’t need to see Elvis from that vantage point. His role here is boyfriend, then husband. And instead of gyrating his hips on stage, he should be gyrating his hips in bed. 

I said what I said!

 

Elvis and Me is a love story! And there’s a lot of kissing in the book! She writes about their first time! So bring on the kissing and the swoony bits…but also the messy bits, because in Elvis and Me, Priscilla talks about Elvis and Ann-Margret who had a torrid affair before Elvis married Priscilla. They were obsessed with each other, and Priscilla knew about it, she was furious about it, and it’s all in the book which means it should be in Sofia’s movie. So between the kissing and the swooning and the jealousy, Jacob’s Elvis should be a much different Elvis than Austin’s. And again, Jacob’s Elvis isn’t the primary focus, so I’m curious to see how Jacob approaches it. 

He was on the cover of GQ last month – and before we get into the profile, can I just side-eye the title of the piece, “How Jacob Elordi Became Gen Z’s Leading Man”? Um, is he though? Like, I get that Jacob is popular because Euphoria is wildly popular, but as popular as Jacob and Euphoria are…they are not TIMOTHEE CHALAMET. 

Timothée Chalamet is Gen Z’s leading man. This isn’t up for debate. It’s an actual fact – he has an Oscar nomination, he does indies and big budgets, he’s an official headliner at film festivals and unofficial headliner at music festivals, he’s huge on social media, he is a fashion superstar… 

Jacob Elordi doesn’t even come close. And, um, I’m not even sure if Jacob’s even been a “leading man” in the truest sense of the word since…has he even led a series or a movie, really? I’m not trying to turn this site into a Timmy stan account here, my beef is with the hyperbole. I get it, GQ, you want to hype up your cover star, but the headline should still be accurate, non!?

 

To go back to the piece itself, while Jacob isn’t exactly a leading man yet, it’s obvious from his profile that this is his ambition. There’s a lot of talk about immersing himself into his characters; a lot of talk about the “craft”; a lot of talk about emulating his acting heroes; a lot of talk about wanting to separate his celebrity from his art. Jacob is 25 years old. Fame came quickly and he’s still trying to figure it out. He seems self-conscious about being known for his involvement in teen stories (The Kissing Booth, Euphoria) and not being taken seriously because of it…which is why he takes himself SO seriously – at least that’s how it comes across. There’s a comparison made in the article to Robert Pattinson and what he was like post-Twilight, and it’s a valid reference in that Pattinson seemed to be in a similar kind of mood when he became so famous from playing Edward Cullen. This, then, is familiar terrain: the tall, high-cheekboned actor who wants to be seen as an Actor. This is when all the greatest hits come out – we are told that he reads a LOT (Jacob is surrounded by books), and that he drove off alone to rent a house away from everyone just to be alone (being alone is code for “I’m not a boy, I’m a man”), and study his scripts and become his characters, and yes…Bukowski is namechecked in the piece, like clockwork. Do they know that they all do this? Or do they do it and think they’re the first ones who did it? 

Anyway, this is where we find Jacob now as he prepares to become Priscilla Presley’s husband, Elvis.