Olivia DeJonge in ‘The Society’ (Photo credit: Netflix).
Baz Luhrmann has cast Olivia DeJonge, who starred in the Netflix series The Society and M. Night Shyamalan’s horror movie The Visit, as Priscilla Presley in the Elvis Presley biopic which will shoot in Queensland early next year.
Austin Butler (Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood, The Dead Don’t Die) will play Presley in the untitled Warner Bros movie which will chart his rise from dirt poor singer to global icon, through the prism of his complex relationship with manager Colonel Tom Parker (Tom Hanks).
Elvis met Priscilla in 1959 while he was serving with the US Army. He was smitten despite their age difference: He was 24, she was 14.
They wed in 1967 and she was the chairwoman of Elvis Presley Enterprises, the company that turned the king of rock n’ roll’s Memphis mansion Graceland into one of the US’s biggest tourist attractions. Lisa Marie was their only daughter. The couple divorced in 1972.
The director said: “Olivia is capable of manifesting the complex depth and presence that has made Priscilla Presley an icon in her own right. She’s an extremely talented young actor and the perfect counterpoint to Austin’s Elvis.”
Luhrmann wrote the screenplay with his regular collaborator Craig Pearce and will produce with production and costume designer Catherine Martin, Gail Berman, Patrick McCormick and Schuyler Weiss, supported by Screen Queensland and the Producer Offset.
In The Society she played outcast Elle, part of a group of teenagers who must learn to run their own community after the rest of the population of their town in Connecticut disappears.
Her last Australian credit was Miranda Nation’s debut feature Undertow, in which she played teenager Angie, who falls pregnant, arousing the suspicion of photographer Claire (Laura Gordon) after she spies her husband Dan (Rob Collins) at the motel where Angie is shacked up.
Her Aussie credits include Chris Peckover’s Better Watch Out, the Cairnes’ brothers horror movie Scare Campaign and Playmaker Media’s ABC drama Hiding.