Olivia DeJonge

Baz Luhrmann's Elvis has all eyes on Austin Butler but don't underestimate Olivia DeJonge as Priscilla Presley, giving us a “break” from the male-dominated ...

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Did Elvis Presley meet Priscilla Presley while serving in the army? Butler and DeJonge in 'Elvis'. Courtesy of Warner Bros.

When Elvis died in 1977 at the age of 42, Priscilla told People, “It was a shock, although I saw his health failing and even went back to Memphis once to see if there was anything I could do.” In her memoir, she wrote that after learning of Elvis’s death she felt as if a piece of her had died with him. “I’m so happy that she was sensitive and that she was caring,” she said. Things got “more and more frightening” for Elvis in those years before his death, according to Priscilla, who said it was “heartbreaking” to watch him struggle with a decades-long substance abuse problem. He never wanted to see me getting dressed, he wanted to see the end result.” How to dress, how to walk, how to apply makeup and wear my hair, how to behave, how to return love—his way,” she added. “He arrived in his BMW wearing his Army uniform to impress dad,” she told People in 1985. “He applied makeup so heavily that you couldn’t tell if my eyes were black, blue, or black and blue,” she told People in 1985. One of the most important things was to just strip that away and just sort of play a girl and a boy that were in love,” DeJonge told Good Morning America in June. “That is 100 percent what I wanted to convey.” “That was a promise he made to my father,” she told Closer Weekly in 2017. The two reportedly met at a party in 1959 when he was 24 and she was only 14, a detail the film seemingly overlooks. The real Priscilla has never claimed to be a victim of abuse though, as TIME’s film critic Stephanie Zacharek writes, she has acknowledged that their relationship, much like so many aspects of his legacy, was certainly complicated. (Luhrmann revealed that there is a “4-hour version” of the film that delves much deeper into Elvis’ life.)

In 2022, Olivia DeJonge shot to fame with the premiere of Baz Luhrmann's biopic of Elvis Presley, entitled simply "Elvis," in which she plays the King of ...

As she said to Vogue Australia, "We'll never really know the truth." But I think as I've gotten older — I mean, I'm 23, so I still have a little while to go — I've learned that the truth is constructed and there's a big gray area in life." "It is just about being equal," she told Confidential. "It is about us all being human and us all being the same." As she told Glam Adelaide in 2015, her initial plan after high school was to study psychology at university — "but I'm getting a lot of auditions at the moment, so that's taking up much of my time," she said. As DeJonge explained to Goggler, "Obviously as human beings, we're all nosey and we want to know the truth. In "The Staircase," Olivia DeJonge plays Caitlin, the daughter of Kathleen Peterson, whose mysterious death leads to the arrest of her husband, Michael Peterson. Although DeJonge's character initially believes in her adopted father's innocence, she soon switches sides. And there were moments where it was very scary and I had to take a few minutes just to calm down a bit." While the show uses Shakespearean language, "it stays just modern enough to allow you to see yourself in it," DeJonge said. It sounds like DeJonge aspires to be as free and truthful in her own performances — and based on what we've seen of the young actress so far, we think she's well on her way to being a young Portman herself! But it wasn't until I read the script and spoke to [creator] Craig [Pearce] and [director] Shekhar [Kapur], and listened to them explain the idea behind it, that I was like, 'This is different.'" She was first intrigued by performing when she watched 2003's "Peter Pan." "I definitely printed out a photo of baby Jeremy Sumpter and put it in my voice-activated password diary," she confessed to Vogue Australia. But it wasn't the cherub-faced Sumpter who inspired her — it was the behind-the-scenes featurettes on the DVD. "I was mesmerized," she said. Just a few years ago, DeJonge was just another Australian teen hoping to make it in the acting business.