Riley Keough

Riley Keough Says First Christmas Without Late Brother Benjamin Will Be 'Painful'

Riley Keough knows the holidays are tough after you've lost a loved one. The 31-year-old actress got candid about how "painful" it will be to not have her late brother, Benjamin, on Dec. 25.

"Its going to be my first Christmas without my best friend and baby brother. Words can’t describe how painful it is," she wrote on Friday alongside a selfie of the two. "I’m thinking of everyone whose lost someone they love and everyone else whose first Holiday it is with grief and without the person they love."

She added that she's also "thinking of all of the beautiful people who can’t be here with us in physical form and sending them my love wherever they may be, not too far away. "



Benjamin, the 27-year-old son of Lisa Marie Presley and grandson of Elvis Presley, died by suicide in July.

The Logan Lucky actress has paid tribute to her sibling over the last couple of months. In October, Riley celebrated what would have been Benjamin's 28th birthday by posting photos of the two on her Instagram.


"Happy Birthday beautiful angel ," she captioned the new and old pics. She also got a tattoo on her collarbone in his honor.


Benjamin was laid to rest at Graceland in October.

"Benjamin Storm Presley Keough was laid to rest in the Meditation Garden at Graceland with his family including his grandfather, Elvis Presley, great-grandmother, Gladys Presley, great-grandfather, Vernon Presley and great-great-grandmother, Minnie Mae Presley," read a message posted on the Facebook page for Elvis Presley's Memphis estate.

For more on his death, see below.

Benjamin, the 27-year-old son of Lisa Marie Presley and grandson of Elvis Presley, died by suicide in July.

The Logan Lucky actress has paid tribute to her sibling over the last couple of months. In October, Riley celebrated what would have been Benjamin's 28th birthday by posting photos of the two on her Instagram.

"Happy Birthday beautiful angel ," she captioned the new and old pics. She also got a tattoo on her collarbone in his honor.

Benjamin was laid to rest at Graceland in October.

"Benjamin Storm Presley Keough was laid to rest in the Meditation Garden at Graceland with his family including his grandfather, Elvis Presley, great-grandmother, Gladys Presley, great-grandfather, Vernon Presley and great-great-grandmother, Minnie Mae Presley," read a message posted on the Facebook page for Elvis Presley's Memphis estate.

For more on his death, see below.

https://www.etonline.com/riley-keough-says-first-christmas-without-late-brother-benjamin-will-be-painful-158118?amp&__twitter_impression=true

Riley Keough Completes Death Doula Training 8 Months After Brother Benjamin's Passing
Almost a year after her brother Benjamin Keough's passing, actress Riley Keough revealed she's finished death doula training. Scroll on for her message.
By JESS COHEN



Less than a year after Benjamin Keough's passing, his sister Riley Keough has finished training to become a death doula.

Ben, the son of Lisa Marie Presley and Danny Keough and the grandson of Elvis Presley, died on July 12 at the age of 27. The Los Angeles County Dept. of Medical Examiner-Coroner's office later revealed his cause of death was intraoral shotgun wound, while the manner of death was ruled a suicide. In October, Elvis' Graceland announced that Ben had been laid to rest in the Meditation Garden at the Memphis estate alongside his family, including his grandfather, great-grandmother, Gladys Presley, great-grandfather, Vernon Presley and great-great-grandmother, Minnie Mae Presley.

As Ben's family continues to mourn his tragic death, Riley shared a personal update with her Instagram followers. "Today I finished my Death Doula training, on The Art of Death Midwifery training course by @sacred_crossings so I guess I'm an almost certified death doula now hehe," she wrote on March 21. "And I just felt like writing such a deep thank you to this community who are teaching and training people in conscious dying and death work."

"We are taught that its a morbid subject to talk about. Or were so afraid of it that we're unable to talk about it... then of course it happens to us, and we are very ill prepared," she continued. "I think it's so important to be educated on conscious dying and death the way we educate ourselves on birth and conscious birthing. We prepare ourselves so rigorously for the entrance and have no preparation for our exit. So I'm so grateful for this community and to be able to contribute what I can."


Since his death, Riley has continued to pay tribute to her brother, even getting a tattoo in his honor. In July, one week after Ben's death, Riley shared a heartfelt message on social media.

"Mornings are the hardest," she began. "I forget you're gone. I can't cry because of the fear that I will never stop. A pain that's new to me."

"You. There are no words for you. Angel is the closest I could think of. Pure light. Baby brother. Best friend. Wild man. Intellectual. Witness to my life. Twin soul. Protector. Too sensitive for this harsh world," Riley continued. "I hope you give me strength to endure the giant hole you've left in my heart."

She concluded her post by telling her brother, "I hope we meet again."

https://www.eonline.com/amp/news/1250908/riley-keough-completes-death-doula-training-8-months-after-brother-benjamins-passing?__twitter_impression=true

Zola co-stars Riley Keough and Taylour Paige dazzle in contrasting looks on MTV Movie & TV Awards red carpet


They star together in the upcoming crime caper Zola.

And on Sunday, Taylour Paige and Riley Keough walked the red carpet together at the MTV Movie & TV Awards in Los Angeles.

The two actresses each chose an eye-catching outfit for their moment in the spotlight.

Keough, 31, the granddaughter of Elvis Presley, opted for colorful sequins.

She paired a v-neck purple crop top with an emerald green bolero jacket and red and green patterned leggings.

She added silver heels and carried a silver clutch.

She wore her long hair tied back from her face in a single chunky braid and she was made-up with striking blue liner rimming her eyes and glossy pink color on her lips.

The bold beauty look was the work by makeup artist Rachel Goodwin for Pat McGrath Labs, and was focused around the funky blue eyes, which were created using the brand's Permagel Ultra Glide Eye Pencil in Blue Blitz, and shades from the Celestial Divinity Luxe Eyeshadow quad in Hypnotiyque.

Paige, 30, showed plenty of skin in a see-through black patterned catsuit.


She added a pink sequin bolero jacket and silver heels.

She sported a sleek shoulder-length bob with one side tucked behind her ear and she wore black mascara and eye-liner and matte red lip color.

n Zola, Paige plays the titular Zola, a Detroit waitress who strikes up a friendship with a customer, Stefani, played by Keough.

Stefani convinces Zola to join her on a weekend getaway in Florida where they run into gangsters and are forced into sex work, according to People.


https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-9586307/amp/Zola-stars-Riley-Keough-Taylour-Paige-dazzle-contrasting-looks-MTV-Movie-TV-Awards.html?__twitter_impression=true

Riley surprise birthday party







Austin was at the party

Riley Keough Sings Background Vocals for New Lady Gaga Cover from Orville Peck!


Riley Keough is putting her vocal talents on display!

The 32-year-old Zola actress, who is the granddaughter of the legendary Elvis Presley, provided background vocals for singer Orville Peck's new cover of a Lady Gaga song.

Peck performed the "official country road cover" of Gaga's hit song "Born This Way" for the upcoming Born This Way Reimagined - The Tenth Anniversary album.

"My official country road cover of ‘Born This Way’ for the 10th anniversary edition of Born This Way Reimagined is out now! I am so honoured and excited to be a part of the iconic legacy of this song and album. Thank you @ladygaga for askin me and Happy Pride y’all!!" Peck wrote on Instagram.

The credits for the song list Riley as the background vocalist. Orville's voice has been compared to Elvis' iconic voice, so it's super cool to have the legendary artist's granddaughter on the track!

http://www.justjared.com/2021/06/05/riley-keough-sings-background-vocals-for-new-lady-gaga-cover-from-orville-peck/

Riley posted this:

Elvis Presley’s Granddaughter Riley Keough Set to Appear in Major New Film

Joe Rutland

Riley Keough, who is the granddaughter of Elvis Presley, is set to appear with Jesse Eisenberg and Adrien Brody in a major new film.

Keough is slated to have a role in director John Trengrove’s film “Manodrome,” according to an article in Variety. Before this movie, though, Keough will be appearing in “Zola” and an Amazon original film, “Daisy Jones & The Six.”

But you’re asking, “What’s her connection with Elvis Presley?” We mentioned that she’s the granddaughter of The King of Rock and Roll. So Keough is the daughter of Lisa Marie Presley and musician Danny Keough.

https://outsider.com/news/entertainment/elvis-presley-granddaughter-riley-keough-appear-major-new-film/

Riley Keough Understands the Assignment

The Zola star on her latest “demonic” performance, her female friendships, and her spiritual outlook on life.
By Kimberly Truong Jun 29, 2021 @ 9:00 am


The first time I saw Riley Keough, she was emerging from a pool in the trailer for Under the Silver Lake, blonde, glistening, and thoroughly charming. The comparisons to Marilyn Monroe abounded, not just because of the nod to Monroe's iconic skinny-dipping scene in Something's Got To Give, but also thanks to Keough's palpable Old Hollywood-like star quality.

It's a quality that made me swan dive into the rest of her filmography; a je ne sais quoi that's anointed her a queen of A24, the indie studio with a cult-like following that distributed Under the Silver Lake as well as three of her other movies: 2016's American Honey, her 2017 horror film It Comes At Night, and the upcoming, highly anticipated Zola. The breadth of admiration is such that she's the subject of Film Twitter's "understood the assignment" meme as well as fellow actress Sarah Paulson's accolades: "She's the IT of the ITS," Paulson once tweeted.

Some might attribute that "it" factor to her lineage of Hollywood royalty - the 32-year-old actress is the granddaughter of Elvis Presley, though he passed away 12 years before she was born, something she's patiently explained in interviews over the years. But both on film and over a Zoom call in late May, cozy in a gray knit sweater with her hair pulled back into a topknot, she radiates an effortless magnetism that's all her own.

Over the past year of lockdowns and social distancing, Keough has been content to revel in the quiet of the Los Angeles home she shares with her husband, stuntman Ben Smith-Petersen (the two met on the set of 2015's Mad Max: Fury Road), and their two dogs, Grubs and Zushi, who snore lightly nearby as she sits folded up on a taupe couch. After premiering to glowing reviews at Sundance in early 2020, Zola will finally be released to the masses as movie theaters begin to open. Though she's now enjoying being able to sit in stillness, it's taken work to not fall into needing the "constant stimulation" she remembers being surrounded by in childhood.


Keough was born in Los Angeles and considers herself a born and bred Angeleno, though she and her family once moved to Florida for a spell and she lived in Hawaii on and off until she was in her 20s, before decamping to England for four years. Her parents, Lisa Marie Presley and musician Danny Keough, divorced when she was five, and her mother traveled a lot, and "was always doing exciting things." But moving around didn't leave much room for a typical education experience for Keough, who says she had a "weird relationship" with school. She didn't like it, but she could have.

"I think I kind of always felt out of place, and I always felt like I would miss things," she remembers. "I felt like I was behind - I'd get into a new school, and then I would have to leave, and then I wouldn't keep up with the curriculum, and then I'd have to go to another school. This is when I was very little. So I kind of just gave up, and I home-schooled, and then I kind of gave up on that too. I didn't graduate high school. But it's a shame, because I really wanted an education, and I really wanted to go to college, I just didn't have a lifestyle that would permit that."

No matter her journey to get there, you get the sense that an acting career was always in the cards for Keough. While most people go to college to figure out what they want to do for the rest of their lives, she vividly remembers instinctively knowing she wanted to act, even as a child. She spent hours putting on plays, constantly filming people, making and editing horror films, and having her mom's friends put music in them, armed with precocious determination to make her own way in life.

"At [age] nine, 10, 11, I was making movies all day, and I had a very practical mindset about it all for a child," she says. "I was like, 'I'm going to try and model, get my own money, and then I'm going to finish school, and I'm going to start acting after I'm 18, because I want to be a kid.'"

intuition and a vigorous work ethic. Her mother, all too aware of the assumptions of nepotism placed on descendants of actors and musicians - not to mention legendary ones - fostered a sense of studiousness in her early on.

"I grew up with my mom saying, 'Anything you do in life, you're going to have to take it seriously, and work really hard at it, and be really good at it. Don't just dip your toes into things,'" she says. "Which is my nature anyway, with acting and with things I want to be doing. I also had this thing where, when you grow up in L.A. and everyone's acting, I felt this sense of, oh gosh ... I was a little bit afraid to fail."

Over Zoom, Keough exudes a laid-back, placid warmth. A tattoo reading "nope" peeks out of her sleeve on her right wrist, misleadingly implying a guardedness that's instead gulfed by her welcoming demeanor. It's cliché to say that it feels like you're the only two people in the world when you're speaking to her, but I'm not the only one reduced to clichés when it comes to her.

Her Zola co-star Taylour Paige, who has become a close friend, says that with Keough, "I just feel so - I don't want to use the word 'seen,' it's so overused now - but I just feel very much like it's OK to be seen by her."

Paige recalls being blown away by her "calming, ancient wisdom" when they first met at a hotel in Tampa, Fla. when production began: "I definitely felt safe with Ri-Ri, and from the beginning, it was like, 'Here's someone who's trying to live their life truthfully and honestly, regardless of their circumstances.'"


https://www.instyle.com/celebrity/riley-keough-zola-interview-2021

Elvis Presley’s Granddaughter Says Mom Lisa Marie Surprises Her on Birthdays with a Dancing Gorilla

Lisa Marie Presley, the daughter of the iconic Elvis Presley, is apparently the master when it comes to hilarious birthday pranks. Just ask her daughter, Riley Keough.

Riley Keough, of course, is the granddaughter of the legendary rock ‘n roller, Elvis Presley. She made an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon back in 2017. Her time on the show came shortly after she had celebrated her 28th birthday.

Fallon starts off the exchange by wishing Keough a happy belated trip around the sun.

“28, huh? I remember those years,” Fallon says with a laugh. “Did you do anything special?”

Keough says that she actually had a birthday dinner. That had previously been out of the ordinary for her, as she took a few years off from celebrating her birthday.

Meanwhile, Jimmy Fallon had heard some pretty crazy stories about how Riley’s mom, Lisa Presley, celebrated her birthday. And he couldn’t resist — he just had to ask Riley Keough if the rumors were true.

“Did your mom do the thing? I know about the story,” he said.

Evidently, anytime that Lisa Marie couldn’t make it to her daughter’s birthday, she would send someone else in her place. And we aren’t just talking about sending anyone here. The daughter of the great Elvis Presley would send a dancing gorilla in a tutu to wish her daughter a happy birthday.

“She sends a gorilla — a dancing gorilla in a tutu,” Keough says while the audience laughs. “It’s a real thing.”


Granddaughter of Elvis Presley Talks About the First Time Her Mom Sent a Dancing Gorilla


You would think that if you couldn’t make it to your kid’s birthday, that a card, or even a phone call or text would suffice. But when it comes to Lisa Marie Presley, Elvis Presley’s daughter, she apparently has her own kind of telegram in mind.

Riley Keough told Jimmy Fallon that her mom has sent her a dancing gorilla three times. She said that she was just 12 years old the first time it ever happened

“I was 12 and I was at school which was just horrible,” Keough said. “Because 12 is, like, when you are really cool.”

“I know!” Fallon chimed in. “You already have enough problems at 12 and then mom sends a gorilla in a tutu to sing happy birthday.”

Elvis Presley’s granddaughter explained what exactly happened and when she realized the gorilla, was, in fact, there to see her.

“It came into the schoolyard with a boom box, and it was playing some really terrible rendition of happy birthday,” Keough explained. “I didn’t even realize the gorilla was there for me until it put the boombox down and a voice said, “Is Riley here?”


https://outsider.com/news/entertainment/elvis-presley-granddaughter-says-mom-lisa-marie-surprises-her-birthdays-dancing-gorilla/amp/

June 29, 2021 4:22pm PT
Riley Keough Talks Her ‘Demonic’ ‘Zola’ Character: ‘She Was Offensive in Every Way’

Riley Keough knows that her “demonic” character Stefani in “Zola” is offensive. So much so that she apologized to the cast and crew during rehearsals. “I may have said, ‘I’m sorry, by the way, this is an awful human being,’” Keough says on this week’s episode of the “Just for Variety” podcast.

Directed and co-written by Janicza Bravo, “Zola” is based on a viral Twitter thread about one woman’s weekend with Stefani, and her pimp (Colman Domingo) and boyfriend (Nicholas Braun). Taylour Paige stars in the title role as a waitress who is invited on what turns out to be a nightmare road trip to strip at various clubs with Stefani. “Taylour and I became friends quickly,” Keough says. “And Colman and Nick, we were all so close that it was really an environment that allowed all of us to feel really comfortable and safe. We all knew the point of this. It wasn’t just some gratuitous dumb thing. There was a race commentary. It was very much serving a purpose.”

In fact, if Keough, 32, was having trouble nailing some of her culturally inappropriate dialect, “Colman and Taylour would just help me,” she says. “If I was like, ‘I don’t know how to say this,’ they would be like, ‘Don’t say it like that. Say it like this.’ So it was kind of a group effort to get it right.”

Keough doesn’t regularly listen to Elvis’ music. “I don’t put it on. If it’s on, I’ll listen to it,” she says. “There’s definitely emotion around it. There was definitely a lot of grief around it growing up, especially seeing my mom and my grandmother. It was kind of a sad thing, tragic kind of a thing, so there was definitely that relationship to it, and I could see from a young age, it would make my mom sad, and so I could feel that. It’s definitely an emotional experience, especially if it’s one of the more emotional songs. If it’s one of the more upbeat songs, it’s not. The more gospel or that kind of stuff definitely makes me emotional.”


Sadly, tragedy struck the family again almost a year ago when Keough’s 27-year-old brother Benjamin died by suicide. While she doesn’t usually talk openly about her private life, she wants to speak about her only sibling — she says Benjamin was her “best friend” — as much as she can to raise awareness around mental health and suicide. “I think people have ideas about suicide and what that looks like. I did,” Keough says. I’m like, ‘OK, they must be a, b and c.’ I think I posted all these videos of him on my Instagram when he passed because I just wanted to share that people you’d never know would take their life, can take their life.”

“It’s not linear,” she continues. “There’s not one version of it. In our scenario, I never would have imagined it. It wasn’t something that I saw coming so just taking away that bias around suicide for me was really important, that he was incredible, he was so smart, so funny [and] he was talented at everything he did. I think people have these ways they imagine mental health looking.”


https://variety.com/2021/film/podcasts/riley-keough-zola-brother-suicide-elvis-presley-1235007797/

Riley Keough Is an Outrageous Force of Nature in Zola

RADHIKA SETH
June 29, 2021

When Riley Keough logs on to Zoom to meet me from her home in Los Angeles, the 32-year-old actor—the daughter of musicians Lisa Marie Presley and Danny Keough, the granddaughter of Elvis Presley, and a bona fide indie darling in her own right—is not at all what I expected. Fresh-faced and with her hair piled on top of her head, she sits on her couch in a biscuit-colored sweater with her French bulldog blissfully snoring on her lap and her laundry spinning noisily behind her.

It’s a delightfully low-key introduction to a performer who has made her name playing bold and unpredictable women: a flame-haired breeder escaping a warlord in Mad Max: Fury Road (2015); an ice-cold, part-time call girl in The Girlfriend Experience (2016 to present); the beguiling leader of a rowdy crew of drifters in American Honey (2016); a whip-smart getaway driver in Logan Lucky (2017); and the only surviving member of a terrifying religious cult in The Lodge (2019).

None of her previous work, however, comes close to her audacious, slippery turn in Zola, Janicza Bravo’s surreal summer comedy based on Aziah “Zola” Wells’s viral Twitter thread from 2015. In the 148-post saga, the narrator, a waitress and sometime stripper, meets a fellow exotic dancer named Jessica. They become friends immediately and the latter invites the former on a road trip to Florida that descends into chaos, zipping from pole-dancing to prostitution and a gunfight in a hotel room.

In the big-screen adaptation, the luminous Taylour Paige takes on the role of Zola, while Jessica is renamed Stefani and played with relish by Keough. Dressed in pink with her hair in braids, she’s an enigma who initially exudes naivety, but also appropriates Black culture and spouts problematic anecdotes. She’s hounded by her insecure boyfriend (Nicholas Braun) and violent pimp (Colman Domingo), but we soon learn that this isn’t the first time she’s lured an acquaintance into a trap.

As Zola arrives in theaters, Keough talks us through embodying unlikeable characters, trying not to giggle at penises during sex scenes, and the drastically different project we’ll see her in next.


Vogue: Do you remember seeing Aziah Wells’s Twitter thread when it went viral in 2015?

Riley Keough: Yeah, someone sent it to me! Then, I was told that they were making it into a film and I got sent the script. I was completely obsessed with the writing. Janicza [Bravo, Zola’s director] wanted me for the role [of Stefani], which was amazing. My only question to Janicza was, “Can I really go for it?” She was like, “Absolutely!” We wanted to make her as wild, offensive and loud as we could.

How did you prepare to play such an outrageous character?

I’ve played dancers who work in strip clubs a few times. I’ve had pole dancing lessons and I’ve been in that world. I’ve lived an interesting life, I’ve met a lot of people and, the thing is, I’ve met people like Stefani. When I got this script, someone said, “You kind of played that in American Honey.” I was like, “This is a completely different person! You’re putting all these women in the same category.” So, for Stefani, it was about thinking about the nuances of where she grew up, what she grew up around and how she speaks. I worked on the accent and sent it to Janicza. I wanted to get it right.

Stefani is the villain of this story but also a victim in some ways. How did you balance that?

When playing any character, you have to find empathy no matter how unlikeable they are. I’ve played unlikeable characters a few times and it’s so much more fun. There’s more work to do, because you have to find the humanity in people that make you go, “Ugh!” That’s the work we need to do as human beings in real life. With great filmmaking, you’re able to make the audience go, “I hate this girl, but she’s kind of sweet. Is she?” That’s the experience you have when you meet complicated people who have trauma. If I can find the humanity in them, hopefully, that translates on screen. But, obviously, Stefani is a disturbing demon. It was interesting to explore.

The costumes in the film are wild. What are the details that you hope people notice?

Janicza was so incredibly thoughtful with every detail of our wardrobe, hair, makeup and nails. They made my nails pointy because I’m a demon and for Taylour [Paige, who plays Zola], her nails are rounder because she’s softer. I have a snake outfit [a snake-print two piece] because I’m a snake. (Laughs.) I had this necklace which I loved, that I don’t know if people can see, but it’s a gold chain with a single boob. I loved Stefani’s tiny bags. Like, what is she putting in there, one lip gloss? Then in the first scene where you see us both at the strip club, we’re wearing nipple covers with straps and they’re plaid, which was an homage to Clueless. It’s like Cher and Dionne!

There are incredible set pieces in the film, including a darkly funny montage of Stefani having sex with different clients. Was it difficult to keep a straight face filming that scene?

To be totally frank, it was challenging not to giggle. There are a lot of penises! It’s hard, but after you get the first one out of the way, it’s fine. It’s funny. When I did The Girlfriend Experience, the first time I had a sex scene, I was like, “Oh my gosh!” Then, by the second and third you get kind of jaded. (Laughs.) I also loved that you don’t see any of our body parts—you only see men’s body parts. I have no issue with nudity and don’t like the drama around it, but I just loved that choice.

Zola and Stefani have this strange instant friendship. How did you and Taylour Paige craft that?

Taylour and I fell in love instantly, except it wasn’t toxic like Stefani and Zola. It was this beautiful friendship, which is rare in your adult life. Working on Zola was wonderful. I’ve done a lot of serious work, but as a person, I’m goofy and silly. To be able to play in a more comedic way was great.

The film had its premiere at Sundance before the pandemic. What was that experience like?

I’ve had a lot of films at Sundance and I was looking around going, “You guys, this is different.” People were just so excited to see it and you could feel the energy in the theater. I also had pneumonia at Sundance. Janicza took me to the hospital. It was before COVID was supposedly in America, but it could’ve been COVID. If it was, I’m very thankful that I was OK. We had to push the release of the film back because of the pandemic and at first, I was frustrated because I was like, “Everyone’s sitting at home. This would be such a joy to watch.” But now that it’s coming out in theaters, I’m so happy that everyone waited. With Zola, you want the loud music and big screen.

Up next, you’ll be starring in Daisy Jones & The Six, which charts the rise of a rock band in 1970s Los Angeles. Does having so many musicians in your family make it easier or harder to play one?

I’m still practicing my guitar. I don’t have any history of singing and playing the guitar at all, so I was like, “I don’t know if this is for me, but let’s try!” I’m doing the best I can and the showrunners seem to think it’s working, so I trust them. It’s something very different for me and so fun.

And finally, beyond work, you and your family have had an incredibly difficult year [Riley lost her brother, Benjamin, in July 2020]. What has helped you to get through it?

There’s nothing that can prepare you for loss and tragedy and I wish there was. When I lost my brother, I felt so angry that no one talks about death. It’s hidden away and then it happens to you and you’re thrown into an ocean and you can’t swim. So for me, what’s been helpful is trying to help other people who are experiencing similar things. I trained to be a death doula and got my certificate to be a death midwife. I read a lot, meditate and I’m very spiritual. I think it’s rewired my entire existence and also made me thankful for every moment. I have so much more love in my heart than I could ever have imagined. But, it is painful and a lot of work. It’s been a tragic year for so many people. There’s been so much suffering. It makes you realize how connected we all are.



https://www.vogue.com/article/riley-keough-zola-film-interview/amp?__twitter_impression=true

Riley Keough Reflects on "Pain and Suffering" One Year After Brother Benjamin's Death


Zola actress Riley Keough shared how she has processed her grief and been able to deal with her emotions following her brother’s death.

By ELANA RUBIN
JUN 29, 2021 11:53 PM

Riley Keough, who is Elvis Presley's granddaughter and Lisa Marie Presley's daughter, reflected on how she has dealt with her grief one year after brother Benjamin Keough died at age 27.

"I'm really consciously trying to be present, and not use anything as any kind of escape, and be cognizant of when I'm doing that," the Zola actress told InStyle in a new interview.

"I'm just generally trying to be grateful for everything at the moment, trying to operate in love, and keep my heart open, and give and receive love," the 32-year-old expressed. "And not in a woo-woo way, because I definitely have hard days, and all kinds of pain and suffering and all that."

"But I think when you realize that's part of it, and your expectation isn't to just be feeling joy, that's been a real shift for me in finding those moments and things to smile about," she concluded.

Previously, Keough shared on social media some of the ways that she was processing the tragedy. The Mad Max: Fury Road star honored her brother by getting his name tattooed on her collarbone in July 2020. And she also announced on Instagram that she had become a death doula.

"We are taught that [death is] a morbid subject to talk about," she said in her post. "Or [we're] so afraid of it that we're unable to talk about it... then of course it happens to us, and we are very ill prepared."

"I think it's so important to be educated on conscious dying and death the way we educate ourselves on birth and conscious birthing," Keough explained. "We prepare ourselves so rigorously for the entrance and have no preparation for our exit. So I'm so grateful for this community and to be able to contribute what I can."

https://www.eonline.com/amp/news/1284780/riley-keough-reflects-on-pain-and-suffering-one-year-after-brother-benjamins-death?__twitter_impression=true

Riley Keough Plays the Ultimate Purveyor of Chaos in Zola

The actress speaks to BAZAAR.com about portraying the "demon" that is Stefani, her character in the highly anticipated, Twitter-conceptualized film.

BY BIANCA BETANCOURT JUN 28 2021, 5:33 PM EDT

Riley Keough knew she was meant to be part of Zola the second she finished reading the screenplay. "I have this weird thing where when I read a script, I either know immediately, or I don't, if I can do it," Keough tells BAZAAR.com. "I'll often very quickly be like, 'I can do this!' Or I'll say, 'Somebody else would be better at this.' With [Zola], I just knew I could do it."

Unlike most modern films whose core stories stem from novels, articles, or historical events, the story of Zola was spawned from a 2015 Twitter thread that ran 148 tweets long, written by its titular creator, A'Ziah "Zola" King. The thread narrates King's days-long, chaotic adventure with an elusive, over-the-top call girl named Jessica—in the film, her name is changed to Stefani—which sees them road-trip through South Florida's strip clubs, a casual drug bust, and more. Keough had no reservations about jumping onto a project with a less-than-typical origin story, however; if anything, it excited her even more.

"The first thing that attracted me to it—other than the fact that I'd read the Twitter thread and I just thought it was really amazing that they were turning it into a film—was how well written it was. The dialogue, the script, it was all so brilliant," Keough says. "The characters were so fleshed out, so detailed, and every word felt like I was almost reading a play. But it's also so modern and feels like this theatrical piece and the way it's written in the stage direction. It took place in 2015, but it just felt like a modern tale."

Calling Keough's Stefani an unlikeable character is a gross understatement. For the sake of forgoing politeness, she's best described as the worst type of white girl—the kind who adopts a Blaccent, sports cornrows, and emotionally gaslights every person who comes into contact with her. In other words, she's the polar opposite of Keough, the bare-faced, poised, and endearingly polite actress who "sits" in front of me in a gray knit sweater via Zoom. For Keough, being able to dive into the mindset of Stefani allowed her to stretch her acting prowess in a way she's never fully been able to before.

"She is totally outrageous and horrific and horrible and just nuts. And I feel this thing kind of awakens in you when you read something and you realize, 'Okay, I can perform this piece,'" Keough says. "I had that experience with this. Of course, I had all kinds of [hesitations and questions], but my initial instinct was I can do this person. I know this person. I've met this person. I've seen this person. I can do this—you know, with some help," the actress laughs.

The preparation process, according to Keough, included working closely with the film's director, Janicza Bravo, along with a dialect coach in thoroughly developing Stefani's "accent" and demeanor, as well as taking inspiration from similar eccentric characters Keough has met throughout her life.

"I've had a wild life. I don't think people would expect it from me, but I have done a lot of things in my life, and I've spent a lot of time with all kinds of people, and I've really had an adventure here," she says. "Janicza encouraged me to really just go for it. I think the combination of how well she was written on the page down and looking at the people I've met in my life [informed the character of Stefani]. A big part of the preparation was, What does she talk like? Our thought process was if she is going to be this demon, then we need to really make her demonic. It was very collaborative. Trying to make her as awful as possible, as offensive as possible, and just truly going all the way."

Further diving into the polarizing makeup of her character, Keough says that she found it kind of fun. "I think any time you're playing a character that's very loud and liberated in their own weird way, whatever that is—where they just proudly take up space—it's always fun, because I'm a very internal person and very much on the shyer side in real life," Keough explains. "I'm not the one that's going to be holding the conversation at a dinner party. This big character is just so far from who I really am. I also haven't had a lot of opportunities to play more of a comedic role, and that's been really fun for me. So often, I get cast in very serious things."

The actress also credits the film's crew and cast—including Bravo and her costar Taylour Paige—for helping shape such an invigorating dynamic on set. "It was honestly the most fun I've ever had making a film, and I attribute that to the feminine energy [on set], and also Janicza's genius, and me and Taylour. We all wanted the same movie, and we were all on the same page," Keough says. "Taylor and I became really good friends, as well as with Nick [Braun] and Colman [Domingo]. You have your best time as a performer in that space like that. ... I learned how much I love working with people I actually like and get along with—it's so important to be around good people."

Zola could also be interpreted as a post-Hustlers modern feminist tale of sorts: two women who utilize their free choice and sex appeal to dig themselves out of less-than-ideal life circumstances. Cash is king, as are a 20-inch blonde weave and a good push-up bra. The film's other cautionary message? A fellow woman can be your confidante, but not every woman is meant to be your friend.


You’ve got two very strong women, two very developed characters, who are very nuanced, complicated, real human women that are going through this crazy thing together—and that’s super exciting.

"You really see Zola and Stefani making their way through this wild experience together. But with Stefani, I hope the audience finds themselves wondering, 'Does she want to be there or not?'" Keough says. "It's confusing. Sometimes, she feels very liberated and very much in charge, and then sometimes, she's crying about wanting to go home. It's very unclear, and I think that there's a purpose for that, and that leaves room for people to have their own opinions and judgments on her. At the end of the day, you've got two very strong women, two very developed characters, who are very nuanced, complicated, real human women that are going through this crazy thing together—and that's super exciting."

If anything, Keough recognizes that Zola isn't your typical breezy movie as much as it is an outrageous sensory overload that captures our current culture and our obsessions with sex and social media, and our endless thirst for chaos.

"I think people will have strong reactions to the film, because it is a lot. But I also hope no one watches it and says, 'Well, that was really boring, and I have no thoughts,'" Keough says. "It's either, 'I really loved that,' or, 'I didn't like that.' That's kind of always your goal—that people have an experience. It doesn't need to be a good one. You just want them to start thinking and talking about the things and feelings [and why those emotions were evoked]. That's what art is for—it starts conversations."

https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/film-tv/amp36817035/riley-keough-zola-interview/?__twitter_impression=true

Elvis’ Granddaughter Riley Keough Looks So Much Like Mom Lisa Marie Presley

Riley Keough is getting rave reviews for her role in the new movie, Zola, so she’s been hitting the glam squad for all of the press she’s had to do for the film. On Tuesday, she shared photos of her stunning look for her appearance on Live with Kelly and Ryan and we couldn’t believe how much she looks like her mother, Lisa Marie Presley.

She shares the same shiny caramel-colored hair with soft waves to frame her face. And you can even see glimpses of her grandfather, Elvis Presley, in the shape of her face and nose — those strong genes continue through the Presley line. You have to believe that Elvis would be so proud of his granddaughter with all of the success she’s had in the acting world.

During her TV appearance, Keough shared a hilarious story about her recent surprise party for her 32nd birthday. Husband Ben Smith-Petersen managed to lure her to a Laguna Beach property under the guise of looking at a surfboard from a Craigslist seller. When they arrived, she was swarmed by her friends and family carrying balloons as the car approached. “I’m very dressed up right now, but in my everyday life I’m very relaxed with my clothing choices,” she told Ripa and Seacrest. “I was pretty much in my pajamas.” The good news is that someone packed a bag full of clothing options so she didn’t have to attend her own birthday party in sleepwear.

Keough has always stayed close to her mother, who helped her navigate the perils of Hollywood and gave her the understanding that her family history carries a lot of weight in the entertainment industry. The Zola star told The Guardian that her last name can open, but also close doors, for her. “Rejection just makes me work harder to prove myself.” And with her talent and those incredible Presley looks, her career is going to continue to skyrocket.

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/elvis-granddaughter-riley-keough-looks-221047766.html

RILEY KEOUGH
Stars in film
ZOLA

Interview by Allie King


AK: How are you feeling as we reach the halfway point of 2021?

RK: Time is becoming less and less real as I get older. It moves so quickly sometimes and so slowly other times. Usually very quickly when I’m enjoying myself and very slowly when suffering is involved.  It’s been an intense year for me. I feel a lot of things. I feel so grateful for the love in my life. I feel grateful that our movie is getting so much love. I guess it just feels like another moment. Everything is another moment. I feel grateful to be alive.

AK: You have a larger amount of experience in film than television. Do you prefer movies over TV, or is this just the way things fell into place for you?  

RK: I like movies and TV. I think the thing I really like about TV is the time you get to really develop a character. That would be the only difference to me, you get more time to play characters which is great when you have a good one.

AK: Which format comes easier to you? What challenges do you face with each?

RK: I think that would probably depend on what the tv show or movie is. I mean, I would say in my experience in TV you’re shooting more and for longer. So I guess if you have a crazy schedule that could be challenging but that happens in film too. For example, with “The Girlfriend Experience” the biggest challenge was the schedule and the hours. We would start the week going to work at 5 am and the be in night shoots every Thursday and Friday so I wasn’t sleeping very much and we went over time very often so that was challenging. But that was very particular to that shows schedule. Yeah, I don’t think I’ve personally found filming TV vs movies to be hugely different.

AK: I’m sure tackling your role as Stefani in the recent film “Zola” was a very unique experience. Can you talk about the headspace you were in to be able to throw yourself into this colorful but problematic character?

RK: I must have been in a strange headspace. I mean, really, I just wanted to do a good job and create the character Janice and Jeremy had written. I think you prepare as much as you can, I practiced the accent a lot. But then once you’re there it’s just kind of a magical thing that happens and you just transform in to the character I suppose.

AK: Seeing that your character is constantly appropriating black culture, were there certain conversations on set to ensure that people felt comfortable with the material being filmed?

RK: I think the people who were involved with the film had all read the script, and in the script it’s very clear that there is appropriation from Stefani, and that she is offensive. So everyone who was working on the film knew the material and also what purpose it was serving in the story before our first day shooting.

AK: Can you speak to the environment on the set of Zola? What was your favorite thing about working on this project? What was your favorite part of working with Taylour Paige?

RK: My favorite thing was how wonderful all of the people are and how much I just love everyone involved in this movie. Everyone is so open, and funny, and talented. It just felt really special.

AK: What does this type of project teach you as an actress? What have you taken away from it?

RK: I’ve taken away how important it is to me to work with good people and people I love and feel comfortable collaborating with. It’s so important to me to create art with kind people it’s such a vulnerable experience.

AK: How are you looking to continue including music in your career? What are your goals for it?

RK: “Daisy Jones” is really the only project I’ve done music in, which I’m rehearsing for now and we start shooting in September. My goals are to just make a great show. I don’t have any other music goals than that and the moment.

AK:  You have worked as a producer twice in the past with “Welcome to the Stranger” and “Dixieland,” and are working on a new project “Manodrome” now. What is your favorite part of producing?

RK: I love development, that would be my favorite part of the producing process. That’s what we largely focus on at Felix Culpa. Then of course getting to support film makers in creating their dream.

AK: How did you start to get involved in this part of the industry?

RK: I think it was always something I was interested in, being able to create a company that has the ability to support artists. Once I met my partner, Gina we both shared that vision and that would be what really solidified it.  

AK: You are playing the role of Daisy Jones in “Daisy Jones & The Six.” How would you describe your character?

RK: She’s a wonderful, complicated , strong, funny talented singer and songwriter in the 70s. She’s very liberated and very much ahead of her time.


AK: Without spoilers … Can we expect the series to be extremely similar to the novel, or does it have its own spin?

RK: It’s a limited series which is great because it’s a really long story. I don’t think it would all fit into a movie. But I’ll say it definitely stays very true to the book, maybe a few minor differences.  

AK: What else can we look forward to from you in the near future?

RK: Well I’ve been shooting “Daisy” for a very long time so that’s what I’m focused on at the moment.

Quick Qs

AK: Favorite song of 2021?
RK: Oh gosh.  I listen to old music. I don’t even know what came out … Oh, maybe Orville Pecks cover of “Born this Way.” Not because I sang back up on it. I’m really just obsessed with it. My little sisters listen to “Drivers License” by Olivia Rodrigo a lot. It’s not my kind of music traditionally, but that song makes me cry.

AK: Dream co-star?
RK: Daniel Day Lewis

AK: Comfort meal?
RK: A vegan burger probably

AK: Favorite non-profit to support?
RK: If you follow @illuminative and @seedingsovereignty on Instagram,  they always post great ways to support the indigenous community on the ground. I love them.

http://www.contentmode.com/riley-keough/

Riley Keough pays tribute to brother on anniversary of his death

By Celebretainment Jul 13, 2021 Updated Jul 13, 2021


Riley Keough misses her brother "endlessly".

The 'Zola' star paid tribute to her sibling Benjamin on Monday (12.07.21), the first anniversary of his suicide, by sharing a series of childhood photographs on her Instagram account, as well as images of them with friends and a screenshot of a birthday message her late relative had previously written for her on his own account.

She captioned the post: "Today has been a year without you baby brother. I miss you endlessly every day."

The 32-year-old actress also shared a collage of childhood photos on her Instagram Story, but didn't include a caption, and reposted other tributes made in honour of her brother.

The 'Runaways' star admitted earlier this month she wished she'd hugged her brother "properly" the last time she saw him.

Sharing a throwback photo of her and her brother on her Instagram Story, she wrote: "A year ago this morning was the last time I got to see you.

"I didn't hug you properly because I thought you had COVID. I wish I'd hugged you properly. I miss you every day."

Riley recently admitted she still has "hard days" as she grieves for her brother but she's doing her best to live in the moment and be appreciative of the good things in her life.

She said: "I'm really consciously trying to be present, and not use anything as any kind of escape, and be cognisant of when I'm doing that.

"I'm just generally trying to be grateful for everything at the moment, trying to operate in love, and keep my heart open, and give and receive love.

"And not in a woo-woo way, because I definitely have hard days, and all kinds of pain and suffering and all that.

"But I think when you realise that's part of it, and your expectation isn't to just be feeling joy, that's been a real shift for me in finding those moments and things to smile about."


https://www.bluemountaineagle.com/life/entertainment/riley-keough-pays-tribute-to-brother-on-anniversary-of-his-death/article_42b1c103-5466-5705-97a2-95c4f4cc5384.html

Riley Keough: ‘I had a bad reaction to authority’
Sanjiv Bhattacharya

She grew up between Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch, Graceland and her father’s trailer park. But actor Riley Keough is amazingly grounded, finds Sanjiv Bhattacharya

wine,” she shrugs. “But I don’t like drinking, really. I have so much to do and it’s hard to function with a hangover.” She thinks for a moment. “Actually, I don’t like dinners either. Such a waste of time. I like eating, but I don’t like that it’s this whole experience, like picking a restaurant and going there and like sitting at a table…”

She speaks in a quiet, halting voice, grinning as though amused by how her idiosyncratic opinions sound when she says them out loud, and by the bizarre fact that most people actually enjoy food. Which is ironic, considering she’s Elvis Presley’s granddaughter, but we’ll get to that.

She sits calmly on a sofa in a Hollywood photo studio, with her flame red hair and denim shorts, and an expression that says, “Isn’t life curious?”

The prosaic explanation is that Keough hasn’t got time for dinners, not with six movies coming out in 2017. “I’m a workaholic,” she explains. “Very highly strung.” She’s so busy, she’s concerned that her anonymity may be in jeopardy. Her break came in The Runaways in 2010 with Dakota Fanning, then she landed a part in Mad Max: Fury Road alongside Zoë Kravitz and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley. But it was her performance in The Girlfriend Experience, the Steven Soderbergh-produced series about an escort/law intern, that had critics applauding like seals. She’s a real and complicated anti-heroine, and the Golden Globe nomination was richly deserved.

Logan Lucky is her third project with Soderbergh (Magic Mike was the first) and, as always, she jumped in without seeing the script: “Anyone would, it’s not a twist-my-arm-scenario.” It’s a rollicking heist movie – as is expected of Mr Ocean’s Eleven, Twelve and Thirteen – in which Keough plays Channing Tatum’s sister and accomplice in a grand Nascar rip-off. For Keough, however, the character came easy. Though she’s a Cali Valley girl and proud, she has family all over the South, in Memphis in particular. On Graceland Avenue. I’m not meant to dwell on her family today – her publicist is right outside the (open) door, ready to pounce if I focus too much on her mother Lisa Marie and her ex-husbands Michael Jackson and Nicolas Cage – but it’s fair to say that a familiarity with the South is the very least interesting thing about her upbringing.


She grew up between the Graceland Estate and the Neverland Ranch. She’d be hanging out with Michael Jackson and his llamas one minute, and travelling to school with an armed security detail the next. Not to mention Lisa Marie’s Scientology (she’s no longer a member), or the Nicolas Cage marriage that lasted a full 108 days. And yet, by some miracle, she seems perfectly sane. I suggest gently that she’s not quite how I expected her to be, and she grins. “I think I’ve had a more complex life than people are aware of.”



For the record, she doesn’t mind being referred to as Elvis’s granddaughter. “Why should I? It’s a fact. And I’m not ashamed of that in any way.” But that said, she never knew him. Elvis had been dead 12 years by the time she was born. She just knew that he was “very, very famous. I knew the situation. I just didn’t really think about it that much.”

She grew up the eldest of four between California Valley and Hawaii, travelling back and forth. Her father, Danny, was a bass player in Lisa Marie’s band, but they divorced when Keough was six. Twenty days later, Lisa Marie married Michael Jackson, who had recently been accused of child abuse. That lasted two years, during which time Keough was the perfect age to enjoy Neverland. And after that, her life was split between Danny and Lisa Marie.


“I grew up very privileged with my mother,” she says. “But my dad didn’t live like that. And I think experiencing both sides has been helpful. My father had mattresses on the floor of his apartments. He lived in cabins and trailer parks. He just didn’t have much money.” Did she ever think, “Ugh, do I have to go back to Dad’s again?”

“Actually, my memories of growing up with him were so colourful and eccentric and fun. It was a good vibe, you know? When I was like eight I told him, ‘I want to grow up and be poor like you!’ He was eating a bowl of cereal. I didn’t realise how wildly offensive that was!”


For a while she went to a regular school in the Valley, but the constant security detail made life difficult. So home schooling made more sense, particularly with all her travelling. Besides, she never liked school. “I had like a bad reaction to authority, like mean teachers, or just a rude movie ticket person – anyone abusing their power. It really irritated me. So I was like super-shy but still kind of strong in myself. I was weird.”


An artistic career was the natural choice. Her family would have been alarmed if she had chosen to become a lawyer. But they were musicians, not actors, and music wasn’t her thing. “I played piano but I’m not particularly gifted. Movies felt endless to me, whereas music I could see myself getting bored of.”

She took to writing and directing films at home, casting her friends and bossing them about. “I was pretty hardcore. I made my friends cry because I wanted the tears to be authentic. But it was mostly horror. Once I discovered that ketchup could be blood, things went downhill from there.”

Her ambitions took a turn in her tweens, though. “I know people say like, ‘Oh I saw Alfred Hitchcock, or Citizen Kane but, for me, it was The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys with Emile Hirsch. And Moulin Rouge. I was 12 and I was like, ‘Wow, I want to be Nicole Kidman, she made me feel so sad!’ I remember thinking how fulfilling it would be to do that, which is a big concept for a kid.”

Her attentions now turned to acting, she began talking to herself, pretending to be distraught, delighted, terrified. She made herself cry in front of the mirror. “That’s like the first sign that your child is going to be an actor. Is she crying in front of the mirror? The second one is: is she emotionally unstable?” It wasn’t attention she wanted. During a performance of Winnie the Pooh, she came on stage as Roo, took one look at the crowd and ran off in tears. “I thought you had to be super-confident to be an actor. But you don’t. You just have to be super fucked up!”


If she has a regret from that time, it’s dropping out of high school. All the moving around meant she came to see herself as unacademic. That coupled with her inner anti-authoritarian and she just bailed, becoming the only one of her siblings not to finish. Her parents didn’t stop her. “They couldn’t say, ‘You need your diploma,’ because I booked my first audition really quickly. But with hindsight it was stupid. High school is important.”


She’s happy to admit that being a Presley helped her get ahead. Had she been a musician, she might have faced pressure or expectation – certainly her mother warned her, “Whatever you do, you have to work really or you won’t be taken seriously.” But on balance, it pays to be a Presley. “It’s been a huge help,” she says. “I’m very privileged. Like the normal story of moving to LA and it takes you three years to find an agent? I got one in a week.”

It wasn’t all plain sailing, though. After The Runaways she didn’t work for two years, and went through the usual trauma of auditions and rejection. But, she says, “Rejection just makes me work harder to prove myself.” And so came Mad Max, and then The Girlfriend Experience, a gamechanger.


It was an eye-opening experience, playing an escort. She found her character a good deal colder and more clinical than she is – “I’d get nervous for her, going into situations.” But she met several GFEs, as they’re known, during her research. The writers introduced her and she saw how prostitution could be empowering. “They had more of a male mentality; they didn’t fall in love with everyone they had sex with! They weren’t all up in their feelings all the time. They just liked having sex and the hustle of it all. And they got really rich. It got me thinking a lot about sex. Like, why is it so controversial? I just don’t get why it’s such a big deal.”


So you’re not into drinking, dinners or sex? That’s not much of a Tinder profile.

“I sound like a horrible girlfriend! No, of course, I care about sex, I just don’t get the obsession.”

Just for the record, Keough’s Tinder window is closed now, if it was ever open in the first place. She married Ben Smith-Petersen, an Australian stuntman in 2015, at the age of 25: young by modern standards, though Keough is old-fashioned in some ways. One of the things she loves about the South, for instance, is their staunch family values.


“My mom had me at 21, and her mom had her at 21, so I think 25 is old,” she laughs. “Marriage is just something I wanted to experience in my lifetime, to be honest with you. But the older I get, the less urgent it feels to have a kid. Not to be too grim, but the world is in a weird place, so I’m kind of torn on whether to bring a child in, or to adopt. Like morally.”

In the meantime, the life of Riley is a simple one. She lives in LA, walks her dogs and works on a hush-hush movie project with her writing partner that she might direct or not, she won’t say. Every couple of months she jets off to make movies, and then there are interviews like this one to do for all the movies she’s got coming out. Like the LA crime thriller starring Andrew Garfield later this year, the family drama with Catherine Keener, a project with Joel Edgerton...


I don’t like talking about myself though,” she says. “I don’t like attention. Which is weird in this career.” And she recognises the irony. She smiles. Isn’t life curious? Then her publicist whisks her away. Elvis’s granddaughter has left the building.


https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/aug/20/riley-keough-interview-logan-lucky

The Riddle of Riley Keough

The “Zola” actress has a knack for inhabiting working-class characters who feel real, even though her own family history is as outrageous as it gets.

Riley Keough on her career: “I don’t care if I fail. I have this attitude of, ‘Well, then I’ll just do better.’”

Credit...Maggie Shannon for The New York Times
By Kyle Buchanan
July 20, 2021, 1:29 p.m. ET

Most actresses play to you. When they’re thinking or feeling something, you know exactly what that thing is. But Riley Keough is a little more elusive.

Whether she’s weighing matters of money and sex in “The Girlfriend Experience” or staring down a romantic rival in “American Honey,” Keough, 32, certainly looks like a star — it helps that she inherited ice-blue eyes and a chin curved like a question mark from her grandfather Elvis Presley — even though her screen presence remains unusually impassive and mysterious. What are Keough’s characters thinking? You can never quite tell.

This isn’t a bad thing. Instead, it’s the primary source of her allure: That gap between what you don’t know but want to find out is what’s so beguiling. And then, as you scan Keough’s face for flickers of intention and emotion, you realize you’re leaning in.

“She’s one of those actors who so effortlessly lands in the feet of her character that it almost seems like it isn’t acting,” said the director Janicza Bravo, who pursued Keough to play Stefani, an exotic dancer with murky intentions, for her raucous new comedy “Zola.” You’re compelled by Stefani even when you don’t fully trust her, and Bravo knew Keough could play that ambiguity to the hilt.

In late 2018, the “Zola” script was sent to Keough, and a meeting was set at the starry, storied Chateau Marmont, in Hollywood. Bravo got there first and while she waited, a woman came by her table, said hello and began to hover. The Chateau boasted a high level of celebrity density in its prepandemic heyday but every so often, a civilian still got through. And this one wasn’t leaving.

Though Bravo nodded back, she was busy scanning the room for her would-be star. But this normie, this noncelebrity, this interloper kept standing by her table like she expected something.

And then she said, “I’m Riley.”

Bravo apologized profusely to Keough that day, and now she laughs about it. “I had this idea of what I thought she was going to be like — I believed her to be a larger-than-life person — and what landed in front of me was someone with a good deal of ease,” Bravo said. “I’m maybe dancing around it, but I didn’t expect her to be normal.”

Me neither. When I met Keough in mid-June at the home of a friend in Los Angeles, I was struck by her calm, undisturbed energy — something I’ve never sensed in even the most wellness-obsessed stars. With Keough, there is no eagerness to please, no need to impress or to have all eyes on her. You feel that you’re simply talking to and observing a normal person.

So how does she hold on to that lack of self-consciousness in Hollywood? “I have an ability that’s really hard in this industry to be kind of like, ‘Meh,’” Keough told me, shrugging. “I don’t take things too seriously.”

“Zola,” based on a notorious Twitter thread, is about people who use social media as an advertisement, but Keough prefers using it to puncture her own celebrity: Though she has starred in a few films for the hot studio A24, Keough hopped on her Instagram last year to breezily rattle off all the A24 movies she failed to book, including “Uncut Gems,” “Spring Breakers” and “The Spectacular Now.”

Directors of those films messaged Keough to offer apologies, but the rejections hadn’t bothered her much to begin with. “I don’t care if I fail,” she said. “I have this attitude of, ‘Well, then I’ll just do better.’” And besides, there were bigger quandaries to spend that energy on.

“I’ve lived my whole life in a sort of existential crisis,” she told me matter-of-factly, tucking strands of auburn hair behind her ear. “The minute I got to Earth, I was like, ‘What am I doing here? Why is everyone just acting like this is normal?’”


July 19, 2021

Of course, Keough’s childhood was far from ordinary: When she was about 5, her mother Lisa Marie Presley split from her musician father, Danny Keough, and married Michael Jackson. One parent provided access to moneyed fortresses like Graceland and Neverland, while the other lived more modestly, in trailer parks with mattresses on the floor.

Keough had no qualms about visiting her father; once, she even told him, “When I grow up, I want to be poor like you.” She hadn’t known then how offensive her remark was, but that bifurcated childhood with her brother, Benjamin, would come in handy in her 20s, when Keough pursued work as an actress: She had amassed enough authenticity to play regular people as well as enough privilege to live her life without much worry.



And blasé suits her: In movies like “American Honey” and “Logan Lucky,” about hustlers just trying to get by, her characters feel real and lived-in rather than condescended to. Or, as a recent tweet put it, “Riley Keough understands the white working class way better than J.D. Vance.” Was it glib to compare her to the “Hillbilly Elegy” author turned struggling Senate candidate? Perhaps, but the tweet still got more than 1,000 likes: Keough’s brand is strong.

The Florida-set “Zola” at first appeared to be cut from that same cloth: Stefani is a Southerner and a sex worker, two types Keough has played plenty of in the past. Still, the actress wanted to use this opportunity to push things a little further. “I didn’t want it to be ‘American Honey,’ this really naturalistic, understated performance,” Keough said. “When you do something well, people want it again and then you kind of get stuck.”

Bravo wanted her to go big, too. Adorned in blond cornrows and hoop earrings, Stefani shrieks and cajoles in a blaccent so pronounced that even Iggy Azalea might blush. At first, when Keough was trying to find Stefani’s voice, she would text recordings to Bravo: “And Janicza was always like, ‘More, more.’ I was like, ‘OK, if you say so!’”

The movie’s Black heroine, Zola (Taylour Paige), can hardly believe the vibe that Stefani is putting down, and in an era when white appropriation of Black culture has become a hot topic, audiences might find themselves shocked by Stefani, too. “Riley said, ‘Am I going to get canceled for this?’” Bravo recalled. “But what she’s playing only lands if you’re going to the extreme. If you’re at all shying away from what it is, it can look like an apology.”

The result is the polar opposite of Keough’s more tamped-down performances: Stefani is outrageous, over the line and gut-bustingly funny, even if Keough can sense that some viewers don’t know what do with her.

“People are like, ‘Am I allowed to laugh? Am I a bad person?’” she said. “I love that. I’m a little bit of a troll in my heart, and I think I bring that into my work.” And if you have trouble sussing out Stefani’s intentions as she goads Zola into a road trip that quickly turns dangerous, that’s by design.

“You don’t know if the whole thing’s a manipulation, even in her moments of being vulnerable,” Keough said. “That’s why I love playing these characters that would seem like the bad guy. It’s so much more fun to make people have moments with those characters where you’re like, ‘I feel bad for her.’ Or, ‘I’m having fun with her. I’d go with her, too.’”

“Zola” premiered in January 2020 at the Sundance Film Festival, and Keough was excited for it to come out that summer: She’s always been kind of a searcher, and if the movie led to new and more interesting work in comedies, maybe those roles would help her to understand herself better. Then the pandemic scuttled those plans, and as Keough was adjusting to months off from work, her younger brother, Benjamin, killed himself in July 2020.

What followed was “a year of feeling like I was thrown into the ocean and couldn’t swim,” Keough said. “The first four or five months, I couldn’t get out of bed. I was totally debilitated. I couldn’t talk for two weeks.”

Even now, Keough finds the tragedy hard to accept. “It’s very complicated for our minds to put that somewhere because it’s so outrageous,” she said. “If I’m going through a breakup, I know what to do with that and where to file it in my mind, but suicide of your brother? Where do you put that? How does that integrate? It just doesn’t.”

After the suicide of her brother, Benjamin, Keough went through “a year of feeling like I was thrown into the ocean and couldn’t swim.”
After the suicide of her brother, Benjamin, Keough went through “a year of feeling like I was thrown into the ocean and couldn’t swim.”

Keough got through it with the help of her friends and her husband, Ben Smith-Petersen, a stuntman, but first she laid down some ground rules: “I wanted to make sure that I was feeling everything and I wasn’t running from anything,” she said. To that end, Keough recently became a death doula. Instead of helping to facilitate a birth, she guides people through the issues that arise during the final portion of their lives.

“That’s really what’s helped me, being able to put myself in a position of service,” she said. “If I can help other people, maybe I can find some way to help myself.”


And she has lately found things to treasure about her grief, too, though she admits that if someone had told her to expect a silver lining shortly after Benjamin died, she probably would have replied with expletives. “But there’s this sense of the fragility of life and how every moment matters to me now,” Keough said.

It’s her new normal, one she’s still getting used to: Maybe you’re never quite certain where Keough stands because until recently, she hadn’t been all that sure herself. It almost couldn’t be helped with a childhood that whiplashed between two extremes. But now, at 32, she’s finally figured something out.

“I think growing up, I was always searching for answers,” she said. “Now I know that everything’s inside me. All you can do is surrender and be present for the experience.”


https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/20/movies/riley-keough-zola.html

Riley vacations with mom Lisa, Finley and Harper,  July 2021

STRIFE OF RILEY Meet Riley Keough – Michael Jackson’s stepdaughter & Elvis’ granddaughter who’s playing a stripper on the big screen
Grant Rollings
21:35, 3 Aug 2021Updated: 3:16, 4 Aug 2021


HER grandad was Elvis Presley and her stepdads have included Michael Jackson and Nicolas Cage.

Riley Keough is Hollywood royalty — so it’s no surprise that the 32-year-old fell into acting.


And she is now set to make her name in wild new comedy drama Zola, starring as a stripper who sleeps with countless men.

Riley, who is tipped for awards for her portrayal of nightclub performer Stefani, has herself experienced a roller-coaster life that wouldn’t be out of place on the silver screen.

Her mum, Lisa Marie Presley, got through much of an estimated £150million left to her by her dad Elvis after his death at 42 in 1977.

And her musician dad Danny Keough was reduced to sleeping on mattresses in trailer parks after divorcing Lisa Marie when Riley was just five.

Traumatically, last summer her younger brother Benjamin took his own life by shooting himself in the head at a joint birthday party held for his girlfriend and Riley’s husband, Ben Smith-Petersen.

Troubled 27-year-old Ben was found to have traces of cocaine and alcohol in his blood at the time of his death at Lisa Marie’s Californian mansion.

VERY INTENSE
Riley described her brother as her “twin soul” and was so devastated by his violent death that she could not speak for two weeks.

Now the actress, who has starred in Mad Max: Fury Road, The Runaways and Logan Lucky, has trained to be a “death doula” — providing support to the grieving.

Riley is no stranger to being unsettled. During her childhood her mum was married four times — to her dad Danny, the troubled Jackson, Oscar-winning actor Cage and guitarist Michael Lockwood.

After splitting from Lockwood in 2016 Lisa Marie claimed in court documents that “hundreds of inappropriate photos of children” had been found on his computer.

Clearly though, it was the loss of her beloved brother that has shaken Riley the most.

She said: “There’s this sense of the fragility of life and how every moment matters to me now.”

The shadow of Elvis cast a long shadow over Riley, even though she was born long after his death.

Lisa Marie, the legendary singer’s only child, was nine when he suffered a fatal heart attack and she later strove to carve out her own musical legacy, releasing three albums.

Their iconic name made the Presleys prime targets for the Church of Scientology, and Riley’s grandmother Priscilla has been a long-time member.

Lisa Marie and Danny wed at a small ceremony at the church’s Hollywood headquarters in October 1988.

Less than nine months later, Danielle Riley Keough was born.

With one of the greatest cases of understatement, Riley said: “Looking back on it, I’m like, ‘Wow, my upbringing was very intense’.”

Within six years her parents had divorced, and 20 days after the papers were signed, her mum stunned the showbiz world by marrying pop legend Jacko.

At the time he was facing child abuse allegations, but she felt certain he was innocent and believed she could help him.

The Thriller singer was already struggling to cope with the drugs that would ultimately end his life in 2009.

Escapism was at hand for Riley, who lived at Jackson’s theme park-style California home Neverland, complete with its own zoo and rides.

Riley said: “It was like being at Disneyland all day.”

When she was not living there, she would be at the Presleys’ world-famous Graceland mansion in Memphis, Tennessee, with her mum.

In stark contrast, visits to her dad offered her an insight into impoverished America.

She recalled: “My father had mattresses on the floor of his apartments.

“He lived in cabins and trailer parks. He just didn’t have much money.”

It didn’t bother the innocent-eyed Riley — in fact she enjoyed his lifestyle.

Aged eight, she once told her dad over breakfast: “I want to grow up and be poor like you.”



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HER grandad was Elvis Presley and her stepdads have included Michael Jackson and Nicolas Cage.

Riley Keough is Hollywood royalty — so it’s no surprise that the 32-year-old fell into acting.

Riley Keough, the granddaughter of Elvis Presley, stars as a stripper in new comedy drama Zola
Riley Keough, the granddaughter of Elvis Presley, stars as a stripper in new comedy drama ZolaCredit: Getty - Contributor
Riley was once the stepdaughter of Michael Jackson, after her mother Lisa Marie married him in 1994
Riley was once the stepdaughter of Michael Jackson, after her mother Lisa Marie married him in 1994
And she is now set to make her name in wild new comedy drama Zola, starring as a stripper who sleeps with countless men.


Riley, who is tipped for awards for her portrayal of nightclub performer Stefani, has herself experienced a roller-coaster life that wouldn’t be out of place on the silver screen.

Her mum, Lisa Marie Presley, got through much of an estimated £150million left to her by her dad Elvis after his death at 42 in 1977.


And her musician dad Danny Keough was reduced to sleeping on mattresses in trailer parks after divorcing Lisa Marie when Riley was just five.

Traumatically, last summer her younger brother Benjamin took his own life by shooting himself in the head at a joint birthday party held for his girlfriend and Riley’s husband, Ben Smith-Petersen.

Troubled 27-year-old Ben was found to have traces of cocaine and alcohol in his blood at the time of his death at Lisa Marie’s Californian mansion.

VERY INTENSE
Riley described her brother as her “twin soul” and was so devastated by his violent death that she could not speak for two weeks.


Now the actress, who has starred in Mad Max: Fury Road, The Runaways and Logan Lucky, has trained to be a “death doula” — providing support to the grieving.

Riley is no stranger to being unsettled. During her childhood her mum was married four times — to her dad Danny, the troubled Jackson, Oscar-winning actor Cage and guitarist Michael Lockwood.

After splitting from Lockwood in 2016 Lisa Marie claimed in court documents that “hundreds of inappropriate photos of children” had been found on his computer.

Clearly though, it was the loss of her beloved brother that has shaken Riley the most.


She said: “There’s this sense of the fragility of life and how every moment matters to me now.”

The shadow of Elvis cast a long shadow over Riley, even though she was born long after his death.

Lisa Marie, the legendary singer’s only child, was nine when he suffered a fatal heart attack and she later strove to carve out her own musical legacy, releasing three albums.

Their iconic name made the Presleys prime targets for the Church of Scientology, and Riley’s grandmother Priscilla has been a long-time member.

Lisa Marie and Danny wed at a small ceremony at the church’s Hollywood headquarters in October 1988.

Less than nine months later, Danielle Riley Keough was born.

Riley is tipped for awards for her portrayal of nightclub performer Stefani in Zola
Riley is tipped for awards for her portrayal of nightclub performer Stefani in ZolaCredit: Planet Photos
Riley was devastated last summer when her younger brother Benjamin took his own life
Riley was devastated last summer when her younger brother Benjamin took his own lifeCredit: Instagram
With one of the greatest cases of understatement, Riley said: “Looking back on it, I’m like, ‘Wow, my upbringing was very intense’.”

Within six years her parents had divorced, and 20 days after the papers were signed, her mum stunned the showbiz world by marrying pop legend Jacko.

At the time he was facing child abuse allegations, but she felt certain he was innocent and believed she could help him.

The Thriller singer was already struggling to cope with the drugs that would ultimately end his life in 2009.

Escapism was at hand for Riley, who lived at Jackson’s theme park-style California home Neverland, complete with its own zoo and rides.

Riley said: “It was like being at Disneyland all day.”

When she was not living there, she would be at the Presleys’ world-famous Graceland mansion in Memphis, Tennessee, with her mum.

In stark contrast, visits to her dad offered her an insight into impoverished America.

She recalled: “My father had mattresses on the floor of his apartments.

“He lived in cabins and trailer parks. He just didn’t have much money.”

It didn’t bother the innocent-eyed Riley — in fact she enjoyed his lifestyle.

Aged eight, she once told her dad over breakfast: “I want to grow up and be poor like you.”

Riley's mother Lisa Marie Presley was left an estimated £150million by her dad Elvis after his death at 42 in 1977
Riley's mother Lisa Marie Presley was left an estimated £150million by her dad Elvis after his death at 42 in 1977Credit: Startraks
Riley's musician dad Danny Keough was reduced to sleeping on mattresses in trailer parks after divorcing Lisa Marie when Riley was just five
Riley's musician dad Danny Keough was reduced to sleeping on mattresses in trailer parks after divorcing Lisa Marie when Riley was just fiveCredit: Getty
That comment, she realised only later, was “wildly offensive” — but perhaps she had wanted to get away from her cosy other life, in which a security guard would accompany her to school.

Jackson was her stepdad for two years, with his marriage to Lisa Marie ending in January 1996.

Next, her mum got engaged to singer John Oszajca, before breaking it off to wed Presley aficionado Cage in 2002. But he lasted just 107 days as Riley’s second stepdad.

At the age of 15 Riley started to make a name of her own as a model, working for Dolce & Gabbana and Christian Dior. The obvious path was to head into the music industry.

Her brother Benjamin had signed a record deal in the hope of following in his grandfather’s footsteps, but never released any material.

But Riley, who plays the piano, preferred the idea of making movies.

She dropped out of school and starred in her first movie The Runaways in 2010 at the age of 20, alongside Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning.

This was followed by roles in The Good Doctor in 2011, alongside Orlando Bloom, and 2012’s Magic Mike, with Channing Tatum.

While making Magic Mike, she fell for British actor Alex Pettyfer, and they were set to get married the same year, before he broke it off.

Not long afterwards she started shooting Mad Max: Fury Road in Namibia, where she met Australian stuntman Ben Smith-Petersen.

They wed in February 2015 and their honeymoon lasted two weeks, until she had to start work on the US TV drama series The Girlfriend Experience.

TIPPING POINT
Riley’s role as a prostitute required sex scenes, but she said at the time: “Ben understands film. He works in the industry.

“He gets how it works and he’s very, very cool. I’m lucky with that.”

By 2016 Riley had found stability — while her mum’s fourth marriage was about to end in deep acrimony.

After ten years with Michael Lockwood, Lisa Marie accused him of mismanaging her finances and keeping questionable images of children.

His lawyer denied both claims.

The bitter legal battle for custody of their 12-year-old twin girls Harper and Finley is yet to be resolved.

During the court proceedings Lisa Marie, who inherited Elvis’s estate at the age of 25, filed documents which claimed she was £12million in debt.

But those problems were dwarfed by Benjamin’s mental health crisis, which was reaching tipping point.

He had already tried to kill himself six months prior to his death in July 2020 and had been in rehab for his drink and drugs problems. Finally losing Benjamin knocked Riley for six.

She said: “The first four or five months after his suicide, I couldn’t get out of bed. I was totally debilitated. I couldn’t talk for two weeks.”

But with the help of her husband and friends, Riley started to get herself back on an even keel.

She found that one way of dealing with the trauma was to take the Art Of Death midwifery course, run by a woman called Olivia Bareham in Los Angeles.

Writing about it on Instagram, Riley said: “We are taught that it’s a morbid subject to talk about.

“Or we’re so afraid of it that we’re unable to talk about it. Then of course it happens to us, and we are very ill- prepared.”

On the first anniversary of her brother’s death, she opened up about their last moment together.

She wrote: “I didn’t hug you properly because I thought you had Covid. I wish I’d hugged you properly. I miss you every day.”

Now it appears that Riley, who describes herself as a “workaholic”, is throwing herself completely into her work.

Following on from Zola, which was made prior to Benjamin’s death, she has made The Guilty, with Jake Gyllenhaal, and will take a lead role in a 13-part TV series called Daisy Jones & The Six.

When casting directors see her stirring performance in Zola, which opens in cinemas on Friday, even bigger parts are sure to follow.

But Riley insists she will cope if they do not.

She said: “I don’t care if I fail. I have this attitude of, ‘Well, then I’ll just do better’.”


When casting directors see her stirring performance in Zola, which opens in cinemas on Friday, even bigger parts are sure to follow.

But Riley insists she will cope if they do not.

She said: “I don’t care if I fail. I have this attitude of, ‘Well, then I’ll just do better’.”