Actor Jacob Elordi is winning raves for his performance as Elvis Presley in Sofia Coppola's Priscilla. He recently revealed that his performance came down to one unexpected bit of method acting: eating lots of bacon.
Elordi, whom you may know from HBO's Euphoria, shared in a recent Entertainment Weekly roundtable with Coppola and costar Cailee Spaeny that to get into character as the King of Rock and Roll, he ate a lot of Presley's favorite foods.
This included tons upon tons of bacon, because Presley is said to have loved what Coppola called "really burned bacon" above all else.
Sofia Coppola, Cailee Spaeny, and Jacob Elordi on 'Priscilla' | Around the Tableyoutu.be
Coppola's film centers on Elvis and Priscilla Presley's relationship and marriage, which began in 1959 and ended in the early 1970s.
During her preparation for the film, Coppola had several sit-downs with Priscilla Presley, and in the EW conversation, she shared that Presley told her one of Elvis' quirks was that he loved "really burned bacon."
Elordi incorporated this into his preparation—and gained quite a lot of weight onto his six-foot-five frame. As he put it:
"I averaged like a pound of bacon a day. It's not that noticeable because I'm quite long. But I was the biggest I've ever been."
Of course, Elordi's artistic bacon habit has generated a lot of buzz for the film online, in part because of the contrasts to fellow actor Austin Butler's preparation to play Elvis in last year's Elvis.
Butler won a Golden Globe and was nominated for an Oscar for his portrayal, but it did not come easy. He reportedly sank himself so totally into the role that he had to be hospitalized afterward because he forgot who he was. And then there was that whole thing with him speaking in Presley's accent at the Globes.
Combine all that with Elordi's recent admission that all he knew of Elvis prior to Coppola's film was references to him in Lilo & Stitch, and the internet has had a bit of a field day cracking wise about Elordi, Butler, bacon and the Disney film.
The creative process truly is fascinating, isn't it? One man breaks his brain, another just eats a ton of breakfast meat. Who knew?
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