Where Was Priscilla Before Elvis Filmed On Location?

If you’re asking about the big-screen 'Elvis' that features Priscilla as a central character, most of the shooting actually took place down under in Australia. The production built huge period-accurate sets at Village Roadshow Studios on the Gold Coast and used locations around Brisbane and Sydney to stand in for mid-century American streets. A lot of what looks like Memphis and Graceland in the film is a meticulously recreated set rather than the actual house. There were also some shoots done in the United States, with Los Angeles locations and second-unit work supplementing the Australian footage for authentic-looking concert and Hollywood scenes. I thought the choice to recreate everything in controlled studios paid off — the production design nailed the era, so even close-up scenes that clearly had to match archival footage feel seamless, and that’s what sold it to me.

If you're curious where 'Priscilla' (2023) was filmed, here's the scoop I enjoyed piecing together. The production leaned heavily on European studio work — a big chunk of shooting happened in Rome, with crews using soundstages and historic studio space to recreate mid-century American interiors. That's where they built many of the intimate house and hotel interiors you see on screen instead of trying to shoot everything on-site in the U.S. Back in the States the filmmakers did location work around the Los Angeles area to get those sun-drenched exteriors and suburban streets that read as 1960s California. Rather than filming at the real Graceland, most Graceland-adjacent moments were produced on sets or carefully chosen LA locales that could be dressed for the era. The mix of Rome studio work plus Los Angeles exteriors gave director Sofia Coppola that controlled, soft-toned look she loves — lots of attention to lighting, costume, and texture rather than relying on landmark shooting. I personally love that kind of hybrid approach: it lets the production lean into cinematic craft while still placing scenes in recognizable American landscapes. Visiting Cinecittà years ago, I could totally picture how a team would build a convincing Graceland living room there — the kind of craftsmanship that makes a period piece feel lived-in and oddly intimate.

Watching both films one after the other felt like flipping between two very different memories of the same life. In 'Priscilla' the camera lingers on the tiny, suffocating spaces where a young woman learns to perform a role for the man she lives with — the house, the silences, the grooming rituals. That film leans into intimacy and interiority, and for me it nailed the emotional truth of someone being shaped by a larger-than-life partner. Jacob Elordi’s take on Elvis is less about showmanship and more about the private, possessive charisma, which fits Sofia Coppola’s point of view. By contrast, 'Elvis' throws you into the vortex: the concerts, the manager’s manipulations, the cultural hurricane. Austin Butler captures the stage electricity and the contradictions — tender and monstrous at once — but Luhrmann’s style magnifies things, compressing timelines and heightening drama. Both films take liberties: events are reordered, conversations imagined, and some darker details smoothed or stylized. Still, between the two you get complementary portraits — one centered on Priscilla’s interior life, the other on Elvis’s myth — and together they feel more accurate than either alone. I walked away feeling sympathetic to Priscilla and awed by how complicated Elvis really was.

I love how films disguise one place as another, and with 'Priscilla' that sleight of hand was super obvious and delightful. The bulk of the movie was shot in New Orleans, Louisiana — the city’s mix of period neighborhoods and roomy studio space made it a perfect stand-in for 1960s Memphis and the glitzy Las Vegas stages. The production leaned heavily on soundstages and local production facilities to rebuild interiors like Graceland’s living areas and the neon-packed showroom sets, while select exteriors used New Orleans streets and mansions that could pass for the South of the era. What I appreciated as a viewer was how the production design and locations worked together. Instead of trying to shoot everything in Memphis, the crew used New Orleans’ architectural variety and tax incentives to their advantage, building meticulously detailed sets so the camera never felt like it was “standing in” for somewhere else. There were also some additional shoots and second-unit work in California to capture certain exteriors and studio-specific needs, but New Orleans was clearly the production’s home base. Seeing the recreated Graceland interiors and Las Vegas numbers on screen felt authentic, which is a testament to scouting and set construction — it made the film’s atmosphere much more immersive, and I enjoyed spotting little period details throughout.

Watching Sofia Coppola's 'Priscilla' felt like stepping into a slow, intimate portrait rather than a loud, conventional biopic. In that film, Elvis is played by Jacob Elordi, and I found his take quietly fascinating. He doesn't go for the full-throated, larger-than-life swagger that you might expect; instead, he leans into a more restrained, almost shy version of Elvis that fits the movie's focus on Priscilla's perspective. Cailee Spaeny anchors the film as Priscilla, and their dynamic is central — Jacob's performance is built around small gestures, a look, and a presence that suggests both magnetism and distance. On a craft level, Elordi's physicality is notable: the way he fills a room, his posture, and that iconic sneer are all hinted at rather than hammered in. The film purposely avoids caricature, so you won't hear a full-on Elvis concert performance here; it's more about the private moments and how Priscilla experienced him. Critics and audiences were divided about this subdued approach, but I appreciated it because it reframes a familiar legend through a new, softer lens. If you're curious about contrasts, compare this to Austin Butler's more showy, all-in Elvis in 'Elvis' — different choices, different effects. Overall, Jacob Elordi surprised me with how much he conveyed without shouting, and it left me thinking about fame and intimacy long after the credits rolled.

Todavía me emociona hablar de esto porque la película 'Priscilla' tiene ese gusto a recuerdo y la mezcla de lugares reales con recreaciones es fascinante. Gran parte de lo que vemos en pantalla está pensado para evocar tres sitios clave de la vida de Priscilla: Wiesbaden (Alemania), Graceland en Memphis y los escenarios de Las Vegas. En la práctica, muchas escenas que representan Alemania se rodaron en localizaciones europeas que podían parecerse a barrios militares de los años 60, y varias casas y hoteles se recrearon en decorados o en calles europeas adaptadas para la época. Por otro lado, las escenas que muestran la vida en Estados Unidos —sobre todo los interiores de Graceland y los conciertos— combinan rodaje en estudios con algunas visitas a locaciones reales o muy parecidas, porque es habitual que el equipo construya réplicas para controlar iluminación y vestuario. Las actuaciones en clubes y salas de concierto muchas veces se hicieron en sets y en teatros de ciudades como Los Ángeles o en estudios europeos que sirvieron de sustituto. En resumen: la película mezcla rodaje en locaciones europeas y estadounidenses y muchas recreaciones de estudio para capturar con precisión la estética de la época; para mí eso funciona genial, le da un aire nostálgico que me gustó mucho.

Watching Baz Luhrmann's wildly stylized 'Elvis' left me buzzing, and the central casting is a big reason why. Austin Butler plays Elvis Presley in 'Elvis' (the 2022 film), delivering an all-in, chameleonic performance that leans hard into the charisma, vulnerability, and stage magnetism that made Elvis such a complicated icon. Opposite him, Olivia DeJonge portrays Priscilla Presley with a quiet, observant presence — she never tries to upstage Elvis, instead giving the relationship a tender, sometimes haunting center. A few months later I dove into Sofia Coppola's 'Priscilla', which flips the vantage point. There, Cailee Spaeny is the Priscilla at the heart of the story, and Jacob Elordi plays Elvis in a way that feels intentionally different from Butler's electric showman — more intimate and seen through Priscilla's eyes. Both films treat the same real-life figures but through very different cinematic languages, and watching both back-to-back made me appreciate how casting choices steer the whole narrative; each actor brought a distinct energy that shaped how I felt about the characters afterward.

Every rewatch teaches me something new about how filmmakers choose to show Priscilla. If you want a portrayal that zeroes in on her interior life and the weird, claustrophobic world she grew up in beside Elvis, 'Priscilla' (2023) is the one that feels most faithful in spirit. Sofia Coppola’s lens is gentle and observant; Cailee Spaeny’s performance leans into the awkwardness, curiosity, and the slow loss of agency that Priscilla describes in her memoir. The film focuses on the dynamics of grooming, adolescence, and how a teenage girl was folded into a superstar’s orbit, which matches what Priscilla herself wrote and later discussed in interviews. That said, accuracy isn’t just about plot points — it’s about atmosphere and emotional truth. Baz Luhrmann’s 'Elvis' (2022) gives Olivia DeJonge a very different task: she’s playing Priscilla as part of a larger myth, often seen through Elvis’s chaos. It’s stylized and impressionistic, so details shift to serve the movie’s roar. For archival grounding, I always bounce between films and documentaries like 'This Is Elvis' and the HBO piece 'Elvis Presley: The Searcher' — they supply real footage and interviews that anchor the dramatizations. Also, Priscilla’s own memoir 'Elvis and Me' remains an essential primary source; many onscreen choices are measured against it. So, if you want closeness to Priscilla’s perspective, start with 'Priscilla' then watch 'Elvis' for the spectacle and finish with documentaries and her memoir to fill gaps. Personally, after seeing both films and the documentaries, I feel like I understand the shape of her experience more clearly — messy, complicated, and intensely human.

Growing up felt, for Priscilla, like living between two worlds — and I find that part endlessly fascinating. She was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1945, but her childhood was largely shaped overseas because her family was part of the American military community stationed in Germany. Most accounts place her upbringing in Wiesbaden, a city outside Frankfurt that hosted many U.S. servicemen and families after World War II. That background meant she spent her formative years in a close-knit expat bubble: American schools, familiar foods, and the odd mix of German streets and language just outside the base. Living in Wiesbaden gave her a different kind of childhood than a typical Midwestern American kid. The town scenes, the military social life, and the steady hum of American culture transplanted into Europe all left their mark. She met Elvis while he was stationed in Germany, and that meeting is often framed against the backdrop of that very community. For me, imagining her as a young girl navigating those two cultures adds real color to her later life — it explains some of her poise and reserve, and I still think about how rooted she remained in those early European memories.

Walking into 'Priscilla' felt like opening a family photo album with the flash turned low — intimate, a bit blurry, and full of edges that catch the light differently depending on how you tilt your head. The film dramatizes Priscilla Beaulieu’s early life and the beginnings of her relationship with Elvis Presley, focusing on the most formative and controversial moments: the very first meetings in Germany when she was a young teenager living with her Air Force family and Elvis was a soldier and budding star; the slow, sometimes troubling courtship carried out through letters and late-night visits; and her subsequent move to Memphis and life at Graceland as a teenager under the weight of fame. Those sequences show the gulf between the fantasy of celebrity and the claustrophobic reality of being a young woman in the orbit of an icon. Coppola leans into mood and sensory detail rather than timeline-driven biography, so scenes emphasize Priscilla’s interior life — boredom, curiosity, confusion — as much as the surface glamour of the Presley household. Beyond the headline moments, the movie touches on their wedding and the strains that followed: Elvis’s dominance in private life, the isolation Priscilla experienced, the way power and control threaded through domestic routines, and the cracks in the idealized image of a rock ’n’ roll couple. The film draws on Priscilla’s own accounts — particularly her memoir 'Elvis and Me' — and other interviews, so it intentionally centers her perspective, showing how memory and love mingle with pain. It doesn’t aim to be an exhaustive historical record; rather, it chooses scenes that convey a psychological truth. That means some events are condensed or stylized: nights at Graceland, moments of jealousy and infidelity, and hints of Elvis’s dependency and mood swings are presented with an impressionistic touch. Critics and viewers have debated how the film handles the more troubling aspects of their relationship — especially the fact their relationship began while she was still a teenager — but I found the approach haunting and empathetic rather than sensational. It left me thinking a lot about the costs of fame and how personal narratives shape the public story — a film that stays with you afterward, quietly unsettled but tender in its gaze.