Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla, in theaters now, follows a young Priscilla over the course of her relationship with Elvis Presley. The film spans from the late 1950s through the early 1970’s. Our Awards Editor, Jillian Chilingerian, was delighted to speak to Cliona Furey, the hair designer, from Priscilla about her incredible work on the film.

Jillian Chilingerian: I’m so happy to talk to you today because I love the film and something that I really cannot stop thinking about is a lot is the hair. Something whenever I watch films now I always hyper focus on the hair and the story it tells. For me, I learned about Priscilla Presley through her hair and like the iconography of her hairstyles being used in so much pop culture. For instance, I remember an episode of Full House like where they recreated their wedding for a scene. So I’m kind of curious for you, what did that feel like to step in knowing that like you are recapturing such an iconic moment of pop culture and American history through her hair?
Cliona Furey: Well, I’ve done biopics before but for some reason this one was, I’m going to admit a little bit of pressure that goes along with it, because Priscilla is still here. And she is a huge icon for so many things. One of them being her hair, and her signature looks, the whole world has copied her. So, there was a little bit of pressure with it. But to be honest, I didn’t have time to think about it. I just once I knew I was going to meet Sofia for this project, I just dove into the research, read the script and figured out where I wanted to respect historical accuracy and respect her signature look. But at the same time, I didn’t want to imitate her. I wanted to just try to find the essence of her tastes and create looks that worked for Cailee. And a lot of the moments in the story are private moments that have not been photographed, so I was able to take some creative license with that yet pay respect to the historical iconic beats in the story that we were pretty much matching. So there was a little bit of pressure that went along with it, for sure.

Jillian Chilingerian: Yeah, no, I love that. Because I think so often when we see people portraying real characters, so much fit for being that character versus how do you melt like the person that’s playing them into them more so like, what looks natural, and I feel like for Cailee, even when I see pictures of her on the red carpet and then watching the movie, I was thinking, ‘that’s not the same person.’ I think the hair really tells that story of when we meet her at 14 years old and knowing that she’s actually not that young, it’s like so crazy because she looks so young and then going into Priscilla at age 26 and being very natural, like losing the big hair. So, I want to talk about framing each of those different eras for her. She’s embarking on this relationship with Elvis and also kind of, in a way losing her innocence and her identity for this man. I feel like the hair really speaks on that. So I’m interested to hear about designing each of those eras she goes through.
Cliona Furey: Yeah, well, I kind of cataloged all Priscilla’s looks from those eras. The film portrays a 13 year span, so we take Priscilla from 14 years of age to 27. So I researched all those looks that Priscilla actually had, which was more than we were able to represent, given she’s such a hair icon. And yeah, I wanted to show the arc of her hair to go along with the arc of her journey, which Sofia did lean on us and ask us to. She said in the meetings with me, I want to show time passage with the hair and the makeup and the costumes. So I collaborated greatly with Jo-Ann MacNeil, the makeup designer and Stacey Battat, the costume designer. I created these hair boards and given it was a 30 day shoot… A lot of the scenes were daylight dependent exterior. In Canada, there’s not a long very long day to shoot. I knew things would be quick, so I knew I had to use wigs and I wanted to show an arc in her color ranges. And I wanted to show her going from a very natural, young look to the hair gets longer as her journey goes on. The colors get richer and the hair gets bigger and then she arcs back down to natural again in 1972 when she leaves Elvis.

There’s a bit of a story being told with the hair as well. It’s showing you how old she is and what time of her life she’s in. So that was something I was trying to do. So I’m glad you saw it that way. We did take a little license with her 14 year old look that that wig is a much lighter color than Priscilla actually was at that time. I just felt it was important to find a color and style that worked on Cailee that she could pull off in and have some soft framing around the face and I put her in the ponytail, which I think she did look 14. And then the hair gets a little longer and she starts teasing it as she’s, you know, going out with Elvis and her mother gets upset with her, which came from Sofia. She wanted her to look a wreck for that scene at the airport with this much make-up and the teased hair. So we’re starting to see her evolution there. She’s already starting to lose herself a little bit to Elvis’s world. And as time goes on, the hair goes jet black. But she still has a bang because she’s still sort of a young girl going glam and then the makeup evolves to heavier and the hair gets bigger and longer and more rich looking. And then but I purposely picked a color for the 1972 look that was similar to the 14 year old look. In a sense, she’s she’s now not wearing as much makeup and her hair is going more natural. She’s on her own. She’s found herself again and she’s leaving Elvis now.

I was able to do that with five wigs. I added length and pieces within each wig to give style variations, here and there. And it was really just, you hit the ground running. We don’t shoot in sequence, so Cailee was in many looks per day. She’d be 14 years old, then she’d be pregnant.

Jillian Chilingerian: Oh my god. Wow. I love the wigs because I feel sometimes I’ll watch things and I’m like, ‘Oh, that’s a wig.’ And I feel it’s very natural in everything that you did. I do kind of want to talk a little bit about Elvis, even though I know he’s the minor character and we are so used to what he looks like, but I feel in Priscilla we see a different side of him. We’re seeing him through Priscilla’s eyes in a time that’s very closed off and not for the public. So what was it like for you tobring his iconography of hair to life?
Cliona Furey: With the Elvis character, I was careful to respect historical accuracy as well. I studied Elvis as well and his journey, his looks through that era. It was important to me to show him in Germany with more of a brown color, and then transition him to his jet black hair. And his hair gets longer as time goes on as well and his sideburns get bigger. But the hair was a little tamer than what you might see in some photos of him because we were filming scenes of him at home or him at the pool. So as much as I got the colors and lengths with some transition to show the time, but we weren’t filming him on stage. We weren’t filming the public life with the big you know, quiff. So the hair was a little tamer and I did research a lot of home Super Eight movies of Elvis and Priscilla at home and I found that his hair wasn’t as goofy at home. So we got the color right. And we had it loose often in the front. And I think it just shows that we were seeing him as a flawed human being, not as Elvis the stage star. In fact, we never really show him on stage in the film.

Jillian Chilingerian: Yeah, no, I love to hear that. That was actually my last question but I just really everything that you said. I just love how hair can really do that and the little things that you might not notice like the coloring and the length. I think for this movie, we see two different perspectives that we haven’t really seen around. I guess in this mythology of the prestige and I think like the hair story of personal really helps us kind of understand them on a new ground that we have not known. I love hearing about that Elvis side of it because we just this done up man and very extravagant and seeing him like, you know, kind of not in that light was very fascinating. As well as like Priscilla because I personally did not know her story either other than they are together.
Cliona Furey: I was really careful not to impersonate them. I didn’t want it to look like a caricature of them. Jacob and Cailee are not Elvis and Priscilla. So I tried to find looks that worked for them that they could pull off. That was important to me, but also pay respect to the historical accurate points in the story, so that it somewhat matched.

Jillian Chilingerian: Well, thank you so much. I’m get so hyper focused on hair in film, especially I love transitions of passage of time and seeing how, you know, hair and makeup person show what we’re doing over time. It’s something I geek out over. So this was really cool to discuss with you.
Cliona Furey: Before we go, actually all the characters in the movie, there’s 21 in the cast with some scenes and they all transition. So, all of the Memphis Mafia and their wives, Priscilla’s mom, they all have time transitions.

Jillian Chilingerian: Oh my god! I love them in the wedding. When we see her mom again and her she has the hair like Priscilla.
Cliona Furey: Yeah. Jacqueline [Robertson Cull], who works with me, did a fabulous job on her hair. I have to pay homage to my team. I couldn’t have done it alone.

Jillian Chilingerian: Amazing work. It definitely feels very natural and authentic.
Cliona Furey: Oh, my goodness. Amazing. Thank you. Thank you so much.

You can read Jillian’s review of Priscilla on her website, Offscreen, here.
You can read our review of Priscilla here.
The film is exclusively in theaters now.