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Cailee Spaeny Recalls Auditioning For Sofia Coppola's The Little Mermaid; Shares About Sending 'This Weird Self-Tape'
Cailee Spaeny almost starred in Sofia Coppola's scrapped The Little Mermaid before leading the 2023 film Priscilla. Spaeny reflects on her early auditions.
Cailee Spaeny almost starred in Sofia Coppola's version of The Little Mermaid before she landed the lead role in Coppola’s 2023 film Priscilla as Priscilla Presley.
During a recent interview with Empire, Cailee Spaeny shared that her first experience working with Sofia Coppola was for a never-mentioned project.
She told the outlet, “My first-ever callback was through Sofia, it was for [Coppola’s] The Little Mermaid, [which] ended up not getting made. I sent this weird self-tape, playing a mermaid with no dialogue.”
Spaeny described the audition as "very strange," which is typical of Coppola’s style. In 2017, Spaeny and Coppola met again when Spaeny auditioned for The Beguiled, a period drama starring Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, Colin Farrell, and Elle Fanning.
Spaeny revealed to the outlet, “That didn’t end up working out, I was crushed, because Sofia is the director that I zeroed in on as a young teenage girl, especially living in the Bible Belt. There’s something so freeing [in her work] and something that wasn’t really talked about for young women where I grew up."
The Alien: Romulus actress added, "She took young girls seriously. It really spoke to me on a personal level.” Despite these setbacks, these experiences helped Spaeny eventually land the role of Priscilla Presley in the 2023 film Priscilla, where Jacob Elordi played Elvis Presley.
Spaeny shared that she received a call informing her that Coppola wanted to meet in New York. During their meeting over coffee, Coppola took out her iPad and began showing Spaeny photos of Priscilla Presley.
Spaeny mentioned that she believed Kristen Dunst was observing her to form an opinion. Although she wasn't sure what Dunst said to Coppola, she knew something was communicated. By the end of filming Civil War, Spaeny learned she had been cast in the role of Priscilla.
Dunst gave her some advice on working with Coppola after the intense Civil War shoot. Spaeny told Empire, "‘[Priscilla] will be the opposite. It’s just so relaxed and chill, and you’re just going to have the best time and Sofia is going to be playing music and you’re going to be sad in the bathtub.’ And all those things were right!”
In 2014, Coppola worked on a live-action The Little Mermaid with Universal. The project was based on the darker original fairy tale, not the Disney version. The project became too big in scale, especially with Coppola’s vision of filming underwater, which she admitted would have been a nightmare.
Coppola left the project in 2015, and although Chloe Grace Moretz was later cast in the lead role, the film was never made.
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