From a homeschooled child of rock 'n' roll royalty, to indie film darling,
to death doula, Riley Keough has lived many lives
both on-screen and off. But her stunning transformation is just getting started.
Even before she was born, Riley Keough was destined to be different. Her father,
Danny Keough, was a mildly successful musician from Chicago. Her mother, Lisa Marie Presley,
was the daughter of none other than the king of rock and roll himself, Elvis Presley.
Being descended from music royalty meant that Riley grew up in the public eye. She told NPR,
"I grew up with, you know, going to the grocery store and my mom's on
the cover of all the magazines there. [It] was probably similar to, like,
how the Kardashians' kids are growing up now."
One of the defining moments of Riley Keough's life came
when her parents split up when she was 6 years old. After the divorce,
Keough's life was split between her parents. While her father lived a very humble existence
in "cabins and trailer parks," as she told The Guardian, her mother had an extravagant,
wealthy lifestyle. Still, life with her dad was "colorful and eccentric and fun." Her mother
remarried shortly after the divorce. Keough's new stepfather? None other than Michael Jackson.
So, while living with her mother, Keough experienced the excess and
opulence — and likely some of the most bizarre things that existed at Jackson's
infamous Neverland estate. As Keough reflected in an interview with NPR,
these two contrasting lives gave her a balanced view of the world:
"I felt like a sort of a witness in life, like I'm watching this
movie more than a participant. And I felt like I fit in everywhere."
"You were at Neverland and Graceland?"
"That's right."
It's no wonder Keough has a unique ability to slip into a vast array of roles with
ease — she had been observing all walks of life for as long as she could remember.
It's hard to imagine a little girl who is Elvis' granddaughter and Michael Jackson's stepdaughter
going to school or hanging out with friends. And as Riley Keough explained to InStyle,
her parents quickly realized that her life was too abnormal for school. She went to a regular
school for a few years, but her mother's hectic schedule made it hard. Eventually,
school became too difficult for Keough, and it was then that she was homeschooled.
Keough never graduated high school, which, she said, was a "shame" as she
was interested in doing normal things like going to college. She explained to InStyle:
"I just didn't have a lifestyle that would permit that."
Despite her lack of formal education,
Keough's emotional intelligence shines through in her roles — and it's clear her
unorthodox childhood was exactly what she needed to become the actress she is today.
Even as a young child, Riley Keough felt drawn to acting and filmmaking.
As Keough explained to InStyle, she made her own films and put on plays as a kid.
She told Vogue that she often drew on her own dual life in her childhood projects:
"I was very interested in long-lost family and in class, rich versus poor."
Though Keough's education was minimal, she quickly formulated a career plan. When she was a teenager,
she spoke to her parents about acting. They were skeptical because of the rejection and
uncertainty of the career. But, as she told Interview Magazine, she was determined:
"I was one of those kids who thought I could be the president of England when
I grew up if I wanted to. Then I started acting and realized life is hard and people are mean."
So, she decided to become a model first to earn money before becoming
an actress when she got older. And that's exactly what she did.
After realizing that acting wasn't as easy as she thought it would be, Riley Keough turned
to modeling as a teenager as a way to make her own money. As Town & Country reported,
she was a natural, and when she was 14, she became the face of Miss Dior Chérie perfume.
It turns out, modeling was the perfect way for Keough to enter the industry. She
told Harper's Bazaar that it got her used to working in unusual locations and situations:
"It's been wonderful. I think I was really lucky being able to grow up modeling and
getting the opportunity to travel the world and experience so much at a young age."
Even though Keough was clearly good at modeling, it wasn't something that stuck. As she said in one
2014 interview, as shared by Elvis Presley Fans of Nashville, it "was a passing phase." She went on,
"They are very impatient and photo shoots are boring. If it was my career,
I do not think I would have been the best."
Soon enough, Riley Keough transitioned from modeling to acting, fulfilling her
childhood dream. Her famous family gave her a helping hand. She told Flaunt,
"I walked in a door and wanted an agent and I got one. That's not normal and I know that."
But nevertheless, it was scary. As she told InStyle,
"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."
In 2010, she starred alongside Kristen Stewart and
Dakota Fanning in The Runaways. As she told WWD, her fears quickly melted away:
"I went on a movie set and saw that you don't have to talk loudly and put on
this giant flamboyant show when you're making a movie. It's the most comfortable place for me."
After that, the roles kept coming. As Town & Country explained,
her role in Jack and Diane proved to be something of a big break for Keough,
as it caught the attention of people in the industry. In just a few short years of acting,
Keough had established herself as one to watch in the indie movie scene.
Even though Riley Keough's rise to the top of her game has been a fast one, she hasn't always felt
successful. In fact, as she explained to The Guardian, she has dealt with her fair share of
rejection. Right after her debut performance in The Runaways, Keough didn't work for two years.
Instead of becoming disheartened, Keough only pushed herself more. She told The Guardian:
"Rejection just makes me work harder to prove myself."
By the sounds of things, Keough didn't always have an easy time in auditions.
As she told Backstage's podcast "In the Envelope," she used to get so nervous in
auditions that she would forget the lines or even have panic attacks. Sometimes,
the auditions were so bad that she simply stopped trying halfway through. Keough explained:
"My horror stories are like, I go in there, I do really badly,
and then they tell my agent I did a bad job."
Luckily, she said, she also has good auditions, which eventually secured her more parts.
Over the course of Riley Keough's career, she has worked with director
Steven Soderbergh three times — on Magic Mike, The Girlfriend Experience,
and Logan Lucky. As Keough told The Guardian, she loves working with Soderbergh — in fact,
she always agrees to work with him without even reading the script.
Her collaborations with Soderbergh have been hugely successful — she even earned herself
a Golden Globe nomination for her performance in The Girlfriend Experience. It's easy to see that
she owes a big part of her career to the director. And, as Keough explained to Flaunt Magazine, they
work well together, and his hands-off approach has helped her to grow. Keough told the outlet:
"He puts his trust in you as a performer. That raises the bar and makes you responsible
for your own performance, which is stressful, but it's also really good."
"I love that because it gives you sort of a sense of freedom."
Riley Keough met the Australian stuntman Ben Smith-Petersen while filming Mad Max:
Fury Road in the desert and started dating after they did reshoots for
the project. As she explained to USA Today, she knew instinctively that he was special:
"Two weeks into dating him, we were at a gas station and I was like,
'I could see myself having kids with this person.'"
Apparently, she instantly felt comfortable around him. It seems that Keough's intuition
was right — Smith-Petersen proposed with a ring made of his mother's old diamond set in
a vintage ring, as noted by Town & Country. Then, while volunteering in Nepal in 2015,
the pair decided to marry spontaneously in a Hindu ceremony thrown by the locals.
In an Instagram post for her sixth wedding anniversary, Keough wrote,
"The whole town came, we were so honored and surprised, it was so special."
Riley Keough never really had a full education — nor did she have any acting training. Instead,
she's become one of the top actresses in Hollywood by learning on the job. As she explained to
Little White Lies, while promoting the 2017 Trey Edward Shults film It Comes at Night,
she's grown significantly as an actress with each project. She told the outlet:
"I'm feeling more confident that there's no set way to do anything,
and to never think that I know what I'm doing."
Keough went on to explain that, when she was younger,
she didn't realize how much she still had to learn. The actress added:
"I've been learning from every director I've worked with."
And acting technique wasn't the only thing Keough learned on set — she also
learned that the job — and life itself — comes with all kinds of ups and downs. So,
she learned to appreciate her success and be grateful. Keough told InStyle:
"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."
"I'm, like, a bit of a hippie, so for me success is when I have inner peace."
As a child, Riley Keough made her own films. In fact, as she told The Guardian,
she's had aspirations of directing one day, as well as acting. As she's found
more and more success as an actress, she's also branched out into more behind-the-camera roles,
too. In 2017, Riley Keough started her own production company, Felix Culpa,
along with Gina Gammell. At the time, Keough announced to Deadline,
"We are, very simply, lovers of film and literature. Our company is dedicated to developing
material that gives a voice to talent and stories that deserve attention and need to be heard."
For Keough, the production company gave
her another creative outlet aside from acting. She told S Magazine,
"I try and relax, but I can't. I relax by working on my production company's films.
I give myself a break from performing, but I'll do other stuff because I can't stop."
According to the company's website, the first four projects are set to be released in the next
few years, including the upcoming miniseries Cult Following, which is set to star Keough.
One of Riley Keough's most exciting roles to date was in the 2020 film Zola,
a film based on a real-life story that went viral in a series of tweets. For Keough,
this film provided new challenges and marked an exciting step in her career. As Vogue noted,
"none of her previous work [...] comes close" to her work in Zola. As Keough told the publication,
she wanted to make her role as outrageous as possible. Keough explained to Vogue:
"We wanted to make her as wild, offensive and loud as we could."
It took some serious work to get ready to play such an outrageous character.
Keough explained to Harper's Bazaar that she spent a long time preparing the character's
accent and finding inspiration in people she had come across in her
own life. While Keough clearly took a risk with her larger-than-life choices in Zola,
her risks paid off. The film received rave reviews, with Empire saying,
"[Keough] delivers her [...] honey trapper with gusto,
adding countering moments of vulnerability to demand sympathy for a woman who, for all
her culturally appropriating faults, is still a victim."
In 2020, Riley Keough's younger brother Benjamin died by suicide. For Keough, it
was a devastating loss that forced her to rethink her relationship with grief. Keough told Variety,
"When you're in grief, as you know, like, everything for the
first time hits you. It's like, 'Oh, I'm experiencing this in grief now.'"
In a way, she had to relearn how to do everything from going grocery shopping
to having a birthday to going to work. The event coincided with the
COVID-19 pandemic and the release of Zola. Keough explained to Elle:
"It's definitely tainted with my own sadness, my own loss and grief from losing my brother,
so it's definitely bizarre. Those things don't go away. We don't stop being in pain from grief."
A year after her brother's death, Keough posted an Instagram tribute, writing,
"I miss you endlessly every day."
She also posted on Instagram about becoming a death doula, explaining,
"I think it's so important to be educated on conscious dying and
death the way we educate ourselves on birth and conscious birthing."
A death doula, according to The Guardian,
is someone who guides people through both the spiritual and practical realities of dying.
In Daisy Jones & The Six, Riley Keough played Daisy, a 1970s singer who becomes a feminist
icon. The 2023 show was adapted from the novel of the same name by Taylor Jenkins Reid for
Amazon Prime. Playing a musician was naturally exciting for Keough, considering her musical
family. While the character was reportedly inspired by Fleetwood Mac's Stevie Nicks,
Keough found her inspiration elsewhere — in her mother. She told People:
"My mother is certainly an inspiration to me. I was raised by somebody who did their
own thing and didn't really care what other people thought. She was definitely inspirational to me."
She went on to explain that she was also inspired by her own fascination
with women who don't act "the right way," adding,
"I think just women who were liberated were inspiring to me."
In 2022, Riley Keough and her family saw Baz Luhrmann's biopic Elvis while at the Cannes
Film Festival. As Elvis' granddaughter, the experience of seeing Austin Butler
portray Elvis wasn't exactly easy for her. She told E! at the time:
"It's really emotional."
Keough went on to add:
"I didn't know what to expect and I think the moment I saw him ... there's a moment
in the first five minutes with Austin [Butler] that's very powerful and I,
kind of, you know, I started crying. It was really intense."
"You don't see actors commit in that way often."
Even though Keough found it tough to watch the fictionalization of her family's story,
she had plenty of praise for the film and for Butler's performance, telling E!:
"It's a wonderful film. Austin's incredible. I hope everybody goes and sees 'Elvis.'"
While Keough ended up loving the film,
she was happy that she was not involved in the production. Keough said to Vulture:
"It's a little too close. It's intense enough to watch,
I don't want to act in it. It was never a conversation."
In 2022, Keough made her directorial debut alongside her friend Gina Gammell with the
film War Pony. As Riley told Vanity Fair, she was inspired to make the film after
she struck up a conversation with two extras, members of the Lakota tribe,
on the set of her film American Honey. She and Gammell were inspired to write a film
about the tribe. Even though Keough was well-established in the industry,
it was difficult to get the project off the ground and attain financing. She told Vanity Fair:
"It was not easy. It was very challenging. A lot of people didn't understand what we wanted to do,
they didn't connect with the story. The kind of things we heard were weird."
While Keough struggled to get the project made,
she proved herself to be more than capable in the end. In fact,
the film even won the Camera d'Or, an award for the best first feature film, at Cannes.
In January 2023, Riley Keough's mother, Lisa Marie Presley,
died unexpectedly after a cardiac arrest. Keough made no comment about her mother's
tragic death until she released a letter that she'd written for her husband to
read at her mother's funeral. The letter, which was published by Rolling Stone, read,
"A letter to my mama — thank you for being my mother in this life. I am
eternally grateful to have spent 33 years with you. I'm certain I chose the best mother for
me in this world and I knew that as far back as I remember you and I remember everything."
Keough went on to describe memories from her past — her mother giving her baths,
cuddling her, taking her for after-school ice cream, and singing her lullabies. She wrote:
"Thank you for showing me that love is the only thing that matters in this life."
Following Presley's death, Keough also shared a photo of her and her
mother on Instagram with a simple red heart emoji.
Shortly after her mother's death in 2023, Riley Keough revealed that she and her husband,
Ben Smith-Petersen, had recently welcomed their first child, who was her mother's
first grandchild. During the reading of a letter written by Keough and read by Smith-Petersen at
the funeral, Keough included a line about her daughter. According to Vanity Fair, she wrote:
"I hope I can love my daughter the way you loved me."
It's not publicly known when Keough and Smith-Petersen had their daughter,
as Keough kept her pregnancy private, but it was likely sometime in 2022,
according to Vanity Fair. A day after the funeral, Keough was spotted landing in Los Angeles at Van
Nuys with her husband and young daughter, whose name has not yet been shared, as of January 2023.