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Why is Riley Keough, star of Jay Kelly, so fascinating?
At 36, actress Riley Keough keeps taking on ambitious projects in the film industry and beyond, flirting with the worlds of fashion and music. Today, Elvis Presley’s granddaughter is the star of the film Jay Kelly, starring alongside George Clooney. Throwback to the career of an artist with a distinctive rock aura.
by Violaine Schütz.
Published on 2 September 2025. Updated on 8 December 2025.
Riley Keough, a rock’n’roll aura
While many celebrities today have famous parents, such as Lily-Rose Depp, Dakota Johnson or Zoë Kravitz – a situation coined as “nepotism babies” online – Riley Keough’s upbringing remains particularly impressive overall. Elvis Presley, her grandfather, is the King of rock’n’roll and was recently the topic of a tribute biopic directed by Baz Luhrmann. Apparently, the film moved Riley Keough to tears. Her grandmother, Priscilla Presley, used to be a great actress and starred in The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!.
The latter was the focus of a biopic directed by Sofia Coppola. Riley Keough’s father, Danny Keough, was a musician and her mother, singer and songwriter Lisa Marie Presley, was married to Michael Jackson and Nicolas Cage. These two musicians strongly participated in the girl’s education.
Coming from such a prestigious name, the brazen protagonist of Logan Lucky (2017) retains a rock aura, with her tousled mane worthy of a folk singer, a perpetually disenchanted air, and wild looks inspired by her fashion icon, Jimi Hendrix. This style made her the perfect fit to portray the lead role of Daisy in Daisy Jones & The Six, a show streaming on Prime Video, that tells the journey of a fictional 70’s rock band.
A burning passion for music
Recently, she confided in Numero, saying : “I was not a real singer, but I sang along with the guys playing guitar, especially my husband (actor and stuntman Ben Smith-Petersen, ndlr). Sometimes, he softly plays guitar and I sing along shyly with him. I was aware I had a musical instinct, despite not being a professional. I never took on a singing lesson before. With Sam (Clafin, her male romantic interest on screen, ndlr), we both had to learn to sing and to play guitar from scratch. It took me months before learning how to play major chords of Daisy Jones & The Six, but it was for nothing, because in the end, no one could see me play in the show (laugh).”
However, the good sides of having a famous family do not outweigh the several tragedies that affected it. In addition to the passing of her grandfather, Elvis Presley, and her mother, Lisa Marie Presley, Riley Keough’s brother, named Benjamin Keough, killed himself in 2020. After his passing at 27, the actress enrolled in a training to become a death coach and assisting people getting through this.
Riley Keough, a rising fashion icon
With her light eyes, charisma and lean figure, Riley Keough’s personality quickly caught the eye of fashion designers. Starting as a model at the age of 15, the King’s granddaughter is now a Chanel ambassador and was the face of the house’s Spring/Summer 2024 campaign.
In order to seal this prestigious collaboration, she sang for the Chanel Spring/Summer ready-to-wear 2025 show at Grand Palais in Paris in October 2024, performing When Doves Cry by Prince on a swing. This suspended moment recalled Vanessa Paradis, hanging in the air in order to promote the Coco perfume in 1991.
Beforehand, she walked in a Dolce & Gabbana show and was the face of the fashion house Dior. She also attended Louis Vuitton events several times. With her bold fashion choices (she is keen on low-necked dresses and bold cut-outs), Riley Keough truly became a fashion icon.
The star of The Girlfriend Experience
However, the actress with a sulky pout hasn’t turned her back on the film industry. She is usually drawn to complex characters and bold, violent universes, in which music, sex, and violence collide. She appeared in Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), Magic Mike (2012), or The Runaways (2010), which tells the story of Joan Jett’s rock band and stars her friend Kristen Stewart.
She has also left a mark in standout productions, like American Honey (2016), Under the Silver Lake (2018), The Devil All the Time (2020) with Robert Pattinson and Tom Holland on Netflix. Not to mention Zola (2020), a surreal road trip following two hyper-charged strippers, based on a true story that went viral on Twitter.
But her breakthrough role remains the slightly cynical call-girl that she embodied in The Girlfriend Experience (2016), produced by Steven Soderbergh. The actress, shyer in real-life, portrays Christine, a law student by day and an escort girl by night. With subtlety, she gives 100% of herself to this role, portraying several layers of a young, intriguing and cold at first woman who spends her time balancing the workload at university and managing to pass the doors of luxury hotels in Chicago.
Riley Keough, an actress and a director to follow closely
The American actress never takes things for granted, despite her powerful familial legacy and badass, yet mysterious charisma. Able to star in a movie directed by Lars Von Trier, while playing in the teen show Riverdale, she never stops taking risks, picking eclectic projects, far from the beaten track. After her cameo in Justin Timberlake’s music video for TKO (2013), in which she tortured the singer, dragging him on the ground while driving a car, she will soon star in several anticipated shows and movies.
In 2024, the actress appeared in the brilliant show Under the Bridge, now streaming on Netlfix, alongside Lily Gladstone. The plot of this fascinating thriller? “In 1997, Reena Virk, a high school girl, was murdered in a small town in North-West Canada. Eight high school students are suspected of committing the murder”.
Riley Keough’s upcoming projects
Riley Keough will soon star alongside Dakota Johnson in Cult Following, a series about the cult Children of God, in A Life In Men with Charlize Theron and Kristen Stewart, as well as in the erotic thriller The One, with Melissa Barrera (Scream). She will also appear in Alpha Gang with Léa Seydoux and Cate Blanchett, in Manodrome with Adrien Brody, and the comedy Sasquatch Sunset with Jesse Eisenberg.
This December 2025, you can see her on Netflix in Noah Baumbach’s latest feature Jay Kelly, alongside George Clooney, Adam Sandler, and Laura Dern. The film was presented at the Venice Film Festival. Other upcoming projects? Out Of This World by Albert Serra, Rosebush Pruning with Callum Turner and Elle Fanning, and Butterfly Jam with Barry Keoghan.
A striking directorial debut
However fascinating they may be, the protagonist of Daisy Jones & The Six and the Prime Video sci-fi series The Terminal List, starring Chris Pratt, has no intention of limiting herself to interpreting other filmmakers’ visions. Jonah Hill‘s former girlfriend presented her directorial debut War Pony (2023) at the Cannes Film Festival. She co-directed the film with her producer Gina Gammell.
Selected in the category Un Certain Regard – which rewards independent movies – the feature film tackles the situation on Pine Ridge reserve, an area in South Dakota bearing the marks of Native American activism. Ambitious, adaptable and hyperactive, Riley Keough seems to have her lesson from her grandfather’s patterns : “Never wait for tomorrow, because what if tomorrow never comes ?”.
Jay Kelly (2025) by Noah Baumbach, available now on Netflix.
