Venice Film Festival 2025: Why is Riley Keough so fascinating?

par Violaine Schütz.

Published on 2 September 2025. Updated on 15 September 2025.

Riley Keough, a rock’n’roll aura

Despite many current celebrities turning up to have successful parents, such as Lily-Rose Depp, Dakota Johnson or Zoë Kravitz (a trend called out on the internet as “nepotism babies”), Riley Keough’s upbringing keeps being very impressive for most. With Elvis Presley as a grand-father and Priscilla Presley as a grand-mother, both American cultural icons in the music and acting stage, Riley Keough was born on a lucky star. 

Naturally, she had a close conversation with Sofia Coppola concerning the accuracy of the biopic of her grand-parents, Priscilla (2023). But her royal lineage doesn’t end at her grand-parents’. The father of Riley Keough (Danny Keough) was a musician and the mother, singer and songwriter Lisa Marie Presley, was married to Michael Jackson and Nicolas Cage. Two musicians who were included in the grand-daughter’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. 

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 touched it. In addition to the passing of her grand-father, 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 formation to become a death coach and assisting people to get through this hurdle.

Riley Keough, Chanel’s ambassador

With her light eyes, her charisma and her lean figure, Riley Keough’s personality quickly attracted fashion designers’ attention. Starting as a model at the age of 15, the grand-daughter of the king of Rock’n’Roll is now the Chanel’s ambassador and the face of the spring-summer 2024 campaign of the fashion house.

In order to seal this prestigious collaboration, she sang for the Chanel’s collection spring-summer ready-to-wear 2025 show, at Grand Palais (in Paris), in October 2024, performing When Doves Cry, from 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.

Star of The Girlfriend Experience

But she always comes back to the cinema industry. The pouting actress loves to take on challenging roles and signs up to worldbuildings that blends music, sex and violence. Therefore, we saw her in Mad Max : Fury Road (2015), Magic Mike (2012) and The Runaways (2010) narrating the story of Joan Jett’s rock band, starring her friend : the actress Kristen Stewart. But she was noticed in the following excellent movies : American Honey (2016), Under the Silver Lake (2018), The Devil All the Time (2020) starring Robert Pattinson and Tom Holland, streaming on Netflix. She also had a lead role in Zola (2020), tackling the surrealist road trip of two over-excited strippers, inspired by a true story that became viral on Twitter.

But her breakthrough role stays the slightly cynical call-girl that she embodies in 2016 for The Girlfriend Experience’s show, 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 for 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 director to watch closely

Riley Keough never takes things for granded despite the powerful familial legacy or the charisma that she has. Able to keep up with the fast-pacing Hollywood industry, appearing in a movie directed by Lars Von Trier while being in Riverdale, she never stops taking risks and picking challenging roles. After her cameo in the Justin Timberlake’s music video TKO (2013), she will be star again in several awaited shows and movies.

Currently, she starred in Under the Bridge, streaming on Disney+, beside Lily Gladstone. The plot of this fascinating crime feature-film ? “In 1997, a young highschool girl, Reena Virk, gets murdered in a small town in North-West Canada. Eight high school students are suspected of committing the murder”.

Riley Keough’s upcoming projects

We would see Riley Keough again in Cult Following, a show tackling the topic of a catolic cults, alongside Dakota Johnson. She stars in A Life in Men beside Charlize Theron and Kristen Steward, and shares the screen with Melissa Barrera in the erotical thriller The One. She also appeared in Alpha Gang with Léa Seydoux et Cate Blanchett, then Manodrome with Adrien Brody and starred in the comedy movie Sasquatch Sunsett. The upcoming movie, Jay Kelly, directed by Noah Baumbach, stars the famous star alongside George Clooney, Adam Sandler and Laura Dern. Riley Keough will present it to the Venice Film Festival. Other notable projects ? Out Of This World  by Albert Serra, Rosebush Pruning with Callum Turner and Elle Fanning and later Butterfly Jam with Barry Keoghan.

Indeed, the Daisy Jones & The Six’s protagonist is booked and busy. The last Jonah Hill’s girlfriend presented the first movie she directed at Cannes Festival, War Pony (2023), filmed with her producer, Gina Gammell.

Selected in Un Certain Regard section (which awards independent movies), the feature-film takes on the Pine Ridge reserve, an area in South Dakota bear the marks of the ameridian militantism. Ambitious, adaptable and hyperactive, Riley Keough seems to have her lesson from her grand-father’s patterns : “Never wait for tomorrow, because what if tomorrow never comes ?”. 

Under the Bridge (2024), created by Samir Mehta and Liz Tigelaar, is available on Disney+. Jay Kelly (2025) by Noah Baumbach, will be available on Netflix on December 5th, 2025.