Elvis Presley’s granddaughter Riley Keough rocks out like the real deal for new show

LOS ANGELES – The new musical drama Daisy Jones & The Six is a valentine to the golden age of 1970s rock, the fictional tale of a band rising from obscurity to fame and then imploding because of its feuding lead singers Daisy (Riley Keough) and Billy (Sam Claflin).

And as the granddaughter of the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll Elvis Presley, Keough was able to draw on her experience of having been raised in a family of musicians, although the miniseries – now streaming on Prime Video – is the first time audiences will hear the 33-year-old American actress sing.

Speaking at the show’s Los Angeles premiere, the star – whose singer-songwriter mother

Lisa Marie Presley died in January at the age of 54

– says it was helpful growing up around a bunch of musicians because “it was a space I felt very comfortable in”.

“I’ve been on tour, I’ve slept on buses, I’ve been at soundchecks, so the world was something that I was familiar with, whereas for Sam, he’d never been around anything like that, so it was a whole new kind of thing,” says Keough, whose father is actor-musician Danny Keough, 58.

Asked if she considers herself a musician now because of Daisy Jones & The Six, Keough – whose breakout lead role was portraying an escort in the drama series The Girlfriend Experience (2016 to 2017) – says: “Kind of.”

But while viewers can listen to her sing as part of the titular rock group, which recently became the first fictional band to top the iTunes Charts with their album Aurora, she is not sure if she will follow in her grandfather and mother’s footsteps and perform original music of her own some day.

“Well, I will never say never, but it’s not really at the top of my mind at the moment, although I do like singing. So maybe,” says Keough.

On how she and British co-star Claflin, 36, went from having no professional musical experience to convincingly playing members of one of the biggest bands in the world, she says: “It was a challenge, but we were really lucky in that we had this wonderful team of experts in the music field helping us do all those things. And it took us months and months to acquire those skills.”

The other challenge was capturing the arc of Daisy as she changes over the years.

“The most interesting part for me was trying to figure out where she starts and where she goes because you see her over a very long span of time. And I tried to keep her essence there even when we see her transform into this rock star,” says Keough.

Her husband Ben Smith-Petersen, an Australian actor and stuntman, 31, has a cameo on the show, and the couple welcomed a baby girl in 2022.

Daisy Jones & The Six was spearheaded by someone else with first-hand knowledge of starting from scratch to portray a music star: American actress and executive producer Reese Witherspoon, who won an Oscar for playing American country music star Johnny Cash’s wife, June Carter, in the film Walk The Line (2005).

Witherspoon says of the show’s cast, which also includes models-turned-actresses Suki Waterhouse and Camila Morrone: “They did the hard work of having to learn the songs, become rock stars, play all instruments and become professional musicians during the pandemic.”

The 46-year-old, whose production company co-produced Daisy Jones & The Six, recalls: “It kind of gave me a little bit of the feeling I had when I did Walk The Line and had to learn how to play the autoharp and guitar and sing all those songs.

“It took seven months of my life and, to me, it was such a magical time.”

And Witherspoon believes Keough was perfect for the role of Daisy, which she says channels Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie from British-American rock band Fleetwood Mac.

“What’s so interesting is that just as a person, if you talk to her, she’s very quiet and soft-spoken. But she plays these characters that are larger than life,” says Witherspoon, also pointing to Keough’s parts in road drama American Honey (2016) and crime comedy Zola (2020).

“This girl is such a star – you just can’t take your eyes off her and this does not disappoint, with her and these outfits and the way she has the most magnetic stage presence.”

Witherspoon adds: “The music really drives the story too, and the chemistry between these actors, you just couldn’t make it up. You can tell they spent seven months rehearsing together.”

Daisy Jones & The Six is available on Prime Video.