Riley Keough’s Bold Moves

Riley Keough may have inherited the almond-shaped, heavy-
lidded eyes of her famous clan—
she’s the daughter of Lisa Marie 
Presley and the granddaughter 
of Elvis—but the actress never 
felt the pull of the family business. “I played piano when I was younger,” Keough, 25, says. “But music didn’t fulfill me.” Yet after 
a stint as a model (she appeared 
in campaigns for Dior and Tommy Hilfiger), Keough did not hesitate to play a member of another musical family in the 2010 rock ’n’ roll biopic The Runaways, opposite Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning. That screen debut set 
her on a course for edgy, memorable parts, including a stripper in 2012’s Magic Mike and, that same year, a lesbian skate punk in Jack & Diane. “When I started acting, it was like, ‘Whoa, what’s going on?’” Keough recalls. “But I loved being able to escape myself.”

This year, she plays the lead in the Starz series The Girlfriend Experience, based on Steven Soderbergh’s 2009 film about a high-end call girl. And in May, she stars as the aptly named Capable in Mad Max: Fury Road, the anticipated reboot of the sci-fi blockbusters. Like Keough’s other roles, this one has a dark side. “Mad Max was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. It was like a boot camp; we all went a bit crazy shooting for six months in the Namibian desert. I wish I could be more of a regular girl-next-door.”