Keough more gently. “It was an assumption.” Her five other
bridesmaids were her closest friends, including Kristen Stewart.
The hens’ party was an intimate celebration at California’s
Madonna Inn. “We were dancing in a ballroom and Abbey
[accidentally] smacked my face so hard my lip split and I was
bleeding everywhere, all over the white tablecloth in this hotel
room. My tooth chipped and it’s not fixed yet,” she says, showing
off her front teeth. “So that was a good contribution by Abbey!”
As someone who grew up in the public eye, Keough’s natural
openness can be disarming, especially when it comes quickly after
initial timidness. She throws faux worried looks to her PR
representative while voicing
her doubts aloud during the
interview between giggles. “Did
I just say that to a magazine?
Should I rewind?” Occasionally
she considers her openness in
interviews as a weakness. “I’ll
say too much and go to answer
something honestly and then
think I shouldn’t do that, so I’ll
backtrack and then it will get
awkward.” In the aftermath of
being engulfed by Keough’s
vivacious warmth, I realise that
it’s part of her skilled strategy to
engage you in such a genuinely
sincere way that it throws off
any looming impression of her
family background, allowing
you to concentrate on Keough
herself. With experience under
Steven Soderbergh on Magic
Mike, and appearing with
Dakota Fanning in The
Runaways, Keough presents
herself as a young star on the
rise, rather than just a Presley
scion. “As you’d imagine for a
Soderbergh movie, every big
actor auditions for every tiny
part,” Magic Mike producer and
writer Reid Carolin told the Hollywood Reporter. “She put herself
on tape and went straight to the top of the list.”
Keough is still game when asked about her family, dealing with
it head-on, and she is impressively gracious about it. “I have 10 set
answers about them. Go!” she dares with a sweet smile.
Appreciative for the attention and opportunities they’ve brought
her, she is also well aware of the consequences. “I wouldn’t be able
to do anything without [my family] so it would be stupid of me to
not want to talk about it,” she says. “I used to play piano, I’m not
very good. I love music, but not in like, that way,” she says. “I’m
actually really shy. I’m just talkative and goofy,” she qualifies.
“I get very introverted and nervous at big events like red carpets.”
Relishing their similarities rather than focusing on their
differences, despite what others may conclude, the actresses both
identify themselves as being shy, sensitive and Geminis (in that
order). Abbey Lee’s caution and subdued nature can be read as
aloof and distant but Keough is fast to back her friend. “She’s very
quick-witted and not super-serious. I know, it’s surprising,” she
says. When faced with a challenge Keough’s reflex is to joke and
diffuse the tension; Abbey Lee takes the stonewall method. She is
aware of how easy it is for what she says to be twisted and is always
on guard, not helped by an interview she had with an Australian
publication last year. “The guy’s a chauvinistic prick who obviously
had no interest in writing about me, which he made very clear
from the beginning. The misogynistic tone of that article was
disgraceful and I thought in this day and age we would be a little
past that. Having an article that opens literally on a girl’s breasts?
It’s fucking horrible,” she says with frustration.
After her wedding and a whirlwind holiday in Hawaii, Keough
has flown in for the Vog u e cover shoot with Abbey Lee. It’s the first
time they’ve seen each other
properly since the wedding.
“I love it in Australia; we were
just talking about it. I want to
get a house there,” Keough says
over the blare of hair-dryers,
citing either Sydney or Byron
Bay as her picks. “I grew up
fishing, I have this romantic
idea of living on a boat. I’d
always choose the country over
the city, for sure.” It’s a nod to
her childhood growing up in
Lisa Marie Presley’s country-
style estate in California’s
Hidden Hills, which spanned
more than a hectare and
included orchards and masses
of lawn. In a coincidental twist
of celebrity and musical fate,
the estate, albeit after major
renovation, was sold to Kanye
and Kim Kardashian West
in 2014.
On set for the cover shoot,
Keough wears platform
sneakers, unseen by the camera,
to bring her height up to Abbey
Lee’s level. In Keough’s words,
Abbey Lee is “modelling herself
in the corner” while she is
grinning widely. “I didn’t think we’d get anything done. It was fun,
because normally I’m on my own,” Keough adds. She pauses and
takes a selfie with a US Vog u e with Dakota Johnson on the cover to
send to Johnson herself who is minding Keough’s French bulldog,
Grubs, at her hotel. Though Abbey Lee and Keough are the
consummate professionals on set, signs of their friendship are
evident: they shoot looks at each other to communicate; the most
subtle of hand gestures or the slightest angle of the head can mean
a thousand words.
Their travel and work schedules make it difficult to meet up:
Keough is currently based in Toronto filming the series The
Girlfriend Project, based on Soderbegh’s 2009 film, and Abbey Lee
in Los Angeles for Neon Demon. Abbey Lee, who has spent the
last decade travelling the world for work and feels no strong desire
to settle, isn’t fazed – whenever they’re in the same city they spend
every day together. “Riley and me, we’re the sort of people where
it doesn’t matter what we’re doing as long we’re in each other’s
presence. She’s not a friend that I just catch up with, she’s like
a sister. She’s a part of my soul now.” ■Left to right: Nicholas
Hoult, Courtney Eaton,
Riley Keough, Charlize
Theron and Abbey Lee in
Max Max: Fury Road.Tom Hardy and
fellow cast members.VOGUE.COM.AU – 137