Let’s go to Vegas. What spirit did you want to capture?
Elvis actually went to the Stardust among other places, and all of the references for the places he was going had these pastels that we didn’t want to use at all. We went with deep reds and golds for Vegas. We had this great shooting location called the Elgin [and Winter Garden] Theatre in Toronto. We filmed in the lobby, which is full of beautiful gilded gold details, and there’s two theaters—we shot the casino and its entrance with VFX for Vegas because it’s just Young Street in Toronto. The theaters are stacked the way old movie houses are—in the Winter Garden Theatre, we also shot the cinema where Elvis and Priscilla go on a date in Germany. And then we shot Elvis on stage upstairs.
We just made Vegas there, we made slot machines and blackjack tables quite painstakingly with bright graphics. But when I showed the location to Sofia and Philippe, it was just like, “That’s such a shift for her.” It’s not the pastels of Graceland or the gray, yucky greens and browns of Germany. It’s something new to embrace, and that stayed true for the hotel set that we built for them at the end. It was a conscious color choice informed by the location, which we fell in love with.
Were there any other locations around Toronto that grabbed you in that way?
Parkwood in Ottowa is something we use a lot, [Guillermo del Toro and I] shot Nightmare Alley there, for these houses on the German military base. And there was a dreadful, dreary closed childrens’ psychiatric hospital that was kind of haunted and horrible. We used it for the German high school.
Since you live in Toronto, what is your relationship with the city when you work with it?
You know, I’m always thinking about what can be used and what cannot. But, to be honest, I get bored with Toronto and I’m super excited because I’m going to the United Kingdom to shoot Frankenstein with Guillermo next.
