Riley Keough

Danielle Riley Keough ( ; born May 29, 1989) is an American actress. Born into the Presley family, she is the eldest daughter of Lisa Marie Presley and the eldest grandchild of Elvis Presley and Priscilla Presley. She began her career as a model from 2004 to 2008 before transitioning to acting making her feature film debut in a supporting part in the musical biopic The Runaways, portraying Marie Currie .

Keough's early roles included the independent thriller The Good Doctor (2011), the comedy-drama film Magic Mike (2012), and the action epic Mad Max: Fury Road (2015). Her performance as a wayward young woman in the Andrea Arnold drama film American Honey (2016) earned her an Independent Spirit Award nomination. She has since taken roles in the horror films It Comes at Night (2017), and The House That Jack Built (2018), the black comedy thriller Under the Silver Lake (2017), the heist film Logan Lucky (2017), the dark comedy-crime drama Zola (2020), and the absurdist fantasy Sasquatch Sunset (2024), the latter of which she served as an executive producer.

On television, she has earned a Golden Globe Award nomination for her portrayal of an escort in the first season of the anthology series The Girlfriend Experience (2016) . She has starred as a military wife in thriller series The Terminal List (2022) and a singer-songwriter in the drama miniseries Daisy Jones & the Six (2023) both for Amazon Prime Video. The latter earned her nominations for another Golden Globe and a Primetime Emmy Award.

Keough is a co-founder of the production company Felix Culpa. She has co-directed the drama War Pony (2022), which won the Caméra d'Or. She became the sole owner of Elvis Presley's estate Graceland, following her mother Lisa Marie Presley's death in 2023.

Early life and education Keough was born on May 29, 1989, at St. Johns Hospital in Santa Monica, California. She is the eldest child of singer-songwriter Lisa Marie Presley (1968–2023) and musician Danny Keough; and has two half-sisters from her mother's fourth marriage, to Michael Lockwood. Her maternal grandmother, Priscilla, is of part Norwegian descent. Keough's paternal grandmother, Janet Hollander, co-founded the Delphian School and served as its dean from 1995 to 2011.

When Keough was five years old, her parents divorced, and her mother was briefly married to Michael Jackson from 1994 to 1996. Keough was raised primarily by her father in Hawaii and Los Angeles, though she at times lived at her mother's Los Angeles home, as well as at the Graceland Estate in Memphis, Tennessee, which her mother inherited following her grandfather Elvis's death. For a time, Keough attended a public school in the San Fernando Valley, but was ultimately homeschooled due to her having to frequently travel between her parents' homes. In 2005 she appeared on the covers of Elle Japon, Vogue Korea, Jalouse, and L'Officiel. Keough portrayed the role of Marie Currie, sister to the band's lead singer Cherie Currie, portrayed by Dakota Fanning. The film also starred Kristen Stewart and Tatum O'Neal and premiered in 2010 at the Sundance Film Festival to favorable reviews.

In April 2011, Keough starred as the female lead in the drama The Good Doctor alongside Orlando Bloom and Taraji P. Henson. Keough portrayed Diane Nixon, a young patient with a kidney infection who is kept ill to make her doctor gain the respect he craves. The film received mixed reviews from critics. In May 2010, she replaced actress Olivia Thirlby as the protagonist in the werewolf drama Jack & Diane alongside Juno Temple, who portrayed her love interest. Filming took place in New York City, and in May 2011 Magnolia Pictures picked up the film for distribution; it was released theatrically in November 2012.

In September 2011, Keough joined the Steven Soderbergh film Magic Mike, alongside Channing Tatum, Matthew McConaughey and Alex Pettyfer, about a group of male strippers. Keough portrayed the role of Nora, a young stripper. The film was released in June 2012. Keough then co-starred in the independent drama Yellow, alongside Sienna Miller, Luke Wilson and David Morse, followed by a supporting role opposite Milo Ventimiglia in the independent vampire film Kiss of the Damned, which premiered at the 2012 Venice Film Festival.

On August 4, 2013, the Australian fashion brand Bonds announced that Keough had been signed as "Summer 2013 ambassador". In October 2013, Keough co-starred in the video for Justin Timberlake's "TKO", portraying a bitter girlfriend who knocks out Timberlake and ties him to the back of a pickup truck, dragging him through the desert and throwing him off a cliff.

Keough appeared in director So Yong Kim's short film Spark and Light commissioned by fashion brand Miu Miu in 2014. The actress had a supporting role as a woman called Capable in Mad Max: Fury Road, the fourth installment of the Mad Max series. The film was released in May 2015 to critical and commercial success.

In December 2015, Dixieland was released by IFC Films, in which Keough starred as a woman living in a Mississippi trailer park who becomes embroiled in a crime. The film had previously screened at the Tribeca Film Festival in April 2015.

2016–present: Breakthrough and subsequent roles In January 2016, Keough's following film, the lesbian drama Lovesong, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. portraying a law student-turned-escort in the first season of the anthology series The Girlfriend Experience, based on the film of the same name from director Steven Soderbergh. The 13-episode series premiered on Starz on April 10, 2016. Her performance in The Girlfriend Experience garnered rave reviews and awards buzz from critics. She went on to receive a Golden Globe nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television.

Also in 2016, Keough appeared in Andrea Arnold's drama film American Honey, alongside Shia LaBeouf. The film premiered in competition at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Jury Prize. Keough received praise for her role in the film, and received a nomination at the Film Independent Spirit Awards for Best Supporting Female. The same year, she appeared in The Discovery directed by Charlie McDowell. It had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 20, 2017, and was released on March 31, 2017, by Netflix. Her next film release was the drama We Don't Belong Here (2017), filmed in 2014, in which she starred as the daughter of a dysfunctional family alongside Catherine Keener and Anton Yelchin. Keough's subsequent film was It Comes at Night, an apocalyptic-themed horror film, in which she starred opposite Joel Edgerton and Christopher Abbott, and directed by Trey Edward Shults. The film was released theatrically in the United Kingdom and United States in the early summer of 2017.

In August 2017, it was announced that Keough had launched her own production company called Felix Culpa with producer Gina Gammell. The duo also announced plans to adapt three novels, including: Sweet Lamb of Heaven: A Novel, the graphic novel Heartthrob, and The Curse of Beauty: The Scandalous & Tragic Life of Audrey Munson, America's First Supermodel. That same month saw the release of Steven Soderbergh's heist comedy Logan Lucky, in which Keough portrayed Mellie Logan.

In 2018, Keough appeared in a number of films, including the independent drama-thriller Welcome the Stranger, followed by the Netflix-released thriller Hold the Dark, directed by Jeremy Saulnier, and the Barry Levinson-directed television film Paterno, a biographical film about Joe Paterno released through HBO in April 2018. In May 2018, Keough debuted two films at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival: Lars von Trier's controversial psychological horror film The House That Jack Built, which was subsequently given a limited release in the United States by IFC Films, and David Robert Mitchell's neo-noir Under the Silver Lake, which was given a limited release in April 2019.

Next, Keough starred in the lead role in the psychological horror film The Lodge (2019), portraying a woman raised in a cult. The film, which premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival before being released theatrically in February 2020, garnered Keough praise, with Michael Roffman of Consequence of Sound deeming it a "career-best performance". Keough subsequently had a lead role opposite Alicia Vikander in the thriller film Earthquake Bird, directed by Wash Westmoreland and based on the 2001 novel of the same name, which premiered at the British Film Institute in October 2019 before being released digitally via Netflix in mid-November 2019.

In early 2019, Keough was cast in the Netflix-produced psychological thriller The Devil All the Time, based on Donald Ray Pollock's 2011 novel of the same name. The project began filming in Alabama in the spring of that year, and premiered on Netflix in September 2020. On November 19, 2019, it was announced that Keough had joined the cast of the upcoming Amazon series Daisy Jones & the Six in a leading role, portraying a rock musician in the 1970s. She performed lead vocals on the album Aurora, the fictional album recorded by the band, which was released on March 1, 2023. In January 2020, the comedy-drama Zola, co-starring Keough as Stefani, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.

In 2022, Keough co-directed and produced with Gina Gammell War Pony, which had its world premiere at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival in May 2022. It won the Caméra d'Or award for best first feature. Keough also produced the 2023 film Manodrome as part of her production company, Felix Culpa.

In January 2024, Keough said that she completed her late mother Lisa Marie Presley's unfinished memoir, which was based on autobiographical audiotapes Presley recorded. The memoir was initially set to be released on October 15, 2024. On June 4, 2024, it was revealed that the memoir would be titled From Here to the Great Unknown, and would credit both Keough and her mother as the book's authors. From Here to the Great Unknown would be released on October 8, 2024. On a primetime special titled The Presleys: Elvis, Lisa Marie and Riley, which aired on CBS on October 8, 2024, Keough spoke with Oprah Winfrey in her first public interview since her mother's death.

In October 2024, Keough made a surprise appearance at Chanel's Spring-Summer 2025 Ready to Wear show, where she performed a rendition of Prince's "When Doves Cry" during the show's closing. According to Keough, she received the invitation to perform only days before the show was scheduled to take place.

Personal life Keough dated singer Ryan Cabrera . She was also engaged to her Magic Mike costar Alex Pettyfer in 2013. After breaking up with Pettyfer, she briefly reconnected with Cabrera.

In February 2015, Keough married Australian stuntman Ben Smith-Petersen in Napa, California, having announced their engagement the previous year. The couple had met while filming Mad Max: Fury Road. In 2025 they had their second child.

Keough was raised in the Church of Scientology. As of 2023, she identifies as spiritual and not affiliated with any church. Following his death, Keough became a certified death doula to help others process grief. Her mother Lisa Marie Presley died from cardiac arrest and complications from a bariatric surgery on January 12, 2023, at age 54. At the memorial service, Smith-Petersen delivered a speech written by Keough on her behalf.

Filmography Film

Year Title Role Notes 2010 The Runaways 2011 The Good Doctor 2012 Magic Mike Nora Yellow Young Amanda 2015 Mad Max: Fury Road Capable Dixieland Rachel American Honey Krystal 2017 The Discovery Lacey We Don't Belong Here It Comes at Night Kim 2018 Welcome the Stranger MistyAlso producer Under the Silver Lake Sarah Hold the Dark 2019 The Lodge Earthquake Bird 2020 Zola Stefani The Devil All the Time Sandy Henderson 2021 The Guilty Emily Lighton (voice) 2022 War Pony Co-director, co-writer and producer 2023 Manodrome Mother Cameo; also producer 2024 Sasquatch Sunset Female Sasquatch Also executive producer 2025 Hurry Up Tomorrow Girl on Voicemail / Mother (voice) Jay Kelly Jessica Kelly 2026 Rosebush Pruning Anna Butterfly Jam ZaylaAlso executive producer Completed Post-production

Television Year Title Role Notes 2016 Main role (13 episodes) Paterno Sara Ganim Television film 2022 The Terminal List Lauren Reece Main role (8 episodes) 2023 Daisy Jones & the Six Miniseries (10 episodes) 2024 Under the Bridge Rebecca Godfrey Main role (8 episodes); also executive producer

Music videos Year Title Artist Role 2013"TKO" Girlfriend 2016 "Muffins" Them Guns Herself2022 "Hexie Mountains" Woman 2025 "I Love You" Tobias Jesso Jr. Herself

Accolades