Riley Keough didn't think she'd be "taken seriously" in Hollywood.
Riley Keough makes her co-directional debut with 'War Pony'
The 34-year-old star is the granddaughter of late music icon Elvis Presley - her mother is the late Lisa Marie Presley and her ex-husband Danny Keough - and she started her movie career in 2010 at the age of 20 in the supporting role in the musical biopic 'The Runaways' as Marie Currie.
Riley went on to have parts in 2011's 'The Good Doctor' and 2012's 'Magic Mike' before landing a role in the 2015 blockbuster 'Mad Max: Fury Road'.
And despite her family's connections to the industry, the actress admits she never expected to be given so many offers for roles.
She told The Guardian newspaper that she's had “Amazing opportunities! I walked into agencies, met with agents."
However, she admitted: “I felt that I wouldn’t be taken seriously.”
The 'Daisy and The Six' star's latest project was co-directing 'War Pony' with Gina Gammell, both of whom made their directional debuts with the drama.
The flick won the Caméra d'Or, which is awarded for the best first feature film, at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival.
However, it nearly didn't happen.
The flick "Follows the intertwined lives of two young Lakota boys living on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation."
Riley said: "There wasn’t anxiety because we didn’t even know if this was a real thing. Nobody in Pine Ridge thought this was a real movie. A lot of us thought it was going to go nowhere.”
While it features indigenous actors, the crew members that were not Native Americans received “cultural competency” lessons.
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