Appearances

Title	Role	Year	Approx. Age
Elvis	Young Elvis	2022	15

Chaydon Jay was born in Sydney and raised in the Gold Coast suburb of Runaway Bay on the eastern edge of Australia, so his accent is nothing like young Elvis' shy Mississippi drawl, a role he is known for in Buz Lurhman's Elvis (2022).

Claydon has grown from 5-foot-3 to 5-foot-10 in the 18 months since he acted as the young Elvis Presley in the Tupelo sequences. "That's a centimeter per month," he said. He was 13 when he made the movie; on June 20 2022, he turned 15.

Despite the voice, despite the height, a surprising number of visitors to Graceland on Friday recognized Chaydon, who was making his first tour of Elvis' home with his mother and aunt as part of a five-week U.S. road trip that has reached such Elvis-associated sites as Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Nashville (RCA's Studio B), Tupelo, Sun Studio and, finally, Graceland.

Unlike the recent Graceland visit by Luhrmann and "Elvis" stars Austin Butler and Tom Hanks, Chaydon's trip to Memphis wasn't hosted by Warner Bros. or Elvis Presley Enterprises. The family did it on its own.

"Chaydon just was so into his research into young Elvis, he wanted to know more about the man," said Chaydon's mother, Kathryn Seaman, 48, who was accompanied by her sister, Sarah Saleta, 41, an Aussie transplant to Nashville.

As polite with the fans Friday as the actual Elvis was said to be, Chaydon makes a big impression in a relatively short amount of time in Luhrmann's biography of the life and career of Elvis Presley. In his review in The New Yorker, Anthony Lane notes that young Elvis is "played by the striking Chaydon Jay, the rare intensity of whose gaze really does set the kid apart."

In Chaydon's scenes he plays Elvis as a youngster who wears bumpkinesque overalls and a cut-out lightning bolt insignia on a string around his neck, in homage to his favorite comic-book hero, Captain Marvel Jr. In this guise, he soaks in the music and culture of Shake Rag, the Black neighborhood in Tupelo, the Mississippi town where the struggling Presleys lived before Elvis' father, Vernon Presley, moved the family to Memphis in 1948.

Young Elvis is equally overcome by the juke-joint blues of Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup and the Pentecostal fervor of a gospel tent-show revival; he runs from one to the other on a path of wooden planks ? a sort of literal dotted line that connects the two ecstatic experiences.

A frequent performer in Australian television commercials, Chaydon said he has been in "the industry" since he was 8, which must be true, since he referred to the film-and-television business as "the industry."

He said his agent recommended him to Luhrmann in late 2020, which led to some intense one-on-one rehearsals with the director on a Gold Coast soundstage before he was offered the part.

"Lutz said he'd like to invite me into the family, which is really the kindest way of telling you that you have the part," Chaydon said.

Before Chaydon was hired for the film, "the only thing I had heard about Elvis was the stories grandparents would tell. Everybody knows the name, but I didn't know much about him."

That quickly changed, as Chaydon "listened to Elvis exclusively for three months," during filming. Normally, he said, "I listen to a lot of Kendrick Lamar, Kanye West ? you know, the basics." Now, he calls Elvis "probably the most impactful and significant artist in history."

Chaydon said he trained extensively with a "movement coach" while working on "Elvis," so his onscreen convulsions would signify as both evidence of heavenly transport and a harbinger of rock 'n' roll. He also credited Luhrmann's "guidance."

Whatever the sources of Chaydon's performance, moviegoers seem to dig it ? and the movie in general. Luhrmann's "Elvis" is a hit, topping "Top Gun: Maverick" at the box-office on its opening weekend at the end of June, and collecting $80 million to date at the North American box office. Chaydon said the U.S. trip has been an eye-opener and a mind-expander. In Tupelo, which he pronounced Too-PELL-oh, "the energy was just so surreal. There's a statue of Elvis when he was 13, with the same costume I wore in the film." (Minus the lightning bolt.)

Chaydon doesn't have any major follow-up roles booked yet, but he's confident "Elvis" will boost his career. But whatever happens, "I will forever be impacted by this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity... It will forever be a major part of my life."