Riley Keough's mother Lisa Marie Presley and her newest character Daisy Jones have more in common than just their affinity for rock 'n' roll, the actress tells PEOPLE.
Keough is amping up to hit the screen (and stage) in Amazon's adaptation of Taylor Jenkins Reid's bestselling novel Daisy Jones & The Six. The Zola actress plays a free-spirited musician who, over the course of the '70s, cements herself as both a rock legend and a feminist icon who's revered by young women and girls for her refusal to conform to gender roles and industry expectations.
When asked if she had a Daisy Jones of her own growing up, the 33-year-old actress said she did — her mom.
"My mother is certainly an inspiration to me," Keough says, adding that the 54-year-old daughter of Elvis and Priscilla Presley is "a very strong, smart woman."
She continues, "I was raised by somebody who did their own thing and didn't really care what other people thought. She was definitely inspirational to me."
Keough reveals she was "always interested in women who weren't behaving 'the right way,'" adding, "I think just women who were liberated were inspiring to me."
The It Comes at Night star says she was "kind of living in the '70s in my mind" in her teen years, a period of her life characterized by a "massive" love of Robert Plant and Led Zeppelin (and emblematized by a Led Zeppelin IV tattoo on her arm), but the music she was raised on wasn't from that era. "My natural ways of moving to music are not period-correct [to Daisy Jones]," she notes.
So, to prepare to fill the larger-than-life shoes Reid created in her 2019 novel, Keough told PEOPLE that she took notes on some of the '70s' most powerful and iconic musicians. The Terminal List actress says she watched "loads of videos" from the era and noticed that "there weren't loads of women who were going wild on stage at the time."
"Of course, there were a few women who were moving that way, but a lot of the time they would just stand there and sing," says Keough. "I think Daisy was inherently a little more comfortable in her own body and being who she is in a way that I think was really difficult for women at that time."
To bring Daisy to life, Keough opted to study legendary rockers like Linda Ronstadt and, of course, Fleetwood Mac frontwoman Stevie Nicks, whose band provided much of the inspiration for Daisy Jones. But ultimately, the actress shares, she followed in her mom's footsteps: "I did my own thing."
Daisy Jones & the Six premieres March 3 on Prime Video.
