BURNING LOVE
In December 2013, Riley Keough came to Australia for a month and left with her soulmate, husband Ben Smith-Petersen. Here, the actor – and Elvis’s granddaughter – reflects on her Australian love story.
We shot Mad Max: Fury Road in Namibia, which is where I met Ben. He was on the stunt crew. I knew who he was, but I was in a relationship, so I wasn’t looking at anyone in that way. And then a year later we had to do reshoots in Sydney. The only other time I’d been to Australia was auditioning for Mad Max. I was there for about 24 hours and I stayed right on the harbour and ate a bunch of Tim Tams. But it was a very brief encounter. I was so excited to go back, and I was in a place in my life where I just really wanted to have a nice trip to Australia. I planned to stay for a month. Two of my best friends are Australian: Abbey Lee and Gina Gammell. Gina’s parents had a house in Paddington, and we stayed there.
I was just out of a relationship that I needed to recover from, so definitely wasn’t looking for anything. Ben was on set and I saw him. It had been a year, and he just felt more grown up and there was something about him. I was like, “Oh wow.” He felt so much more mature. We were in Fox Studios in Sydney. He came up to me and said, “Can I send you my music to listen to?” and I said, “Sure.” I told him, “I’m here for a month, I don’t have much to do … maybe you could teach me to surf?”, which is hilarious, because I’m so terrified of sharks and I would never surf now.
I decided to go to Melbourne with Abbey Lee for a few days. While we were there, I had this realisation that I thought Ben was cute. I found myself wanting to text him. When we got back to Sydney, Gina had this amazing little cosy get-together at her house, with beautiful music, and I texted him and said, “Do you want to come over to Gina’s house?” We had a couple of drinks and I remember we had a connection. He started salsa dancing with me and teaching me, because he grew up dancing. It was such a fun night. A few of us went to one of the bays for a swim and it was really magic.
Americans don’t really do things like that. It felt like a fun adventure. We ended up kissing that night and the next day we went to Camp Cove and got in the water and I hugged him and it felt like I didn’t want to be away from him. I just felt so comfortable. This was our first day hanging out after we kissed! We were in the water and looking around at all the beautiful houses and we started making a joke about when we get married, which house should we buy? It was a silly joke because we had only hung out for a day. But in hindsight, it’s funny because we did get married.
Falling in love in Australia was amazing. He started taking me all around Sydney to these little places he loved. We broke into the back of a building because he was like, “I want you to see this amazing view.” We got matching tattoos the third day we hung out, just for fun, never thinking the relationship would go anywhere. We did all these adventures and it was this magical week. He was living in an apartment in an old church with stainedglass windows. I stayed over with him and the sun came in through this
beautiful stained glass. I woke up that morning and was like, ‘I can’t leave him. I feel like this is something really special.’ And it had only been a week.
But my trip was over. It was a week before Christmas. He’s from Byron Bay and planned on going up there to see his family. I was planning to fly to England to see mine. We hit this point where I realised I was falling in love and I think he kind of realised the same thing. In my mind, I was like, ‘I shouldn’t go, but it’s weird to stay, because he’s going to Byron, and I don’t really know what to do.’ And then he just said, “Hey, do you want to drive up to Byron with me?”, and I was like, “Definitely.” I postponed my trip home so I was flying out on Christmas Eve. And then we started driving. I remember he was singing all these songs in the car; I think he sang every Paul Kelly song on the drive. We went to The Big Banana and he took me to this hill and we drove up to the top to a beautiful lookout over the ocean. The cicadas were so loud that I couldn’t hear him talk. It was unreal.
We stopped at this little gas station to get chips and fill up the tank. We were so young, he was 22 and I was 24, just getting coffee and smoking cigarettes, without a care in the world. I remember as he walked out of the gas station, I so strongly had this feeling, and it was, ‘That’s the father of your children.’ It was so crazy because we had only really hung out for a week.
We had a beautiful time in Byron. We went to little bars and got beers and walked up to the lighthouse, we swam in watering holes and jumped off cliffs and ate incredible food. It was just so amazing and when you’re falling in love everything is amazing. But also, Australia is especially amazing. I really did fall in love with my husband and also Australia in the same couple of weeks. I would love to live there, or have a place there, eventually. These are probably the most magical memories of my life.
And then my time was up. The last night together we were on the trampoline in his family’s backyard, looking at the stars. It was still so early that we weren’t being forward, but I knew I was in love with him. He drove me to the airport and I just said, “Why don’t you come to England with me?” And he was like, “I could.” I flew to England and then 24 hours later he got on a flight and met me there and he never went home.
We moved in together after two months and six months in he asked me to marry him and then we were married a year later. Technically, our first wedding was in Nepal, because we were there building a school a couple of weeks before we got married. The families knew we were getting married and they said, “Let us throw you a Hindu wedding.” It was so beautiful and, in some ways, that wedding was a little more intimate and really special. That wedding, I cried. At my bigger wedding I was a little nervous, I wasn’t as present. But it was still equally as amazing.
My husband is such a good person. He’s calm and loyal and strong and sensitive. He’s my best friend. It’s our ninth year together and we don’t stop talking. Relationships I had prior to Ben, you hit a point where maybe you don’t have as much in common with the person as you thought. And we just don’t have that. We are always talking and we’re always excited to get on the phone and chat. I love that. We’ve had some amazing big things happen, but also just the quiet moments when you’re in someone else’s presence and they make everything more joyful. At the end of the day, there is no side of me that he doesn’t know or love, and vice versa.
Love turns into different things over the years, and I’m excited to see all the different phases it goes through. I’m excited to wake up and be in our house, and have our coffee, and Ben goes for a surf and we’re just hanging out when we’re older. I’m excited to have kids. Everything is exciting to me, with him. Every day is exciting when you’re with your soulmate.