![]() “How do you take Elvis, who’s seen as this icon or this caricature, strip all that away and find out who he really was as a man?” Diving into the researchīorn in Anaheim and discovered at 12 when he tagged along with his brother to an audition, Butler got his start on tween comedies including “Hannah Montana,” “Zoey 101” and ABC Family’s “Ruby and the Rockits” before moving to New York at 20. “That was the test that I saw in front of me,” said Butler, who likened it to being a detective, piecing together a psychological profile with what clues he could find. Then the work of finding and translating Presley’s heart and soul began. But the humanity, Austin had from the get-go.”īy July, after undergoing months of Elvis workshops - and an unsolicited call from Broadway co-star Washington, who told Luhrmann, “You’re in for a surprise when you see the work ethic of this young man,” said the director - Butler had beaten out the likes of Miles Teller and Harry Styles for the role. This is the most impersonated man on the planet. And that might have been my mission, but Austin Butler was the one that flew the plane. “My number one mission was to humanize him. Instead, Luhrmann describes it as an exploration of America, with Presley symbolizing what made it great and Parker as the showman who never lost sight of “the sell.” At the center of the 159-minute film, seen in flashes of magnetism, talent, live-wire energy and, ultimately, tragedy culminating in death in 1977 at age 42, is the vision that both director and star shared.Įveryone has some notion of who Elvis was, “but what gets lost is that the guy is just a guy - it’s the humanity of him,” Luhrmann said. Tom Parker ( Tom Hanks, donning a body suit, an unscrupulous twinkle and thick accent), “Elvis” is no straight biopic. and find out who he really was as a man?įramed by the unreliable narration of Elvis’ longtime manager, Col. That was the test that I saw in front of me: How do you take Elvis. Eventually his trips became more frequent and a workspace was set up in Graceland’s archives for him and co-writer Sam Bromell (the two share a screenplay credit with Craig Pearce and Jeremy Doner). Luhrmann had been doing his own deep Elvis research and in 2017 traveled to Memphis “undercover.” There he bought a ticket for himself to visit Graceland, slipping in unnoticed among throngs of tourists. When Luhrmann watched the submission from Butler, a young actor he didn’t know anything about, “it didn’t feel like an audition,” said the Oscar-nominated “Moulin Rouge!” director. “And that way of channeling those emotions just felt true.” Revisiting “Unchained Melody” not as a romantic song but one of grief, “I sang it to my mom,” said Butler. Thinking of his mother, who passed away from cancer in 2014 when he was 23 - the same age Elvis was when his mother, Gladys, died - he tapped into what would shape his eventual portrayal. He’d studied the songs and the way Elvis sang, but he wasn’t yet sure that he was the one for the job. At first, he tried recording himself singing Elvis’ 1956 ballad “Love Me Tender,” but “it looked like an impersonation,” he said, sipping an iced coffee last month at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, “and I thought, ‘I can’t send this.’” He devoured every Elvis documentary, every film, every YouTube fan video he could find. It started that day with Elvis’ entire discography, which Butler put on shortly after getting the call, as he painted and plastered the old house he was living in. Movies Baz Luhrmann’s unruly ‘Elvis’ shakes up the Cannes Film FestivalĪustin Butler plays the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll and Tom Hanks plays his ruthless manager in the Cannes-premiered biopic. “I threw all my eggs in one basket,” said Butler, now 30, with a lingering hint of a honeyed drawl, of the immersion he undertook to nab the coveted lead in Luhrmann’s big-budget gamble “Elvis.” “I knew that the only way that I could do it was if I gave it everything that I had.” in Hollywood,” making his Broadway debut opposite Denzel Washington in “ The Iceman Cometh” - the rising actor put all auditions and meetings on hold for the next five months to concentrate on landing the role of a lifetime. Or rather, his agent did, to say that filmmaker Baz Luhrmann was making a movie about Presley’s life.Ĭoming off several milestones the previous year - filming Jim Jarmusch’s “ The Dead Don’t Die” and Quentin Tarantino’s “ Once Upon a Time. Elvis seemed to be everywhere, but it was a dream role that felt impossible. A friend, hearing him sing along to “Blue Christmas” in the car, had urged him to portray the icon one day others brought it up too. ![]() It was early 2019 in Los Angeles, and Austin Butler already had Elvis on the brain.
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