Austin Butler: “During filming, I fell asleep and woke up with Elvis”

Paris Match. At only 30 years old, you have chosen a role that is almost impossible for an actor to wear. Did you feel broad enough to play Elvis Presley?
Austin Butler. I’m not going to tell you that I haven’t lived with this weight, that’s obvious. Sometimes I would wake up in the middle of the night, terrified of what awaited me. But work saved me, in a way. During the rehearsal phases, in this long process of preparation, the fear disappeared. Each role, any character, is a challenge for an actor when it comes to understanding its complexity and flaws. But with Elvis, you have to confront an icon on which everyone has an opinion, which everyone perceives in their own way. He is so emblematic of our culture… But hey, this daunting work was also an actor’s pleasure.

Was he a character you were interested in before Baz Luhrmann offered him to you?
Strangely, a few weeks before I learned of the existence of the project, two of my friends had told me that one day I would have to play Elvis. Maybe it was a sign, I don’t know. But the idea caught on.

How did the casting go ?
Nothing happens normally with Baz Luhrmann. When I found out he was preparing the film, I sent him a video of me in my bathrobe, singing Presley. We met and five months of work and exploration followed. In a normal audition, you present a performance. But with Baz, you have to get used to it, work, get something. We would spend days reading a scene, talking about it, coming up with ideas. Sometimes he took his camera, tried something. Then in the evening, he said to me: “Can you come back tomorrow and sing me ‘Suspicious Minds’?” So I went home and spent the evening learning the song… Then, only after these months of research, I did a first filmed test that was going to be presented to the studio. This is where the tension really arose. Because I still didn’t know if I was going to be chosen…

“

I learned to sing like him, talk like him, move like him

“

The filming of the film in Australia, interrupted by the Covid, was not easy. How did you experience this period? Baz Luhrmann told us that you never really leave your character…
I had worked so much upstream that I already knew what I had to do on set. I learned to sing like him, to talk like him. And, with the help of a coach, to move like him. I had analyzed up to his pose of hand and his bodily evolutions in the different parts of his life. I felt like I had climbed Everest. Production stopped for several months before we even started filming. I chose to stay in Australia and continue to work. This additional and unforeseen delay was finally good. My Elvis before this break would surely have been less faithful. Then came the moment of the first scenes, the CBS Special concert, where I must have, somewhere, forgotten all my preparation.

Why ?
Baz asked me to sing live during these takes. I was like Elvis: I put everything on the line, all at once. During the rest of the shoot, I made a daily schedule, waking up and falling asleep listening to Elvis’ voice. I memorized television interviews he had done and replayed them in my living room, word for word. Because in thirty years his voice has also evolved. I couldn’t find Austin too much between takes at that point. I had to stay with Elvis. Once the filming was over, I had lost touch with myself, I didn’t really know who I was anymore. The day after the last take, my body gave up on me and I had to be hospitalized briefly…

“

Elvis was a real rebel. He also had a real political conscience

“

The film is not so much a biopic as a social and political painting of America spanning three decades. What did Elvis represent, in your opinion, of this country in the midst of moral and economic change?
I was obviously seduced by Baz’s words and I even learned a lot about Elvis while preparing for the role. I spent whole days reading everything about him, watching everything that had been filmed. And I understood one thing: Elvis would never have existed without the contribution of African-American music and culture. From his childhood, which he lived, he the little white, in a black neighborhood, until the emergence of the civil rights movement, I understood that he was the perfect character to project the American history of this period. He was also a real rebel. He dared to confront the prudishness of the time, to affirm a certain sexuality. And he also had a real political conscience, without being a pure activist, as Brando could be at that time. But if he didn’t necessarily speak aloud, he sang. Message songs, like “If I Can Dream” or “In the Ghetto”. It was his way of campaigning. Finally, there is this relationship with Parker, his manager. A kind of spiritual father, the one that Elvis lacked, who will nevertheless manipulate him and take advantage of him by making a product of him.

“

Priscilla liked the movie and her words moved me

“

For a young actor like you, being between Baz Luhrmann and Tom Hanks, who plays Colonel Parker, must have been a unique experience, right?
Baz’s reputation as a brilliant filmmaker is well established, but I discovered to what extent he could also be a storyteller. And a delicious guy. I could only have confidence in his not necessarily conventional approach to Elvis. And, above all, watching Baz filming was really impressive. He is a constantly evolving creator, who has an idea at the minute, who constantly dares things. The film has thus greatly evolved between preparation, shooting and editing. As for Tom, I’ve been a fan of his since my childhood, when I watched him in “Forrest Gump”, “Big” or “Alone in the world”. He is a bit like our master. At the same time, there is no one funnier, more welcoming and more benevolent than him on a set. With Tom, it’s a bit like home.

Also read. Austin Butler says he was hospitalized after filming ‘Elvis’

Priscilla Presley saw the movie a few weeks ago with her daughter and granddaughter. And their reactions must have been important to you…
I was in tears. Because their opinion was the one that mattered most to me. Priscilla loved the movie and her words overwhelmed me. I wanted her to be proud of what we did. Because our goal was to do justice to Elvis and, by extension, to his family.

Also read. Tom Hanks, Austin Butler and Baz Luhrmann unveil their “Elvis” at Cannes, opposite Priscilla Presley

There’s a disturbing last scene where you and Elvis become one… How did you feel?
This is one of his last appearances. I remember this scene, I felt a physical disorder, because I was stuck in the Elvis costume, very tight, I had trouble catching my breath. Like him back then. The song “Unchained Melody” is the one I sent to Baz three years ago when I applied for the role… A great way to come full circle!

“Elvis”, by Baz Luhrmann, released on June 22.