Austin Butler: ‘My body stopped working the moment I left Elvis’ skin’

PRODUCTION HAS STARTED six months later. The first scene, Elvis’ great comeback in 1968, was not the easiest to shoot. Austin Butler felt the panic coming but still knew how to maintain his unwavering positivity. Deep down, he wondered how it was possible to work under such pressure for so many days and weeks in a row, let alone an entire career. For an answer, he naturally turned to the most experienced man on set, Tom Hanks. The interpreter of Forrest Gump gave him simple advice: “Every day I try to read something that has nothing to do with the role I’m playing.” This advice was a relief for Butler. “It allowed me to pick up, because until then, I only read everything that had to do with Elvis. I only listened to Elvis. It was Elvis and nothing else,” he says. Elvis was screened in world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, which will undoubtedly amuse purists who know that the King has never given concerts elsewhere than in North America. A disturbing fact that has not escaped Austin Butler: “It was Elvis’ greatest dream, to sing in Europe. He was never able to realize it, for reasons beyond his control.” When filming wrapped in March 2021, Butler had become so invested in the role that his body was found to be particularly weak. “The next day, I woke up at four in the morning with excruciating pain, and I was rushed to hospital,” he says. He was diagnosed with an appendicitis-like virus and spent a week in bed. “My body stopped working the moment I left Elvis’ skin,” the actor recalls. Once recovered from his post-Elvis medical emergency, Butler flies to London where he is expected on the set of Masters of the Airan Apple TV miniseries that follows World War II pilots.

After his quarantine, he participates in a mock boot camp. But the actor still can’t get rid of Elvis. Even in the skin of his new character, he has the impression of embodying the King. “I thought that’s how Elvis must have felt when he joined the army,” he says. There’s the spectacle, the glamour, the shouting of the fans, and then suddenly you’re dressed like everyone else: in fatigues.” Director Cary Fukunaga also remarked: “I was fully aware when he arrived that he was still in his Elvis phase.” Back in Los Angeles, he enjoys a rare moment of respite between two projects. He is said to have been cast as the villainous Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen in Dune: Part Two, succeeding Sting in the original 1984 film. In the future, the young man would like to explore a darker cinema. Why not work with Paul Thomas Anderson or Alejandro Iñárritu. “Leo’s career is a big inspiration for me,” he says. “I think Austin is about to go through what Leo went through,” confirms Luhrmann, who coached the latter in Romeo + Juliet in 1996. When we met, Butler wasn’t quite done with Elvis, since he had to record songs for the film. “At least I know what to listen to when I’m driving. It’s crazy, it’s the first time I love someone so much that I’ve never met.