How Austin Butler became Elvis ...

Brut America

He studied Elvis Presley obsessively for 2 years to play the title role.   Now, Austin Butler tells Brut how this helped him with his own anxieties ... #Cannes2022

Transcript

00:00How do you become Elvis?

00:01That was the question.

00:03I watched that skinny boy transform into a superhero.

00:08Wait!

00:09I mean, his entire career, he would talk about stage fright.

00:13And I didn't realize that Elvis would have ever felt that.

00:21I was incredibly shy as a kid.

00:23And I still, I now have techniques or ways

00:27that I kind of get over being shy.

00:30But my foundation is that.

00:34And learning that Elvis was a shy kid,

00:38that he would want to play the guitar,

00:40but he would ask everybody to turn the lights out and turn

00:42around so that way he could play when nobody's actually

00:45looking at him.

00:46You want to become a dramatic actor.

00:49Is that right?

00:50So that's my big ambition.

00:53I hope I make it.

00:54That's what I want to do.

00:56He felt a responsibility, and he felt scared, and he felt shy.

01:01And how did he push through it?

01:02And where did he focus his energy?

01:04And so for me, that taught me a lot,

01:06just even dealing with my own anxieties or fears

01:09or anything like that.

01:11It really, yeah, it taught me a lot.

01:14I mean, Austin did an incredible job.

01:30He really studied Elvis like I cannot believe it.

01:33All his habits, his gestures, his laugh.

01:37When his talent is here, he's going to pull it out

01:39and let you hear the beat.

01:42I can't move.

01:43I can't sing.

01:43It was, I knew from the outset that finding his humanity

01:49was the thing that I was most interested in.

01:52So it was all in service of trying

01:54to find who he was as a man.

01:59But at the same time, I wanted to be as specific as I possibly

02:02could.

02:02And so for me, it was watching every bit of footage

02:09that was out there.

02:13And I was so privileged to get some home movies

02:16that Grayson sent me that aren't public,

02:19and that was really helpful to get

02:21to see who he was just hanging out in the living room.

02:26And I would listen to every interview

02:28of his countless times and just absorbing everything

02:32that I could.

02:33I lived this for two years.

02:34I put the rest of my life on pause.

02:36So you can't help, but it becomes a part

02:39of your daily life, you know?

02:41So I definitely know my voice slips into it at times.

02:45There's a lot of people saying a lot of things.

02:48But in the end, you got to listen to yourself.

02:51And then getting specific and just obsessing

02:53about one thing, like it might be the way he said one word.

02:56And I would just spend all day just

02:57obsessing about this one word.

02:59I'm ready.

03:00Ready to fly.

03:01Or it'd be the way, why does he touch his face

03:03in a certain way?

03:04And it was always trying to find, why does he do that?

03:07Why does he move in that way?

03:08And some of that was just even asking questions

03:11about his own spiritual journey or that sort of thing.

03:14So it was a constant thing of trying to find it every day.

03:21Everyone once told me, when things are too dangerous

03:24to say, sing.

03:26To watch the character sort of linger in him

03:29between scenes and between days, obviously,

03:32when we were off working, hanging out, it was incredible.

03:36I felt like I was watching the real thing.

03:38And I think to see the past and the present

03:41come together through him and through Baz and CM

03:44was just an experience that you can't, you know?

03:47It was incredible.

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