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
Now, Austin Butler tells Brut how this helped him with his own anxieties ... #Cannes2022
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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.