Last year saw the release of Baz Luhrmann’s newest film, Elvis. As the namesake suggests, the movie follows the king of rock and roll through the highs and lows of his career.
Playing Elvis Presley was Austin Butler. He saw an immense amount of praise for his performance, even earning nomination for Best Actor at the Academy Awards. This year, he’s going to return to screen in Dune: Part 2, and Masters Of The Air. The latter project was produced by Steven Spielberg and fellow Elvis costar, Tom Hanks. It’s the newest in an ongoing series of World War II productions from the pair, which includes Band Of Brothers, and The Pacific.
According to Variety, Hanks was actually the reason why Butler was able to get the part to begin with. When speaking with The Times Of London, Butler told them that Hanks grew concerned for his mental state, after taking such an immense dive into playing Elvis.
As Butler states, Hanks told him, “You have immersed yourself so deeply in Elvis that, for your mental health, it would be wise to go straight into something else. If you just jump off the train, you might have emotional whiplash… and, you know, I’ve got this thing I’m producing.’”
As far as playing Elvis goes, Butler said he had “to go to the very edge of what is possible, and not every experience will be like that. I don’t think I’ll ever have an experience like that again, but if I have to really dig, it makes me feel alive.”
Butler even said that he went so far with the role, that after wrapping production, he wound up with a disease akin to appendicitis, which left the young actor bedridden for a week. “The next day [after filming wrapped] I woke up at four in the morning with excruciating pain, and I was rushed to the hospital,” he said. “My body just started shutting down the day after I finished Elvis.”
Elvis is available to stream on Max, and own on Blu-Ray.
Leave a Comment