He couldn’t help falling in love with this role.
Austin Butler’s dedication to the starring role in “Elvis” took more than just learning how to embody the King of Rock and Roll’s hearty voice, guitar skills and swiveling hips.
“What I’m trying to learn is how to balance ‘real life’ with when you’re giving into the obsession of a role, ‘cause I didn’t see my family for, I mean it turned out to be three years,” the “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” actor, 30, told E! News’ “Daily Pop” this week.
He went on to say that isolation extended to his friends, too.
“I didn’t see any one of my friends for that entire time,” said Butler. “So it was like the rest of my life, suddenly I compartmentalized.”
Going forward, Butler told the outlet that he’s trying to stay more grounded: “Every day is this thing of going, ‘OK, what is reality?’ and just staying grateful and really just not allowing those things to make me feel like they are me.”
Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis Presley biopic, co-starring Tom Hanks, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival last month and is set to hit theaters next week. Though reception to the film has been a mixed bag thus far, its leading man has received glowing reports.
That warm reception has even come straight from Presley’s surviving relatives: ex-wife Priscilla Presley, daughter Lisa Marie Presley, and granddaughter and “Zola” star Riley Keough.
“It’s very intense to watch when it’s your family,” said Keough, 32, noting she saw “Elvis” with both her mother, 54, and grandmother, 77. “I started crying five minutes in and didn’t stop. There’s a lot of family trauma and generational trauma that started around then for our family. I felt honored they worked so hard to really get his essence, to feel his essence. Austin captured that so beautifully.”
Lisa Marie previously said she’s seen the film twice: “If [Butler] doesn’t get an Oscar for this, I will eat my own foot, haha.”
———
