Austin Butler and Tom Hanks. Stuart Hardy/ABACAPRESS.COM/Shutterstock
Austin Butler landed one in every of his upcoming initiatives partially due to Tom Hanks’ concern for his well-being following Elvis.
“You’ve gotten immersed your self so deeply in Elvis that, to your psychological well being, it might be sensible to go straight into one thing else,” Butler, 31, recalled Hanks, 67, telling him throughout a Sunday, August 13, interview with The Instances of London. “For those who simply leap off the practice, you might need emotional whiplash … and, , I’ve bought this factor I’m producing.’”
Along with Dune: Half 2, which premieres in November, Butler is slated to seem within the Apple TV+’s Masters of the Air, govt produced by Hanks — who starred in Elvis alongside Butler — and Steven Spielberg. The miniseries serves because the third installment to Hanks and Spielberg’s acclaimed WWII saga after Band of Brothers and The Pacific.
Butler’s Elvis efficiency earned him the 2023 Golden Globe for Finest Actor in a Movement Image — Drama, together with nominations on the 2023 Academy Awards, BAFTAs and Display Actors Guild Awards. Butler was awarded partially for his three-year preparation for the function, which included him hoovering donuts and guzzling melted Häagen-Dazs ice cream to rapidly achieve a bunch of weight to play the older Elvis.
“I heard that Ryan Gosling, when he was going to do The Beautiful Bones, had microwaved Häagen-Dazs and would drink it. So, I began doing that,” Butler defined throughout a February episode of the “Selection Awards Circuit” podcast. “I’d go get two dozen doughnuts and eat all of them. I actually began to pack on some kilos. It’s enjoyable for per week or so, and you then really feel terrible with your self.”
Austin Butler. Warner Bros/Moviestore/Shutterstock
Butler ready so properly that he appeared to have bother letting go of the character — even making headlines for persevering with to talk with Elvis’ southern drawl properly after he wrapped the film. (Butler grew up in Southern California.)
“I don’t suppose I sound like him nonetheless, however I suppose I need to as a result of I hear it lots,” he advised reporters on the Golden Globes in January. “I had three years the place that was my solely focus. So, I’m certain there’s items of him in my DNA and I’ll at all times be linked.”
On Sunday, Butler advised The Instances of London that Elvis compelled him “to go to the very edge of what’s doable,” calling it an expertise he probably gained’t ever have once more. “But when I’ve to essentially dig, it makes me really feel alive,” he defined.
Butler pushed himself so onerous filming the biopic that he “awoke at 4 within the morning with excruciating ache” the day after filming — one thing that finally landed him within the hospital. “My physique simply began shutting down the day after I completed Elvis,” he advised GQ in Might 2022. He was later recognized with a virus that simulated appendicitis, leaving him bedridden for one week.
One month later, Butler opened up about why Elvis caught with him properly after director Baz Luhrmann’s last “lower.”
“I didn’t do the rest for 2 years [apart from working on Elvis], that’s such a big chunk of life. I’m not shocked that it clicks in,” Butler advised Elle Australia in June 2022. “As a result of I’m a shy individual, and once I know that there’s bits of Elvis that I’d should click on into to be able to exit on stage and be in entrance of a ton of individuals, being surrounded by his identify in every single place, there’s triggers. You spend a lot time obsessing about one factor, and it truly is like muscular habits, your mouth can change.”
