It turns out Baz Luhrmann had some, um, interesting techniques to garner a great performance from Austin Butler as Elvis Presley.
In a new interview with VMAN Magazine, Butler opened up about the director’s sometimes abrasive methods. On the actor’s very first day in the recording studio, Luhrmann “had all the executives and everybody from RCA” brought into the studio.
“He goes, ‘I want you all to sit facing Austin,’…and he told them to heckle me,” Butler recalled. “So then they were making fun of me and stuff while I was singing.”
The reason? So that Butler “knew what that felt like” when he was performing the scene where Elvis first appears onstage. “I went home in tears that night. I really did,” he added.
It all worked out in the end, with Butler earning highly positive reviews for his portrayal of the singer. The Los Angeles Times review of the biopic hailed Butler as “a decent physical match for Elvis and a better one vocally,” while Time Out said that when the actor “shakes his hips in Elvis’s first gig as a full-blown rock ‘n’ roller, it’s like watching two stars being born.”
Elvis has performed surprisingly well at the box office, recently crossing $210 million at the global box office. The film has also become the second highest-grossing music biopic ever behind only Bohemian Rhapsody.
In a recent interview with Fitzy & Wippa on NovaFM, Luhrmann gushed about Butler’s talent, saying he was “born to play” the role of the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll. “The thing about Aust was that he will tell you himself, I didn’t pick him, it’s as if he was drawn like the role drew them in because he was almost born to play it,” he said.
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Check out the trailer for Elvis:
