Austin Butler Says He Was “Rushed to Hospital” After Filming ‘Elvis’ Biopic
When Austin Butler wrapped filming Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis biopic, he quickly learned how much the role took a toll on him physically.
In an interview with GQ published Wednesday, the actor, who portrays the late musical icon in the upcoming film, revealed that after filming finished, he was immediately “rushed to the hospital” after waking up in pain.
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“The next day I woke up at four in the morning with excruciating pain, and I was rushed to the hospital,” Butler said. The actor was diagnosed with a virus that simulates appendicitis and spent a week in recovery, bedridden.
“My body just started shutting down the day after I finished Elvis,” he said.
The role was one Butler found himself engulfed in as he sought to precisely emulate the musical icon as much as he could, by reading, watching and listening to everything Elvis. He also worked with a movement coach to move like Elvis, as well as learned to talk and sing like him and studied animals that resembled the late singer. He also met Presley’s ex-wife, Priscilla Presley, who expressed her support to the actor.
After filming, Butler said he would appear different, even among family. “My family said I didn’t sound like me anymore,” he told the publication.
When production shut down after Tom Hanks was diagnosed and hospitalized with COVID-19, Butler chose to remain in Australia to continue studying Elvis as a means of digging deeper into his role. He said his apartment had “images of Elvis everywhere, from every time period.” He eventually asked Hanks for advice on how he’s managed to keep his sanity in his work over time, to which Butler recalled Hanks advising, “‘Every day I try to read something that has nothing to do with the job that I’m doing.'”
“That gave me permission, because up till that point, I was only reading everything to do with Elvis. I was only listening to Elvis. It was Elvis’s influences and Elvis himself and nothing else,” he said.
Butler also later reflected on finding support from Denzel Washington, whom he worked with in the 2018 Broadway production of Eugene O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh.
“There’s that thing where you meet your heroes, and you want to be their best friend. I was like, ‘That’s not going to happen.’ So, I went into the quickest mentality of ‘I’m not going to try to be his friend, I’m just going to try to do work as well as I possibly can,'” he said. Butler explained that at the time he memorized the entire script and would try to arrive at the theater earlier than Washington, something Washington noticed.
Butler said Washington “started giving me acting advice, and he really took me under his wing. He’d start telling me thoughts about the scene, and suddenly I’ve got Denzel almost as an acting coach.” Washington also called Luhrmann to recommend Butler for the Elvis role.
“I get a phone call out of the blue from Denzel Washington, who I did not know. Denzel Washington just said, in the most incredibly emotional and direct way, ‘Look, I’ve just been onstage with this young actor. I’m telling you, his work ethic is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. I’ve never seen anyone who devotes every single second of their lives to perfecting a role,'” Luhrmann recalled of the conversation.
Unaware of Washington’s call, Butler said, “I was so grateful for that. He didn’t call me beforehand, he didn’t call me after. It was this generous thing that he just did.”
Elvis is set to chronicle Presley’s rise to fame and his relationship with manager Col. Tom Parker (portrayed by Hanks). Warner Bros. described the film as one that will “delve into their complex dynamic spanning over 20 years, from Presley’s rise to fame to his unprecedented stardom, against the backdrop of the evolving cultural landscape and the loss of innocence in America.”
Luhrmann’s Elvis will be released in theaters on June 24.
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