Austin Butler Spent Hours Laughing By Himself on a Beach to Prepare for ‘Elvis’
Austin Butler has brought joy back to method acting for the movies. The Elvis actor’s intensive approach to inhabiting the larger-than-life subject of the film shows the positive side of this intensive approach to acting. He put in an almost unprecedented effort to support director Baz Luhrmann’s vision and to honor the living Presley family.
There are certainly some odd aspects to Butler’s approach. That includes his habit of laughing by himself on a beach, trying to perfectly capture Elvis Presley’s spirit. But all of it paid off on screen, even if the young actor can’t seem to shake the voice he spent three years perfecting.
Austin Butler put unbelievable dedication into learning to speak like Elvis Presley
The bloom fell off the rose of method acting after years of stories of actors being abusive on set. No such tales emerged from Butler’s intensive Elvis process, however. He was actually on the receiving end of some humiliation, thanks to Luhrmann’s plan to teach the confident Butler how a shy young Presley felt in front of his earliest audiences.
Real people hung around to mock Butler while he belted out his incredibly accurate renditions of Elvis’ greatest hits. Butler felt humiliated and was even driven to tears at one point. But he insists this process was crucial to empathizing with how the once-shy Presley felt about exposing his music to other people early on.
In an interview on Jimmy Kimmel Live!,the Elvis star opens up about his personal methods of becoming closer to the Blue Suede Shoes singer. He obsessively watched recordings of the late singer. He covered his apartment in pictures, hoping to immerse himself Presley’s mindset.
And, in an almost absurd level of dedication, he spent hours just practicing Presley’s unique laugh. He did not want to parody his subject, but properly inhabit him. So he would walk a beach by himself, listening to recordings and practicing that iconic chuckle again and again.
Austin Butler’s memorable Golden Globes speech demonstrates how much working on ‘Elvis’ changed his life
Butler has already received a high-profile award for his incredible efforts in Elvis. He won the Best Actor in a Motion Picture Drama award at the 2023 Golden Globe Awards. He gave an impassioned speech, with a particular focus on the Presley family. He thanked them for trusting him to “capture the essence of a man they love so much.”
One thing stuck out during the speech, though: Butler seemed like he hadn’t quite shaken off Mr. Presley just yet. Even his red-carpet interviews had the actor regularly dipping into a voice much more like his Elvis vocal work than his own voice. Butler acknowledged this shortly after the ceremony.
“I think, I often liken it to when somebody lives in another country for a long time,” Butler told ET Online. “And I had three years where that was my only focus in life, so I’m sure that there’s just pieces of my DNA that will always be linked in that way.”
The actor will show a very different side of himself in ‘Dune: Part Two’
Butler will likely shed some of Presley’s wonderful energy in his next role. Dune: Part Two takes on the more intense and controversial back half of Frank Herbert’s original novel. And the Once Upon a Time in Hollywood actor will inhabit one of Herbert’s more brutal and sociopathic characters.
Movie fans may remember the character from the tense knife fight scene in David Lynch’s adaptation of Dune. That version, played by the singer Sting, was horrifyingly weird. Director Denis Villeneuve’s update will likely be in line with the even scarier incarnation seen in the novel.
Butler’s already throwing himself into it in the lead-up to filming, just as he did with Elvis. Gamerant reports that Butler is currently in an intensive training program with a Navy SEAL to prepare for the role.
