Austin Butler auditioned for life-changing Elvis role in bathrobe
express.co.ukElvis Presley and directed by musical film icon Baz Luhrmann. Speaking on Australian talk show The Project, Butler laughed when asked about his unique audition attire saying: “I’ll never live that one down.”He noted that the move was not intentional, but rather a spur of the moment to do what Elvis would do.
Butler had thrown himself into the mountains of research on Elvis Presley as preparation and when delving into who the person was behind the microphone.He made an eerie connection that honed his sense of Elvis completely: they had both lost their mothers at the age of 23.
Butler’s agent had asked him to tape a song for Luhrmann to listen to, and he started with a version of Love Me Tender. Upon listening to the tape Butler realised he could not stand the “impersonation”, let alone send it to Luhrmann and decided to try again at a later point.
Butler shared: “I had this nightmare a couple nights later that brought up a lot of grief for something that happened in my life and it was that thing you know when you wake up in an awful place and think today’s going to be an awful day. “But I had been obsessing so much about Elvis that I thought ‘What would he do with this?’ and he would put it all into music.”In an interview with Total Film he revealed that the nightmare he had was reliving his mother’s death.
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