Austin Butler addresses why he is still talking like Elvis Presley: 'It becomes a fiber of your being'
- Austin Butler stars as Elvis Presley in Baz Luhrmann's new biopic.
- Butler said he's still talking like Elvis.
"Elvis" star Austin Butler has said that he is struggling to shake Elvis Presley's distinctive southern accent after starring as the rock-and-roll legend in Baz Luhrmann's forthcoming biopic.
"At this point, I keep asking people, 'Is this my voice?'" Butler told Entertainment Tonight. "It's one of those things where certain things trigger it. When you live with something for two years, and you do nothing else, I think that you can't help it. It becomes a fiber of your being."
Butler stars as Elvis Presley in the biopic, which charts the musician's career through the decades against the backdrop of large cultural shifts in the United States.
In the interview with ET, Butler also discussed his process of performing as Elvis on screen. In the film, Butler recreates several famous Elvis Presley performances, including his classic 1968 television comeback special.
"The thing with him is, they weren't moves, they were coming out of the feel of the music," Butler said of Elvis. "So, for me, it had to be about finding the feeling of the music, moving me in that way. That was really fun. It was liberating."
"What made me nervous was Elvis was so loved and so iconic, you feel responsibility playing any human that has actually lived, but with him it's like, it's a weight like I never felt before," he said.
"And there's a responsibility to his family and also putting his story into context. That's the thing. There were so many misconceptions about him, there's so many ideas of him. So I felt a responsibility to bring the humanity."
The 30-year-old actor has previously discussed the toll portraying Elvis Presley took on his body. In an interview with British GQ, Butler said he was rushed to hospital a day after the film's production ended.
"The next day I woke up at four in the morning with excruciating pain, and I was rushed to the hospital," Butler told the magazine. "My body just started shutting down the day after I finished 'Elvis.'"
Butler said he was diagnosed with a virus that simulated appendicitis, in which the appendix becomes inflamed, and was bedridden for a week.