The Oscar winner who “shattered any idea” Austin Butler ever had about acting
Anyone who was on social media around the time Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis was released in cinemas in 2022 will have been privy to the discourse surrounding the voice of Austin Butler, the bloke who plays Elvis in the biopic.
For those that don’t know, Butler basically method acted too hard when he trained for the voice of Elvis, resulting in this strange alternate reality where he took on the characteristic Elvis southern drawl in all subsequent press interviews. Was Elvis, in fact, not dead but instead living inside the voice box of Austin Butler?
Whatever the case, Butler’s sheer commitment to the role cemented his position as one of the most exciting actors of his generation. His talent can be traced back to the early days in LA, where, like many actors, he spent years and years trying to catch that big break, going to hundreds of auditions only to get one small commercial role.
But after a while, that LA scene started to wear thin for Austin Butler, who upped sticks and moved to New York when he was 20. It was on the East Coast that he discovered the wonders of theatre, which completely changed the game for him as an actor. From there, Butler started going to plays every night, sometimes even going to two a day. Before then, theatre hadn’t been a part of the acting culture in LA, whereas in New York, everyone was on the stage, even the huge actors like Robert De Niro and Marlon Brando who had made it in Hollywood.
There’s just something about the stage that sorts the wheat from the chaff. You can’t duck behind a camera, stitch the mistakes out in the edit, or drown it all in special effects. It’s bare-knuckle stuff – one shot, no safety net – and that’s where you see what an actor’s really made of.
For Austin Butler, the one who blew the doors off was Mark Rylance. A proper giant of British theatre, Rylance feels most alive on stage, pulling Richard III and Twelfth Night into the modern age on their 2013 tour. He was the first artistic director at Shakespeare’s Globe in London, so the bloke knows his stuff. Of course, he’s bagged an Oscar too (Bridge of Spies in 2016) but it was the theatre work that rattled Butler.
Watching Rylance command the stage, Butler said later, “shattered any idea I had about acting.”
Five years down the line, Butler hit Broadway with a revival of Eugene O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh, sharing the stage with none other than Denzel Washington. From there, things started to snowball and Butler tightened his focus and got picky about the roles he was chasing.
Recently, big Hollywood actors like George Clooney, Scarlet Johansson and Robert Downey Jr have been making a return to Broadway, with many tired of the sanitisation and perfectionism of the film industry and wanting to flex their muscles elsewhere, especially when the prestigious Tony Award is up for grabs. Hiring big actors also helps theatres sell more tickets, with audiences being drawn to the big names.
It doesn’t look like Austin Butler is going to be making any stage appearances any time soon, though. His most recent film, Caught Stealing, hits cinemas in the UK next week. Nevertheless, his stint on Broadway was definitely instrumental in making him the complex actor he is today, even if he did take his Elvis voice coaching a little too seriously.
