Actor Austin Butler initially didn’t assume he had something in frequent with legendary crooner Elvis Presley.
However after deep-diving into the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll’s private life, the 30-year-old actor found a heartbreaking element that in the end related him to the function within the upcoming biopic.
Showing on Today with Hoda and Jenna on Thursday, Butler revealed he struggled to faucet into the character at first.
“Whenever you first take a look at Elvis, he feels a lot bigger than life and also you take a look at him like a God-like determine or a caricature of Elvis, and I fell into that the primary month after I was attempting to work on it,” Butler mentioned.
It wasn’t till he realized that he and the “Hound Canine” hitmaker each misplaced their moms once they have been 23, that he was capable of absolutely join and perceive the crooner’s mindset.
“After I realized about his mother — after which understanding that we have been the very same age — that simply hit me,” he defined. “It was simply a type of issues the place the celebs are aligning and that simply grew to become essentially the most private factor.”
Butler tragically misplaced his mom, Lori Butler, in 2014 after she misplaced her battle with most cancers, he revealed to Vogue in April.
Elvis misplaced his mom, Gladys Presley, in 1958 when she died from a coronary heart assault.
Earlier this month, the movie’s director Baz Luhrmann mentioned Butler was merely “born to play” the function.
“You understand, we will discuss it now, he like loses his mother on the similar age that Elvis did,” Luhrmann mentioned of Butler.
Butler admitted he shut himself off from the remainder of the world in a determined bid to surrender himself to the role.
“I basically put the rest of my life on pause for two years,” Butler said at the Cannes Film Festival last month where the film premiered. “I just absorbed everything that I possibly could.”
