The film “Elvis” will premiere on July 14; watch the trailer
The day of Austin Butler’s last video audition for Elvisdirector Baz Luhrmann asked him a lot.
Butler spent five months preparing for that moment, practicing the role with Luhrmann, rehearsing makeup and hair, rehearsing songs. Against all odds, Butler has emerged as the unlikely favorite for the role of more established names like Harry Styles, Miles Teller and Ansel Elgort. But it wasn’t official yet.
And during the video test, Luhrmann changed the script. Some of the scenes Butler had prepared were eliminated. In others, Luhrmann gave him jokes behind the camera. the only minute of Suspicious minds that Butler should have appeared in an Elvis Presley suit has been stretched to six.
“I went home and thought, ‘I don’t think I did. I felt like my hands were tied behind my back,'” Butler said in a recent interview.
A week later, in Los Angeles, the 30-year-old actor’s phone rang. Luhrmann was calling from Australia.
“I look at the phone and think, ‘OK, this is the time,'” says Butler. “I picked up the phone and it was very dramatic and in a depressed tone. He said, ‘Austin, I just wanted to be the first to call you and tell you … Are you ready to fly, Mr. Presley?’ “
when Elvis slated for theatrical release in Brazil on July 14, it will resurrect one of the most iconic figures in American music in the biggest and most dazzling film ever to capture the king of rock ‘n’ roll. And that’s going to take Butler, a native of Orange County, California, known so far for his game Tex Watson in Once upon a time … in Hollywoodin Quentin Tarantinofor a much larger stage.
“It all sounds like a wonderful dream,” Butler said the morning after the film’s premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. “I have to take a few moments to take a deep breath and say, ‘This is real life.'”
What is real and what is false in the exaggerated land of the much-imitated Elvis hasn’t always been easy to discern. Elviswhich Luhrmann co-wrote, is not a standard biopic about Elvis Presley, but tells his story through Presley’s infamous manager, Colonel Tom Parker (Tom Hanks), a former carnival barker who drove Presley to stardom. but he exploited and manipulated it until his death in 1977. Parker tells the story, adding a dimension to the nature of the show and performance.
“Baz said at the first meeting, ‘Look, this is a story of two people. There would never have been an Elvis without Colonel Tom Parker and, according to him, there would never have been a Colonel Tom Parker without Elvis,” he says. Hanks. “As soon as he said it, I thought, ‘Well, this is going to be new territory and worthy of Baz’s confetti-filled maximalist cinematic style.’
And just like The Great Gatsby And Moulin Rouge, Elvis it really is a flamboyant and maximalist Baz-style vent. As you’d expect, it goes through pivotal moments in the life of the Memphis, Mississippi singer, and a jukebox of songs. But “Elvis” also offers a younger, more rebellious portrayal of Presley as a product of black gospel music, an eyeliner sex symbol, and a progressive maverick whose controlled career reflected the cultural battles of then and today. Butler is an electric Elvis, not an over-the-top nostalgic act, with more Bowie than you might expect.
“I’m not here to tell the world that Elvis is a great person. I’ll tell you what he is to me,” says Luhrmann. “Everyone has their Elvis.”
“My job is usually to take things that are considered boring, outdated or irrelevant, dust them off and recode them,” says Luhrmann, who created the modern Romeo + Juliet. “Not to change them, just to retranslate them so that their value is present again.”
Presley’s value to contemporary audiences, although still beyond that of most of his contemporaries, has declined slightly. For many he represents the appropriation of black music. Some relatively recent productions: the 2005 Broadway musical Everything shookthe show Long live Elvis from Cirque du Soleil in Las Vegas – did not become very popular.
All of this meant Butler had a lot on his shoulders. It was essential for him to find ways to make Presley more human than superhuman. A resounding connection for the actor was learning that Presley’s mother died when he was 23, the same age Butler was when he lost his mother. And like Presley, an initially shy artist, Butler was shy too.
“So I might think, ‘When I feel scared and I feel all the pressure is on me and I’m afraid of breaking my face, he’s heard those things too,'” Butler says. “So I thought, ‘It’s okay to be afraid. It depends on how you channel it.'”
Elvis is most poignant in his second half, in the Las Vegas section of the film, when Presley often achieved high artistic heights on stage during his 1969-1976 stint at the International Hotel, but became increasingly attached to Parker (who turned down the international tour of Presley).) And drug use. Priscilla Presleywho enthusiastically supported the film, is played by Olivia De Jonge.
“A lot of the characters in this film are larger than life and genuinely larger than life,” says DeJonge. “With Priscilla, I wanted to make sure she was grounded and like Elvis’ breath, so that whenever he was with her, he was relaxed.”
Before Elvis starting filming in Memphis, Hanks dined with Priscilla Presley, who later described her ex-husband as “an artist as unique as Picasso and popular as Charlie Chaplin who truly felt himself and at home only when he sang.”
While an evil role is a rare thing for Hanks – who tested positive for the coronavirus while filming the film in Australia, an unforgettable moment since the start of the pandemic -, Elvis it is also common for the actor, as it deals with American history and exists as a standalone drama. Elvis will primarily compete with franchises in theaters this summer.
“The franchise concept is now part of the entertainment industry complex which, to me, isn’t very fun,” says Hanks. “Everyone knows I’ve been doing this for a long time, so I think they’re so confident they’ll get everything from me that they’ll decide later if it was worth it or not.”
The reviews have been very positive for Elvis, but they were great for Butler. (In the film, he sings some songs while Presley’s voice is used in others.) The actor says he devoted two years of his life to the film, obsessively researching Presley and gradually becoming him. Butler went through daily rehearsals imagining himself as Presley. When the film ended, Butler had to struggle to close.
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“All of a sudden I was brushing my teeth again, now I am doing these mundane things. It was a real life crisis when I was done,” says Butler. “The next morning I woke up and couldn’t walk. I thought my appendix had burst. I had the most terrible pain in my stomach area, so they took me to the ER. It’s amazing how your body can handle it while you ‘ you’re doing something. “
The first big scene Butler filmed, on the second day of production, was that of Presley filming his all-important return special. The scene put an isolated leather-clad butler on stage, with little to rely on aside from his ability to thrill a crowd. The nervousness almost got the better of him.
“But that whole career of terror as if it was happening in this movie is exactly what Elvis was feeling,” says Butler. “His music career was at stake. It was all or nothing for him. And I could build on that. So I went there and it was like having an out-of-body experience.” / TRANSLATION LÍVIA BUELONI GONÇALVES
Source: Terra
Emily Jhon is a product and service reviewer at Gossipify, known for her honest evaluations and thorough analysis. With a background in marketing and consumer research, she offers valuable insights to readers. She has been writing for Gossipify for several years and has a degree in Marketing and Consumer Research from the University of Oxford.
