Actor Austin Butler, 30, had to go through unimaginable situations to play the King of Rock ‘n Roll. The star told in an interview with the magazine “VMan” that he went home crying after being humiliated by the director of “Elvis”, Baz Luhrmann, 59.
++Priscilla Presley praises Austin Butler’s Elvis performance
“Well, when I was on my first day in the recording studio, Baz wanted me to get as close to performing as possible”, Butler recalled. “He had all the executives and everybody from RCA, who were back in the offices, he brought them into the recording studio and he goes, ‘I want you all to sit facing Austin,’…and he told them to heckle me. So then they were making fun of me and stuff while I was singing”.
++James Gunn explains why the trailer for the new Guardians of the Galaxy hasn’t aired yet
But the episode drew out his emotions and helped the actor get into character. “When we were filming this moment when Elvis first goes on stage and he’s getting heckled by the audience, I knew what that felt like,” he says. “I went home in tears that night. I really did”, he said.
Using unconventional methods to direct his actors is nothing new in Baz Luhrmann’s career. Butler himself had already been warned about the peculiarity of this director by Leonardo DiCaprio, who worked with Luhrmann on the films “Romeo + Juliet” (1996) and “The Great Gatsby” (2013).
“I had spoken to Leo before and he said, ‘Baz is gonna push you in ways you didn’t know somebody could. He’s gonna push you off balance and keep you off balance’”.
“Elvis” is now in theaters.