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For: Showbiz Updated 25 May 2022, 14: 38 pm EDT
The actor of 38 years old Austin Butler has gone from being a teen star who appeared on series of Disney and Nickelodeon to play the late Elvis Presley in the new movie musical from director Baz Luhrmann. He made it his mission to make the most of this once-in-a-lifetime career opportunity and prove that the King of Rock’s heirs weren’t wrong when they gave him their blessing to get under their skin.
In the end -and as often happens in this type of project- Austin was completely lost in the world of the character, and the barrier between reality and fiction began to blur as he discovered more parallels between their respective lives. “You can lose touch with yourself. And that definitely happened to me when I finished “Elvis”: I didn’t know who was… His mother passed away when he was 23 years old, and my mother passed away when I was the same age. When I found out, it was a one of those things that gave me chills, and I just thought: ‘Okay, I can connect with that,'” he explained in an interview with the magazine . GQ.
Butler also had the opportunity to meet the old Elvis’s wife, Priscilla Presley, and ended up crying profusely after their meeting because she had seemed “an angel”. In the end, all those emotions took their toll on him on a physical level: his body “began to shut down” less than 24 hours after the end of filming and he had to be taken to the hospital to receive medical treatment for a virus that mimics the symptoms of appendicitis.
Despite this, Austin continues to feel a very close connection with the singer: “Now it comforts me when I get in the car. I say to myself: ‘What do I want to hear?’ I usually end up putting Elvis, I’ve never loved anyone more than Elvis”.
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