Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis Presley biopic Elvis stars Austin Butler as the iconic “Jailhouse Rock” singer. Butler himself sings in the movie, however previous to portraying Elvis on display, Butler had solely ever sung for his girlfriend, mannequin Kaia Gerber.
Austin Butler sings in ‘Elvis’
Austin Butler first emerged as an actor in 2000s youngsters’s exhibits similar to Ned’s Declassified College Survival Information, Hannah Montana, Zoey 101, and iCarly. As an grownup, he appeared in Quentin Tarantino’s As soon as Upon a Time in Hollywood and in the Broadway play The Iceman Cometh.
Butler instructed CBS Sunday Morning was a frightening job for him to tackle. “When you look at Elvis as this iconic superhuman figure, it’s hard not to feel small,” he stated. “And so for me, my task was finding as much humanity and similarity and the realness as I could.”
In the film, Butler himself sings Elvis’ songs from his youthful years.
Austin Butler had solely carried out for his girlfriend, Kaia Gerber
Based on Mirror, Butler had solely ever sung in entrance of his girlfriend earlier than starring in Elvis. His girlfriend is 20-year-old mannequin Kaia Gerber, the daughter of supermodel Cincy Crawford.
“Before this I was so shy. I would never sing in front of anybody. I would maybe sing in front of my girlfriend, but that was it,” he admitted. “Then, sure enough, Baz threw me in at the deep end right from the beginning.”
Austin Butler sang for his ‘Elvis’ audition
It seems that Butler’s voice is what landed him the function. He defined in a 2022 interview with Vogue about how an impromptu singing session led him to the film.
“I’d been watching all these documentaries and learned a couple of days prior that Elvis’s mom had died when he was 23, the same as me,” Butler recalled. “I thought he probably had nights where he woke up from nightmares. So what can I do with that?”
He determined to document himself at his piano taking part in a basic Elvis music. “I sat down at the piano in my bathrobe and just started fiddling,” he stated. “I’d been practicing ‘Unchained Melody’ for a while, but I’d always been singing it to a lover. That night, I sang it to my mom. I wasn’t trying to look and sound like Elvis. I wasn’t trying to do anything but take that emotion and pour it into the song.”
He instructed CBS Sunday Morning that he was fascinated about the actual that means of the music and what it meant to him. That ended up being what director Baz Luhrmann fell in love with. “I thought, ‘Well, it’s really about missing somebody and needing love.’ So I sang it to my mom and that’s what got Baz’s attention.”