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Austin Butler
Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images
Austin Butler is setting the record straight about the time he referred to his ex-girlfriend Vanessa Hudgens as a “friend,” which many people felt minimized their nine-year relationship.
During The Hollywood Reporters 2023 Actor Roundtable, which featured last year’s awards season stars including Butler, Colin Farrell, Brendan Fraser, Jeremy Pope, Ke Huy Quan and Adam Sandler, the elvis The actor was asked if he always wanted to play the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll. He responded with an anecdote, saying that his “friend” had told him that he should do it someday.
“The month before I heard that Baz (Luhrmann) was making the movie, I was going to look at the Christmas lights with a friend, and there was an Elvis Christmas song on the radio, and I was singing along and my friend looked up. He looks at me and says, ‘You have to play Elvis,’” he recalled. “I said, ‘Oh, it’s a long shot.’ Then my agent called and said, ‘So Baz Luhrmann is making an Elvis movie…’.”
At the time, social media was in a tizzy because it was clear he was talking about Hudgens, who posted on Instagram that she had been cast as Elvis Presley when the news broke, and fans felt he was disparaging the role she played in his life. In a cover story for Don posted online on Monday, Butler explained why he referred to her that way at the time.
“I felt like I was respecting her privacy in some way and didn’t want to bring up a bunch of things that would force her to talk,” he told the publication. “I love her and take great care of her. In no way was she trying to erase anything.” She added: “I value my own privacy very much. “I didn’t want to give up anyone else’s privacy.”
Elsewhere in the lengthy profile, Butler also talked about how, when her mother died of cancer in 2014, she considered quitting acting because “she had a lot of turmoil” in her mind. Shortly after her funeral, she had to fly to New Zealand to The Shannara Chronicles. She said she showed up, did her job, and every night after filming, she went back to the hotel and sobbed. Once production wrapped, she decided to take a break for the first time in her career.
Finally, the Oscar nominee believed in his path again. “She realized that her mother wouldn’t want her to stop,” said her longtime friend Ashley Tisdale. Don. “His mother would want him to move on. I think that was a driving force. And I think she’s seeing all these things and now she’s there with him.”
Almost immediately after Butler wrapped production elvisThe actor had to be in London to start filming his new Apple TV+ series masters of the air. But the actor had spent so much time becoming Elvis Presley that he had a hard time breaking out of the person he embodied for years, even though he was already working on another project.
When he wasn’t in front of the cameras, playing Buck Cleven on the series, he was working to rediscover himself. “He was just trying to remember who he was,” he told the publication. Similar to the way he had a dialect coach to adopt the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll’s Memphis accent, he had one in the Apple project whose main job was to help him stop talking like Elvis.
Remembering his time on the set of masters of the air, Butler admitted that everything feels blurry right now. “I almost don’t remember filming that,” he explained. “Almost the entire year I was in London.”
In addition to the series exploring World War II through the eyes of the United States Army Air Forces’ mighty Eighth Air Force, the actor has also Dune: The second part which will be released this year, in which he plays Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen.
Together, he and director Denis Villeneuve worked to create the look of the ruthless, psychotic killer, who ended up bald, with no eyebrows and teeth painted black. Butler also wanted an accent and Villeneuve agreed to let him do it.
When the cast, which includes Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Christopher Walken, Rebecca Ferguson and Javier Bardem, sat down for their first table read, Chalamet said he knew Butler was next level.
“He is questioning everything. She is on a mission. “He is on a search,” Wonka the star told the publication. “He doesn’t pretend to be the guy who has answers. He is constantly tinkering.”
Dune: Part Two hits theaters March 1.