Elvis is battling for the top spot at the US box office with an impressive $30.5 million debut, and anybody who's seen the movie is only talking about one thing: Austin Butler.
It's no easy thing to portray Elvis Presley, but the star completely disappears into the role to the extent you forget you're watching a biopic and not a documentary. This is especially the case during the movie's excellent musical numbers.
You might be wondering if Butler was actually singing during those performances. Well, prepare to be impressed as the actor was singing throughout the movie, although sometimes there was a bit of the real Elvis thrown in.
"All the '50s stuff, that's me," Butler told USA Today. "After that, it's a mix of me and Elvis... On 'Suspicious Minds' in particular, I can't tell when my voice ends and his begins."
According to EW, the Las Vegas residency years (which take up a large part of Elvis's final act) saw Lurhmann use a mix of Butler's voice and real-life performances from Elvis Presley to create the final sound.
Butler was still central to making sure Elvis was true to the spirit of Presley though, with Luhrmann recalling how the actor made one of those Vegas performances – a new version of 'That's Alright (Mama)' – work.
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"We rehearsed for three months to a playback tape that we had. But when I was shooting, Austin looked at me and was like, 'This just is corny. This is not working. It's fake'," Lurhmann explained.
So the director told the musicians to play the notes wrong intentionally, meaning that Butler would literally have to work with them to get the sound he wanted, much like the real Elvis did:
"That's the thing with Elvis. Elvis singing the lines, being the conductor, being the music. Elvis became the music. That's how he created. He was the music."
Elvis is out now in cinemas.
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Movies Editor, Digital Spy Ian has more than 10 years of movies journalism experience as a writer and editor. Starting out as an intern at trade bible Screen International, he was promoted to report and analyse UK box-office results, as well as carving his own niche with horror movies, attending genre festivals around the world. After moving to Digital Spy, initially as a TV writer, he was nominated for New Digital Talent of the Year at the PPA Digital Awards. He became Movies Editor in 2019, in which role he has interviewed 100s of stars, including Chris Hemsworth, Florence Pugh, Keanu Reeves, Idris Elba and Olivia Colman, become a human encyclopedia for Marvel and appeared as an expert guest on BBC News and on-stage at MCM Comic-Con. Where he can, he continues to push his horror agenda – whether his editor likes it or not.
