Austin Butler shares advice for Jacob Elordi playing Elvis next: ‘I hope he has a great time’
From one King to another, Austin Butler has some advice.
While walking the red carpet at the 2023 Golden Globe Awards, Butler, who is nominated for Best Actor in a Drama Motion Picture for his portrayal of Elvis Presley in Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis, had some advice for Jacob Elordi, who is tackling the role next in a Sofia Coppola film focused more on the life of Presley’s wife, Priscilla.
“I just wish him all the best,” Butler told Variety. “We haven’t spoken, but I hope he has a great time.”
Besides sharing the role of the king of rock & roll, Butler and Elordi have another connection. Butler is now dating Kaia Gerber, who previously dated Elordi for over a year before their break-up and her subsequent romance with Butler.
Butler also opened up on the carpet about the challenges of playing Elvis, saying, “It was the tightrope that you have to walk between all the meticulous things that makes Elvis Elvis but never losing his spirit and the soul and making it feel as though it’s happening for the first time right there. Because otherwise it feels like it’s at the wax museum.”
If Butler wins Tuesday night, it would make him a frontrunner in the Oscar race for Best Actor. He’s been receiving awards buzz for his transformative performance, which found him dancing and singing on screen, since it first premiered in June.
“The thing that woke me up every day at three in the morning was, ‘I don’t want to be doing an impersonation of him,'” the actor previously told EW. “That’s tricky, because I wanted to sound identical to him and I wanted to look identical to him, but I had to release myself from certain things. Ultimately, my face is different. I had this false expectation in the beginning that I could make my face identical to his. Ultimately, I realized that doesn’t serve the story — or me — at all. It’s about his spirit. It’s about merging our two souls.”
