Austin Butler is finally shedding his Elvis Presley persona.
The star of Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis” announced the he is finally “getting rid” of the King of Rock ‘n Roll accent after landing a Best Actor Oscar nomination.
“I am getting rid of the accent, but I have probably damaged my vocal cords with all that singing,” Butler said during the “The Graham Norton Show” (via Insider). “One song took 40 takes.”
Butler recently shut down rumors that he still sounded like Presley, saying that playing the rocker will always be “in my DNA” after spending years in character. “If I was trying to sound like Elvis, I would sound very different right now,” Butler told Los Angeles Times. “I think it’s sort of amusing to me how much people want to focus on this one thing.”
The actor previously said that he questioned if Presley’s voice was becoming his own back in June 2022.
“At this point, I keep asking people, ‘Is this my voice?’ because this feels like my real [voice],” Butler said. “It’s one of those things where certain things trigger it and other times as well it’s, I don’t know. When you live with something for two years, and you do nothing else, I think that you can’t help it. It becomes a fiber of your being.”
Butler additionally told IndieWire’s Anne Thompson that he even was confronted with the concept of individuality when portraying Presley.
“That’s the confusing thing about individuality. Just even me, thinking of ‘Who is Austin?’ There are times where I feel like I may lose touch with myself and then suddenly, you have a moment where you feel that true presence,” Butler said. “With ‘Elvis,’ I definitely had an existential crisis when I finished. I didn’t do anything that was grounded in Austin for that time. I didn’t talk to my family or my friends or anybody. I would talk to them every couple months or something, but I really did lose touch with me. But I also learned things about myself — that’s a beautiful gift. It’s a confusing part about being an actor.”
Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here.
