Austin Butler left the Elvis set “in tears” once after Baz Luhrmann asked actors to “heckle” him
Somehow, after all these (weeks? months?) the Elvis press tour marches on
Aux News Baz Luhrmann
Somehow, months into the Elvis press junket that feels like it may be eternal, there’s still more to learn about the intense on-set environment of Baz Luhrmann’s latest glitzy biopic. In a new interview with VMAN, Austin Butler reveals he went home from the set “in tears” once after Luhrmann instructed other individuals on the set that day to heckle him.
“Well, when I was on my first day in the recording studio, Baz wanted me to get as close to performing as possible,” Butler explains. “He had all the executives and everybody from RCA, who were back in the offices, he brought them into the recording studio and he goes, ‘I want you all to sit facing Austin,’…and he told them to heckle me. So then they were making fun of me and stuff while I was singing.”
Of course, Butler assures us, there was a method in the madness. “When we were filming this moment when Elvis first goes on stage and he’s getting heckled by the audience, I knew what that felt like,” he says. “I went home in tears that night. I really did.”
This new revelation comes after Butler (who insisted on continuing to use his Elvis accent long after filming concluded) already revealed he was hospitalized after filming. According to the star, the moment he stopped portraying Elvis his “body just started shutting down.” The inability to rely on basic bodily functions without your character—now that’s method acting.
Luckily for Butler, however, he received some sage advice on Luhrmann’s directorial techniques from a similarly handsome, blonde source: Leonardo DiCaprio. DiCaprio, who starred in Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet and The Great Gatsby, apparently warned Butler that Luhrmann was going to teach him some new tricks, sometimes the hard way.
“I had spoken to Leo before and he said, ‘Baz is gonna push you in ways you didn’t know somebody could,’” Butler recalls. “‘He’s gonna push you off balance and keep you off balance.’” If Luhrmann’s technique for getting Butler to master heckling was testing him with the real thing, we now understand why Elvis chose not to show the legend’s death by constipation.
12 Comments
this man is hot and stupid and I love that in a summer boy.
Look at it this way: if they’re heckling, they’re at least paying a modicum of attention. The large resounding round of indifference is even more shattering.
I have lived my entire life shrouded in anonymity and indifference. I find that far more preferable than being abused with hate and active dislike. I don’t know why it would be important to draw attention to one’s self? It would seem better to go about day to day operations without people constantly criticizing me.
Well, obviously this really only applies to people in performing arts.
I was in a few semi-pro comedy groups for years, and my friends and I talk more about the times the audiences ignored us much more than we talk about our outright failures.
Oh man, that must be rough. At least doing music I can sing my songs all the way through. It sucks if no one cares, but at least I’m not relying on the constant interaction of people laughing.
One of the first open mic nites I went to, a comedian would sometimes perform and, bless him for trying, but it was usually just crickets chirping. We’d all sit looking anywhere but at him because if he saw you looking, he’d try to involve you. Sometimes he’d rather defensively tell us it was fine if we didn’t like it because he could go to any of a dozen clubs in NYC and totally kill. “Well then go to NYC, because you’re dying a death here!”
I vividly remember doing a sketch about Noah and his family to a bar that couldn’t possibly care that we existed. We were in robes made out of bed sheets, had props and everything. The middle of the sketch called for my friend and I leave the stage for a few minutes and return later. We stood on the side of the stage in sheets like dopes, seriously considering leaving the place for good, but that would’ve meant abandoning the other three people in the group.
“R-i-i-i-i-ght!”
Headline: “…asked actors to ‘heckle’ him”Article: “…all the executives and everybody from RCA…”Please at least put forth a minimum effort. Even if you hate your job here, you’re always auditioning for future gigs as a writer.
They were essentially performing as actors here
Grow a set and man up.
I’ve asked you, repeatedly, to cease with this, America. not joking around and not self-interested.