Austin Butler has revealed he needed a dialect coach to ‘not sound like Elvis’ in new World World II drama, Masters of the Air – after three years preparing for the Oscar-nominated role.
The acclaimed actor, 32, who stunned fans when he spoke in the music icon’s Memphis twang during the 2023 awards season, revealed he needed professional help to lose his accent for his role as Major Gale Cleven during a performance on Wednesday on The Late Show with Stephen. Jacket.
The Anaheim-born star said, “It was a lot. I tried to remember who I was, I tried to remember what I liked to do. All I thought about for three years was Elvis.
“And then I had that week off and then I flew to London and at the time it was Covid, so I’m in quarantine for ten days, so I thought, okay, now just put all this energy into learning about the Second World War.
“I had a dialect coach to help me not sound like Elvis in that movie, that was the whole thing.”
While discussing how he got his role in Masters of the Air, he revealed that Elvis co-star Tom Hanks was to thank.
Austin Butler has revealed he needed a dialect coach to ‘not sound like Elvis’ in new World World II drama, Masters of the Air – after three years preparing for the Oscar-nominated role
The acclaimed actor, 32, who stunned fans when he spoke in the music icon’s Memphis twang during the 2023 awards season, revealed he needed professional help to lose his accent for his role as Major Gale Cleven
He said: ‘I was having dinner with Tom Hanks in Australia and he joked saying, ‘You’re going to go crazy when you finish these three years of your life focused on this one thing, you’re going to go crazy. to find something else to jump into right after.”
“And the other producer Pat McCormick, who’s a good friend of mine, said, ‘Well Tom, find something for him to do,’ and then Tom said, ‘Well, I’ve got this thing from World War II that I’m working on work. on.”‘
Butler stars alongside Barry Keoghan and Callum Turner as Major Gale Cleven of the Eighth Air Force in the John Shiban and John Orloff films. critically acclaimeda nine-episode WWII miniseries, with the two-episode premiere airing this Friday on Apple TV+.
The $300 million budget limited series – based on Donald L. Miller’s 2007 book – was produced by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg.
Last year the star admitted to host Graham Norton that he is still trying to get rid of the twang, almost two years after the film wrapped.
Explaining why he still sounds like Elvis, Austin said, “I’ve lost the accent, but I probably damaged my vocal cords from all that singing. One song took 40 takes!’
His voice coach explained earlier this month: “What you saw in that Golden Globes speech, that’s him. It’s real, it’s not set up.’
“I think it’s a shame that people say it’s still acting (but) he actually took (the voice of Presley) on board,” she said, adding that the change could be permanent: “I don’t know how long that will last, or whether it will last forever.’
He said, ‘I had a dialect coach to help me not sound like Elvis in that movie, that was the whole thing’
The star received critical acclaim and an Oscar nomination for his role as Elvis
But when he sounded like a regular Southern Californian at AARP The Magazine’s 21st Annual Movies for Grownups Award last week, Austin sounded like a regular Southern Californian and DailyMail.com was there to hear it.
When he talked about how incredible it was to work with groundbreaking director Baz, he spoke like most Los Angeles actors.
Speaking to Graham Norton about his Oscar nomination, Austin added: ‘It’s been a whirlwind and it’s amazing because when you make a film you never really know how it’s going to be received.
“With this one, there were so many ways it could go wrong, so to be received the way it is happening now means the world to me.”
Butler was thrilled when he took home the award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama for his work on the 2022 film Elvis – but the focus quickly shifted to his incredibly different-sounding voice.