Austin Butler Told Stephen Colbert How He Finally Got Rid Of His Elvis Voice For His Next Role

Highlights

• Butler used a dialect coach to rid himself of his Elvis voice he adopted for the movie.
• Fans and media were surprised at the actor’s continued resemblance to Presley’s voice.
• Singer clarified that Butler’s voice similarity is due to normal aging processes.

Austin Butler first got the public’s attention when he appeared on Nickelodeon and Disney Channel shows as a teenager. He continued to appear on various television series well into his twenties. When Butler portrayed Elvis Presley in the biopic Elvis, he received a level of fame and attention he had not experienced before.

Butler became the one to watch during the awards season and scored the Best Actor trophy at the Golden Globes. However, most people were shocked when Butler’s voice still sounded an awful lot like Presley while giving his acceptance speech.

Butler would go on to appear in the miniseries Masters of the Air. However, in order to successfully play the role, he would need to get rid of his Elvis voice once and for all. Butler told Stephen Colbert exactly how he managed to stop talking like Presley.

Austin Told Stephen Colbert That He Worked With A Dialogue Coach To Get Rid Of His Elvis Voice

In 2023, Butler won the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Drama, Motion Picture. Butler’s win was the result of his performance as Elvis Presley in the film Elvis. Afterward, most people weren’t discussing the content of his acceptance speech, but rather, how he sounded while delivering it.

From the very start of the film’s promotional tour, fans of Butler noticed how similar his voice still sounded like Presley’s. During the red carpet pre-show on the E! network, Butler was asked about his accent, but insisted he couldn’t hear the similarities.

During his acceptance speech, Butler thanked the film’s director Baz Luhrmann, his co-star Tom Hanks, and his “mama.”

After he left the stage, Butler was led to the press room, where he commented on his voice.

“I don’t think I sound like him still, but I guess I must because I hear it a lot,” Butler told reporters. “I often liken it to when somebody lives in another country for a long time. I had three years where that was my only focus, so I’m sure there’s pieces of him in my DNA and I will always be linked to him.”

It was clear that in order for Butler to move on to other roles, he would have to get rid of his Elvis voice for good.

During his 2024 appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Butler explained how he worked with a dialogue coach to prepare for his role in the miniseries Masters of the Air.

“It was a lot,” Butler told Colbert. “I was just trying to remember who I was, I was trying to remember what I liked to do. All I thought about was Elvis for three years.”

He added, “I had a dialect coach just to help me not sound like Elvis in that film.”

Austin’s Dialect Coach On ‘Elvis’ Revealed The Actor’s Process Of Learning The Voice

In 2023, Butler’s dialect coach during the Elvis project, Erik Singer, spoke to Vox about the actor’s process. Singer has amassed a large YouTube following thanks to his videos breaking down the specifics of accent work.

According to Singer, Butler sought him out prior to even landing the role. Singer said Butler was determined to get rid of his native California accent and achieve “the degree of specificity, tracking changes over time, and the overall tonality of vocal quality” that Presley’s voice had.

Butler would meet with Singer frequently until he landed the role. Then, the two really got down to business, meeting three to four hours a day, five days a week, for nine months. Singer described this as “intensive work.”

Singer explained, “Learning an accent is really hard, even before you get to the level of the idiolect.” Idiolect is a word that refers to an individual person’s style of speaking.

Since Presley’s own voice changed through the decades, Butler had to learn the specifics of all the different periods of his life. Singer said that Butler was often asked to film multiple scenes that took place in various different decades in a single day.

“We needed to be incredibly clear about what the handholds were for each of those three periods,” Singer said. “We broke it down with an incredibly fine-toothed comb.”

However, while many were shocked at how similar Butler’s voice was to Presley’s, Singer said he thinks most of it is due to Butler’s voice naturally aging with time.

“A big part of that discourse is based on the change in his voice overall. The depth and resonance of his voice can be chalked up to maturity. His voice is getting deeper over time, because that’s what voices do,” Singer said.

Austin Didn’t See His Family For Months While He Was Preparing For ‘Elvis’

Butler opened up about the all-encompassing process he went through to prepare for Elvis. In addition to the dialect coaching, Butler told Variety that his dedication went even further.

“I didn’t see my family,” he revealed. “I had months where I wouldn’t talk to anybody. And when I did, the only thing I was thinking about was Elvis.”

Butler also opened up to A.frame and revealed why he felt the need to dedicate himself as much as he did to the role.

“It really felt like the role of a lifetime,” he said. “But what comes along with that is just immense terror and a nearly crippling amount of responsibility — responsibility to all the people that gave me the job, but even more so to Elvis’ family, and to his friends, and to all of his fans around the world. And there’s also so many ways that it could have gone wrong.”

Butler added, “The only way I could do it was to not leave any stone unturned. I didn’t ever want to look back and say, ‘I could have done more.’ So, it was just my entire life at that time.”

Source: NewsFinale