Austin Butler is chosen for coveted Elvis role
And the new Elvis is ... Austin Butler. If your reaction is “Who?,” you probably are an Older American, unfamiliar with Butler’s recurring roles over the past decade-plus in more than a halfdozen Nickelodeon, Disney, CW and MTV television series.
According to various media reports on Monday, Butler, 27, has been chosen by Baz Luhrmann to star as the Elvis Presley in the Australian writer-director’s upcoming biographical movie about the relationship between the young King of Rock ‘n Roll and his manager, “Colonel” Tom Parker, who will be played by Tom Hanks.
The casting of the 27-year-old actorsinger ends what The Hollywood Reporter characterized as an “intense search” during which the director conducted screen tests with Butler, Harry Styles, Ansel Elgort, Aaron Taylorjohnson and Miles Teller.
“I knew I couldn’t make this film if the casting wasn’t absolutely right, and we searched thoroughly for an actor with the ability to evoke the singular natural movement and vocal qualities of this peerless star, but also the inner vulnerability of the artist,” Luhrmann said, in a statement released Monday.
“I had heard about Austin Butler from his standout role opposite Denzel Washington in ‘The Iceman Cometh’ on Broadway, and through a journey of extensive screen testing and music and performance workshops, I knew unequivocally that I had found someone who could embody the spirit of one of the world’s most iconic musical figures.”
Butler’s fans also include auteurs Jim Jarmusch and Quentin Tarantino, who cast the actor in their most recent films, “The Dead Don’t Die” and “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.”
Luhrmann apparently has been working on his Elvis project with his producer wife, Catherine Martin, and screenwriter, Craig Pearce, since the team finished their previous project “The Great Gatsby,” with Leonardo Dicaprio as a somewhat Elvisesque figure: a self-made millionaire whose wealth and mansion-isolation do not bring happiness.
A Warner Bros. press release states that Luhrmann’s as yet untitled Elvis biopic will “delve” into the “complex dynamic” that linked Presley and Parker for more than 20 years, “from Presley’s rise to fame to his unprecedented stardom, against the backdrop of the evolving cultural landscape and the loss of innocence in America.”
The film is scheduled to be shot next year in Australia, where Lurhmann typically makes his movies, whether the setting is France (2001’s “Moulin Rouge!”) or Long Island (2013’s “The Great Gatsby”).
A former teen heartthrob, the Anaheim-born Butler appeared on episodes “icarly” (created by Memphis’ Dan Schneider) and “Hannah Montana” (with Miley Cyrus) in addition to being a cast member on a great number of series. These include Nickelodeon’s “Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide”; the Schneider-created “Zoey 101”; ABC Family’s “Ruby and the Rockits“and “Switched at Birth”; The CW Network’s “Life Unexpected” and “The Carrie Diaries” (about the high school years of “Sex and the City” protagonist Carrie Bradshaw); and the Mtv/spike production “The Shannara Chronicles,” adapted from the best-selling fantasy novels by Terry Brooks.
Butler also has been a fixture in celebrity magazines because his girlfriend is singer-actress Vanessa Hudgens, star of the Disney “High School Musical” movie series.