Austin Butler Admits He Had to Hire a Dialect Coach to Rid of His Elvis Presley Accent

Austin Butler had to work hard to drop his Elvis Presley accent.

In a recent interview on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, the 32-year-old actor, acclaimed for his portrayal of Elvis Presley in the 2022 blockbuster Elvis directed by Baz Luhrmann, revealed the challenges he faced while transitioning from the iconic role to his new project, Apple TV+'s World War II drama Masters of the Air.

Having received a Best Actor nomination at last year's Oscars and winning both a BAFTA and a Golden Globe for his stellar performance as Elvis, Butler explained the difficulty he encountered jumping into a completely different character just a week after completing the biopic.

"I had a dialect coach just to help me not sound like Elvis," Butler told Colbert, describing the struggle of trying to rediscover himself after dedicating three years to embodying the legendary musician.

"I was just trying to remember who I was. I was trying to remember what I liked to do. All I thought about for three years was Elvis," the actor added. "And then I flew to London, and at that time it was COVID, so I was quarantined for 10 days. I thought, 'Alright, just pour all this energy into learning about World War II.'"

Reflecting on his promotional tour for Elvis in 2022, Butler acknowledged the persistence of Presley's distinctive southern accent, which had become a social-media meme.

"At this point, I keep asking people, 'Is this my voice?' because this feels like my real … it’s one of those things where certain things trigger it and other times as well it’s, I don’t know,” Butler told ET’s Nischelle Turner in June 2022. "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 later told reporters backstage at the 2023 Golden Globes, "I don't think I sound like him still, but I guess I must because I hear it all the time."

"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," he added.

In February 2023, Butler announced on The Graham Norton Show, that he was finally "getting rid of the accent." He attributed part of this transformation to his role in Masters of the Air, where the cast was taught how to fly.

According to Butler, the experience of learning to fly helped him immerse himself in the character and facilitated shedding the lingering Elvis accent.

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