Austin Butler Shares Advice Tom Hanks Gave Him Amid Concerns for His Mental Health After ‘Elvis’

Tom Hanks recruited Austin Butler to star in Masters of the Air after seeing his dedication to Elvis. As Butler, 31, told The Sunday Times in a recent profile, Hanks pitched him the World War II-focused miniseries while they were having dinner a couple of months ago after they had completed last year’s Elvis. “‘You have immersed yourself so deeply in Elvis that, for your mental health, it would be wise to go straight into something else,’” Butler remembered Hanks saying during that dinner. “‘If you just jump off the train, you might have emotional whiplash … And, you know, I’ve got this thing I’m producing,’” the actor added to the outlet of Hanks’ pitch he presented.

Despite Hanks’ warning, Butler noted that “With Elvis, I definitely had an existential crisis when I finished. I didn’t do anything that was grounded in Austin for that time. I didn’t talk to my family or my friends or anybody. I would talk to them every couple months or something, but I really did lose touch with me. But I also learned things about myself — that’s a beautiful gift. It’s a confusing part about being an actor.” 

Butler played the legendary musician Elvis Presley in the film, and Hanks portrayed Colonel Tom Parker, Presley’s manager. In December 2022, Butler talked to Indiewire about his years immersed in Elvis Presley’s world and the source of his seemingly relentless work ethic. “I was a shy person, so a lot of acting in the beginning was therapeutic,” he told the outlet. “For me it was a way that I could let things out that I was too shy to do as myself, and so it was liberating.” 

He added, “One of my least favorite feelings in the world is when you are acting and it doesn’t feel truthful. It’s like nails on a chalkboard. There’s been times where I go home and I’m in the car that night and you know that you didn’t get it. You didn’t feel like you hit truth and it’s such a terrible feeling. I’m always searching for, ‘How do you get more honesty?’ With Elvis, I felt this incredible privilege and a heavy responsibility at the same time. Some of the work ethic is wrapped up in terror.”

After the film was released in June 2022, Butler became famous for slipping into Presley’s accent, even months later. He told Indiewire at the time, “There wasn’t a conversation for three years, or a film or a book or anything that I ingested or talked or thought about, that wasn’t related to Elvis. He got woven into the fiber of my being in a way, and it feels like a great gift to me that I have little bits of him in my DNA now.”