Austin Butler got to share a special moment with Elvis Presley’s family at Graceland over the weekend as he prepares for the release of the Baz Luhrmann-biopic Elvis. Presley’s granddaughter, Riley Keough, revealed details of the “special and overwhelming experience” of spending time with Butler, who plays the late rock icon, in a touching Instagram post on Tuesday.
“We got to spend time with [Butler] this weekend in the house, at Graceland. It was such a special and overwhelming experience I haven’t quite processed. One of many sweet things that happened while we were there- Austin played my grandfather’s guitar in the house,” Keough wrote alongside photos of Butler lovingly playing the instrument. “This guitar hasn’t been played by many people. I know it was tuned by [Paul McCartney] once, but as far as people sitting down and playing it [Butler] is one of very few people aside from my grandfather.”
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Keough previously told Variety that seeing Butler perform in the film, she “started crying 5 minutes in and didn’t stop.” The actress continued, “There’s a lot of family trauma and generational trauma that started around then for our family. I felt honored they worked so hard to really get his essence, to feel his essence. Austin captured that so beautifully.”
Butler opened up to Entertainment Tonight recently about how dedicated he was to portraying Presley accurately. “There’s so many things out there that have become these caricatures, so even talking about him curling his lip, it’s something he didn’t do as much as we think he did,” Butler shared. “He’d do it for a photo.” Making his performance both “subtle” without losing track of his “soul” was Butler’s main goal, and while he had the approval of Presley’s family, there was no lack of pressure on him to succeed.
“What made me nervous was, Elvis was so loved and so iconic, you feel responsibility playing any human that has actually lived, but with him it’s like, it’s a weight like I never felt before,” he said. “And there’s a responsibility to his family and also putting his story into context. That’s the thing. There were so many misconceptions about him, there’s so many ideas of him. So I felt a responsibility to bring the humanity.” Elvis drops in theaters on June 24.
