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MOVIE FEATURE

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Elvis is Baz Lurhmann’s first feature in nine years. His previous film was The Great Gatsby in 2013. Austin Butler caught Baz Luhrmann’s attention with an audition video of him sitting at a piano in his bathrobe singing Unchained Melody to his mother. Butler learned all of his Elvis moves from Rami Malek’s Bohemian Rhapsody movement coach, Polly Bennett. According to Baz Lurhmann, a four-hour cut of the movie exists.

LONG LIVE THE KING!

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was that of Priscilla Presley. He received that before the film’s official premiere, with Presley, her daughter Lisa Marie and granddaughter Riley Keogh all giving the film their blessing. “This story is about Elvis and Colonel Parker’s relationship… a true story told brilliantly and creatively that only Baz [Luhrmann], in his unique, artistic way, could have delivered… a director who put his heart and soul… into this film,” Presley wrote after attending a private screening prior to the film’s Cannes' unveiling. “Austin Butler is outstanding. Tom Hanks was Col Parker.” Although she omitted DeJonge from her praise, the actress delivers a stellar performance. “Priscilla was such an interesting character to step into,” says DeJonge. “I found her so intriguing, and the fact that they were together for so long, to play those different stages of their life together, was exciting. “I really wanted to strip away all the historical ideals that we placed on these people, to really get through to the human aspect. For me, Priscilla was a woman who really loved this man, and his job takes him away from her all the time. So, how would that make me feel? She’s married to the most famous man in the world and, over time, their relationship is tested, and she is tested, as a wife and a mother. “In the beginning, she tries to become everything that Elvis wanted in a woman, but then she finds her own voice and I think she realises the life she’s been living with Elvis is not the life she wants to live anymore. Although she never stopped loving him.”

ann’s biopic, Elvis .

director Baz Luhrm

Words Gill Pringle

F ollowing its premiere at Cannes in May, Elvis has since grossed more than US$261 million at the global box office, positioning it as the second highest-grossing music biopic of all time behind Bohemian Rhapsody . Even star Austin Butler

• Elvis is out Sept 21

Austin Butler and Olivia DeJonge

couldn’t predict what a huge hit the movie would become – a delicious confection made on a relatively small budget of US$85 million. Elvis is a wild kaleidoscope of split screens, overlapping visuals and a narrative that propels the King along a path of self-destruction – all underpinned by Butler’s hip-swiveling, lip-curling sensuality. With Oscar rumours already swirling, it’s all the actor can do to prevent it from going to his

the way he was and find the human within that icon, that was really such a joy that I could do it for the rest of my life probably. That, paired with the fact that I got to work with one of the greatest filmmakers to ever live.” Butler spent almost a year shooting the film in Australia opposite Tom Hanks, who plays Colonel Tom Parker, with Australia’s own Olivia DeJonge portraying Priscilla Presley. The actress immediately enchanted Butler. “Olivia is just wonderful. She is such a generous actor, a hard worker and a really gifted storyteller. We spent a lot of time rehearsing, and at times we’d even drive home together at the end of the day and run scenes in the car – she was always game for that. It was a true joy to go through this with her.” If Butler has been living the dream since being cast as Elvis, then the one person’s approval he desperately craved

head, keeping busy in Budapest where he’s shooting the much anticipated Dune: Part Two . But his heart is still in Graceland. “This was just a joy of my lifetime,” says Butler. “For so many reasons, but I think fundamentally getting to explore the humanity of somebody who has become the wallpaper of society in a way. He’s such an icon and he’s held up to such a superhuman status. “So to get to learn why he was

FURTHER VIEWING

10 SEPTEMBER 2022

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