Austin Butler and Tom Hanks bonded over their fears of representing two of the biggest names in music.
Watch Butler talk about their first meeting here:
The two stars of the Oscar-nominated biopic Elvis Play as the titular rock and roll icon and his manager, Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis’ manager.
Butler, who was nominated for Best Actor at the Oscars, revealed he had a heart-to-heart with his co-star when they first met.
And if playing the legendary king of rock and roll wasn’t daunting enough, Butler was equally nervous to meet the Hollywood legend at Baz Luhrmann.
“Every time you meet someone you admire for the first time, you hope they’ll be warm to you, but you never really know and someone like Tom, he’s been doing this for so long, he’s so master of his craft, so I was intimidated,” he shared.
He continued: “The first time I met him, Baz had this little house in Australia along this river bank and so I came and knew I was going to meet Tom for the first time.”
“I walked through the house and saw Tom and Baz by the river and I walked up and Tom turned around and he saw me and he said ‘Boy give me a hug’ and he gives me the biggest bear hug and Baz said ‘Let me give you guys a moment’ and so Baz came into the house and Tom and I just talked for so long.
Butler then revealed that Hanks confessed that he also felt very nervous.
“At one point he said, ‘You know, I was in the studio earlier today and I was deciding which doors I was going to open outside for the first two weeks’ and I said, ‘Why ?Are you nervous?’ And he’s like, ‘Oh yeah, I’m so nervous’.”
Well, if a seasoned actor like Hanks was nervous, we can only imagine how “terrified” Butler felt.
He said: “I said ‘Are you nervous? I’m terrified!’ And he says “No one knows what Colonel Parker looks like, everyone knows what Elvis looks like!”
But it seems the couple quickly became friends, as Butler added that after that moment the couple felt like “colleagues” and were able to share their feelings of fear.
The film also has an impressive 77% approval score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Additionally, the late Lisa Marie Presley — daughter of the “Jailhouse Rock” singer — gave her endorsement to the film and her performance.
It doesn’t get much better than that!
