Austin Butler Had to Pay Someone to Help Him Get Rid of His 'Elvis' Voice

Austin Butler has seen his career skyrocket since he was cast in the lead role of Baz Luhrmann's Elvis. But the epic biographical drama involved a grueling, immersive three-year production which left the 32-year-old actor in a sort of identity crisis when filming wrapped.

And as Butler explained during a visit to The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, he had only a week to prepare for his next role in the Apple TV+ war drama miniseries Masters of the Air, and actually required a dialect coach to help him lose the "Elvis" voice.

"I started a week after, I had a week off after Elvis," Butler recalled. "It was almost too fast. I was having dinner with Tom Hanks in Australia and he was sort of joking saying, You’re going to lose your mind when you finish this three years of your life focused on this one thing, you’re gonna have to find something else to jump right into right afterward.'"

"And the other producer Pat McCormick, who is a good friend of mine, the Dune: Part Two actor said, 'Well Tom, find him something to do,'" he continued. "And then Tom said, 'Well I’ve got this World War II thing I’m working on.'"

When asked what the transitions between the two projects was like, Butler admitted that "it was a lot."

"I was just trying to remember who I was, I was trying to remember what I liked to do. All I thought about was Elvis for three years," he said. "And then I had that week off and then I flew to London and at that time it was Covid so I’m quarantined for 10 days—I thought, alright just pour all this energy into learning about World War II now."

"I had a dialect coach just to help me not sound like Elvis in that film, that was the whole thing," he added.

After several delays due to the pandemic, filming finally began on Masters of the Air in the United Kingdom in 2021—presumably sans Bulter's Elvis voice. The series premieres this Friday, Jan. 26, on Apple TV+.