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Elvis actor says a Hollywood star ‘warned’ him about Baz Luhrmann

“Baz is gonna push you in ways you didn’t know somebody could”
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Actor (and our latest heartthrob) Austin Butler has spilled the tea on what happened behind the scenes of Baz Luhrmann’s latest flick Elvis

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Speaking to VMAN, Austin said one of his childhood idols “warned” him about what working with Baz would be like. 

WATCH BELOW: Austin Butler on becoming Elvis

Leonardo DiCaprio, who worked with Baz on Romeo + Juliet, gave Austin a heads up about the legendary director. 

“I had spoken to Leo before and he said, ‘Baz is gonna push you in ways you didn’t know somebody could,’” Austin explained. 

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“‘He’s gonna push you off balance and keep you off balance.’

Austin and Leo
Leonardo DiCaprio contacted Austin (Credit: Getty)

Turns out, Leo’s call might have been helpful ,as Baz’s unique directing technique allegedly left Austin in tears before filming even started.

“On my first day in the recording studio, Baz wanted me to get as close to performing as possible,” Austin recalled.

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“He had all the executives and everybody from RCA… he brought them into the recording studio and he goes, ‘I want you all to sit facing Austin,’…and he told them to heckle me. So then they were making fun of me and stuff while I was singing.”

The heckling was so intense Austin said he “went home in tears that night”.

Austin and Elvis
Austin plays Elvis in… Elvis (Credit: Supplied)

While it sounds super intense, Austin believed it was a useful exercise to understand how The King would have felt at his first performance.

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“When we were filming this moment when Elvis first goes on stage and he’s getting heckled by the audience, I knew what that felt like,” he said.

It wasn’t the only anxiety-inducing moment Austing had to endure during filming. 

Despite being told the recording sessions at RCA studios, where Elvis himself recorded over 200 songs, would be ‘laid back and playful’ it turned out to be anything but. 

“I was so nervous, and we were recording on actual equipment that Elvis recorded ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ on,” he said.

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“We were recording old school, where all the musicians—and these are the best musicians in the world; our guitar player had actually played guitar with Scotty Moore, who was Elvis’s guitar player—we were recording the entire song. And so that was how I cut my teeth in the recording studio.”

Elvis is in theatres now. 

WATCH BELOW:Trailer For Baz Luhrmann’s ‘Elvis’, Starring Austin Butler

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