All shook up! Elvis Presley followers have been dreaming of Baz Luhrmann‘s biopic because it was first introduced in 2014, and 7 years later, the wait is sort of over.
The Moulin Rouge! director additionally cowrote the screenplay for the movie, merely titled Elvis. In July 2019, Austin Butler landed the function of the “Jailhouse Rock” singer after a extremely publicized search course of. Although the California native is thought for his roles in films together with As soon as Upon a Time in Hollywood and The Lifeless Don’t Die, he additionally has a musical background completely fitted to taking part in a rock ‘n’ roll icon.
“I play the guitar and I play the piano, and my first instrument was the violin,” he informed Interview journal in October 2019. “I began taking part in the violin once I was in elementary faculty. I acquired a guitar once I was 13 and fell in love. I might play for eight hours a day and that turned my obsession.”
After taking pictures started in early 2020, Luhrmann gushed about Butler’s tackle the function, which might be daunting for any actor. “I all the time keep away from getting in and heralding the work we’re doing earlier than we do it, however through the testing course of, his dedication, his transformative talents from the younger Elvis to past, he had been taking part in so very nicely,” the Australia director informed Deadline in March 2020. “He was terrific. There was such nice power and pleasure within the solid and firm, concerning the present we had been about to shoot.”
The manufacturing course of, nevertheless, hasn’t all the time been simple. Tom Hanks, who performs Presley’s supervisor, Colonel Tom Parker, contracted COVID-19 in March 2020 whereas taking pictures the movie in Australia. The Oscar winner turned one of many first celebrities to publicly reveal a coronavirus analysis, sending shockwaves throughout Hollywood.
“If there was something good about it, the easiest factor that got here out of it was when somebody like Tom Hanks acquired it, I observed that globally and significantly in America … immediately everybody went, ‘That is actual,’” Luhrmann informed Deadline. “He turned an commercial for it.”
The Forrest Gump star and his spouse, Rita Wilson, shortly recovered, however Hanks later mentioned that he skilled some fatigue. “I couldn’t think about something for greater than about 12 minutes,” he informed The Guardian in July 2020. “That final bit is kinda like my pure state anyway.”
With the on-set coronavirus scare within the rearview, the primary teaser for the movie lastly debuted in November 2021. “Made a little bit one thing to allow you to good folks know we’re taking good care of enterprise on June 24, 2022,” Luhrmann tweeted on the time alongside a brief clip from the movie. (“Taking good care of enterprise,” as Elvis followers know, was the singer’s motto in addition to the title of his band.)
Hold scrolling for the whole lot to learn about Elvis:
