In a strange turn of events, there’s a chance that Austin Butler may be permanently stuck with his Elvis Presley accent (if you were wondering why he hasn’t shaken that particular hound dog yet).
His learned Southern drawl was on display again last week when he picked up the gong for Best Actor in a Motion Picture at the Golden Globes. Although he finished filming Elvis nearly two years ago, his voice coach seems to think the king’s voice may be with him for life.
Austin Butler responds to those that say they still hear traces of Elvis’ accent in his speaking voice:
“I had three years where that was my only focus, so I’m sure there’s pieces of him in my DNA and I’ll always be linked.” pic.twitter.com/qj3jCDzktS
— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) January 11, 2023
Singing coach Irene Bartlett was part of the voice and dialect coaching team that trained the Californian 31-year-old for his role in the Baz Luhrmann blockbuster.
She told the ABC she’s not sure how long the distinctive accent will stick around because of the way he was trained to speak like the rock’n’roll icon.
“What you saw in that Golden Globes speech, that’s him. It’s genuine, it’s not put on,” she said.
“I feel sorry people are saying that [he’s] still acting [but] he’s actually taken [the voice of Presley] on board.
“I don’t know how long that will last, or if it’s going to be there forever.”
Bartlett said that instead of mimicking Presley’s accent like the majority of impersonators, he had to essentially create his own genuine version of the singer’s voice.
“When you’ve got an iconic voice like that it’s really difficult,” she said.
“It’s very easy to be an impersonator because what you do is literally copy the sounds and the problem with that for someone like Austin is that it would not be sustainable.”
Apparently, actors who have to take on a voice have to create a legit accent of their own instead of just putting one on to make it more efficient on their voice, which Bartlett said is “basically muscular”.
So that intensive vocal training along with the fact he had literal years of focusing and working on creating a genuine Elvis Presley accent over the COVID shutdowns, Austin Butler might sound like the king for a while yet. Maybe even for his whole gawd-daymn life.
