Elvis has entered the building in the first trailer for Baz Luhrmann‘s biopic about the king of rock himself, Elvis Presley.
The highly anticipated flick stars mega hottie Austin Butler as the leading man along with Tom Hanks as his musical advisor, Colonel Tom Parker.
In the trailer, we see Elvis fall in love with music and become the iconique singer that he came to be, all the while witnessing the ever-present racism around him.
Peep the full trailer below:
Ahead of the release of the trailer, I was lucky enough to attend a press conference in which Luhrmann and Butler discussed the making of the film.
“Fundamentally getting to explore the humanity of someone who’s become the wallpaper of society and is such an icon and is held to superhuman status and learn why he was the way he was and find the human in that icon was such a joy. I could do it for the rest of my life, probably,” Austin Butler shared.
“That paired with being able to work with one of the greatest filmmakers that ever lived is one of the greatest joys of my lifetime.”
Butler, who sings Elvis’ iconic tunes in the flick, said that he has “huge shoes to fill” in emulating the beloved musician.
“I set out to get my voice to sound identical to his, that was my goal. If you heard a recording of me and a recording of his, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference,” Austin added.
“That was my goal. But that also instilled fear, the fear that I wouldn’t reach that goal, which got the fire burning inside me to work and work and work. For a year before shooting I was doing voice coaching and working with different experts to get the register in the right place and the dialect the way he inflects.
“Ultimately the life is what is important, which is what we realised. You can impersonate somebody, but to find the humanity, the life, the passion and the heart. I had to release myself from the constraints of that and try to live the life as truthfully as possible.”
He went on to recount travelling to Nashville to record the songs with “incredible” gospel singers, describing the experience as “a gift.”
“The first time we walked into this little chapel and set up all these period microphones to record with 30 of the most incredible gospel singers, and they’re stamping their feet, and I stood in the centre and tears just poured down my face and I got chills down my spine. It was a glorious experience.”
Luhrmann went on to discuss how Black culture influenced Elvis and its importance in the film.
“The number one thing about Elvis Presley’s journey is that Black music and culture isn’t a sidenote or a footnote or a bit, it’s absolutely the canvas from which the story is ripped,” he said.
“Meaning, if you take that out of the story, there’s no story. He grew up in the community.”
The movie has a few Aussie connections, the biggest one being the fact that it was filmed in Queensland, plus multiple Aussie actors star in the flick, including Luke Bracey, Richard Roxburgh, Helen Thomson, Dacre Montgomery, Natasha Bassett, Xavier Samuel, Leon Ford, Josh McConville and Kate Mulvaney.
Elvis is in cinemas on June 23.
Thank you very muuuuuch.
Matty Galea is the Senior Entertainment Editor at PEDESTRIAN.TV, as well as our resident astrologer who pens our weekly horoscope series, ‘Your Horos Are Here’. He also Tweets about pop culture and astrology and posts spicy content on Instagram.
