Everything Austin Butler Has Said About Changing His Voice to Play Elvis Presley in ‘Elvis’

Credit: Warner Bros/Moviestore/Shutterstock ; Matt Crossick/PA Images/INSTARim/Cover Images

Everything Austin Butler Has Said About Changing His Voice to Play Elvis Presley in ‘Elvis’

Can’t escape the King! Austin Butler went through in-depth training while preparing for his role in the 2022 Elvis Presley biopic — and his voice hasn’t been the same since. In July 2019, it was announced that the Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood actor would be playing the legendary late musician in the Baz Luhrmann film. When shooting for the project began in early 2020, Luhrmann gushed about his leading man and his take on Elvis Presley. “I always avoid getting in and heralding the work we’re doing before we do it, but during the testing process, his commitment, his transformative abilities from the young Elvis to beyond, he had been playing so very well,” the Moulin Rouge director said to Deadline in March 2020. “He was terrific. There was such great energy and excitement in the cast and company, about the show we were about to shoot.” Ahead of filming, Butler studied the “Can’t Help Falling in Love With You” crooner’s mannerisms and his voice. In addition to playing the character, he also sang on the soundtrack. In June 2022, The Shannara Chronicles star opened up about all the training he did to master Elvis' distinct sound. [jwplayer BBresDdU-zhNYySv2] "I sang every day [while preparing and filming] and would do my singing exercises first thing in the morning," he said to Entertainment Weekly in June 2022. "It is really like a muscle. Through filming, I started noticing notes that I couldn't hit in the beginning, suddenly, now I could hit those notes. I was widening my range. But it's not just singing — you're having to find vocal mannerisms. That could be a little tricky." After the movie premiered, Butler’s “Elvis voice” became a hot topic of discussion as he didn’t drop the act. When the Switched At Birth alum hosted Saturday Night Live in December 2022, he poked fun at himself and his “new voice.” “There’s people out there that say ever since I played Elvis, my voice has changed,” Butler quipped in his monologue. “That it got deeper, more Elvis-y, but that’s not true. I’ve always sounded like this!” That next month, Butler’s voice coach, Irene Bartlett, defended her client and praised all of the hard work he put into his portrayal — which ultimately earned him his first-ever Golden Globe award. “What you saw in that [2023] Golden Globes speech, that’s him. It’s genuine, it’s not put on,” she shared, referring to Butler’s acceptance speech at the awards show. “I feel sorry people are saying that, you know, it’s still acting [but] he’s actually taken [the voice] on board. I don’t know how long that will last, or if it’s going to be there forever.” In February 2023, the former Disney star revealed he was attempting to shed his Elvis dialect while appearing on BBC One's The Graham Norton Show. "I am getting rid of the accent, but I have probably damaged my vocal cords with all that singing," he confessed. "One song took 40 takes." Keep scrolling to see everything Butler has ever said about his voice:

Credit: Warner Bros/Moviestore/Shutterstock ; Matt Crossick/PA Images/INSTARim/Cover Images

Everything Austin Butler Has Said About Changing His Voice to Play Elvis Presley in ‘Elvis’

Can’t escape the King! Austin Butler went through in-depth training while preparing for his role in the 2022 Elvis Presley biopic — and his voice hasn’t been the same since. In July 2019, it was announced that the Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood actor would be playing the legendary late musician in the Baz Luhrmann film. When shooting for the project began in early 2020, Luhrmann gushed about his leading man and his take on Elvis Presley. “I always avoid getting in and heralding the work we’re doing before we do it, but during the testing process, his commitment, his transformative abilities from the young Elvis to beyond, he had been playing so very well,” the Moulin Rouge director said to Deadline in March 2020. “He was terrific. There was such great energy and excitement in the cast and company, about the show we were about to shoot.” Ahead of filming, Butler studied the “Can’t Help Falling in Love With You” crooner’s mannerisms and his voice. In addition to playing the character, he also sang on the soundtrack. In June 2022, The Shannara Chronicles star opened up about all the training he did to master Elvis' distinct sound. [jwplayer BBresDdU-zhNYySv2] "I sang every day [while preparing and filming] and would do my singing exercises first thing in the morning," he said to Entertainment Weekly in June 2022. "It is really like a muscle. Through filming, I started noticing notes that I couldn't hit in the beginning, suddenly, now I could hit those notes. I was widening my range. But it's not just singing — you're having to find vocal mannerisms. That could be a little tricky." After the movie premiered, Butler’s “Elvis voice” became a hot topic of discussion as he didn’t drop the act. When the Switched At Birth alum hosted Saturday Night Live in December 2022, he poked fun at himself and his “new voice.” “There’s people out there that say ever since I played Elvis, my voice has changed,” Butler quipped in his monologue. “That it got deeper, more Elvis-y, but that’s not true. I’ve always sounded like this!” That next month, Butler’s voice coach, Irene Bartlett, defended her client and praised all of the hard work he put into his portrayal — which ultimately earned him his first-ever Golden Globe award. “What you saw in that [2023] Golden Globes speech, that’s him. It’s genuine, it’s not put on,” she shared, referring to Butler’s acceptance speech at the awards show. “I feel sorry people are saying that, you know, it’s still acting [but] he’s actually taken [the voice] on board. I don’t know how long that will last, or if it’s going to be there forever.” In February 2023, the former Disney star revealed he was attempting to shed his Elvis dialect while appearing on BBC One's The Graham Norton Show. "I am getting rid of the accent, but I have probably damaged my vocal cords with all that singing," he confessed. "One song took 40 takes." Keep scrolling to see everything Butler has ever said about his voice:

Credit: Warner Bros/Moviestore/Shutterstock

February 2022

When the first trailer dropped, Butler confirmed that he was the one singing in the film and he sought out a vocal coach to help him nail the sound.

“When I began the process, I set out to get my voice to be identical. That instills fear. So that got the fire burning. For a year before we started shooting, I was doing voice coaching,” he told The Hollywood Reporter at the time. “I watched as much [footage of Elvis’ concerts] as I could, over and over. I feel such a responsibility to Elvis and to Priscilla and Lisa Marie, and all the people around the world who love him so much.”

Credit: Evan Agostini/AP/Shutterstock

June 2022

The former Nickelodeon star opened up about why his voice still sounded so much like Elvis after wrapping. 

“I didn’t do anything else for two years [apart from working on Elvis], that’s such a large chunk of life. I’m not surprised that it clicks in,” Butler told Elle Australia at the time. “Because I’m a shy person, and when I know that there’s bits of Elvis that I’d have to click into in order to go out on stage and be in front of a ton of people, being surrounded by his name everywhere, there’s triggers. You spend so much time obsessing about one thing, and it really is like muscular habits, your mouth can change.”

He also joked that his voice may change again depending on what roles he has in the future.

Credit: Eric Charbonneau/Shutterstock

November 2022

Along with nailing down the “Jailhouse Rock” musician’s singing voice, Butler also worked on sounding like Elvis’ distinct speaking voice. He opened up to Deadline about listening to old interviews of the late rockstar.

“There’s this great archive of every one of his interviews, and telephone recordings. You can sort of trace his voice, and you realize that it’s not just one voice; the voice changed a lot over the years,” he recalled. “I knew that we were going to be filming out of sequence, as well. So, it wasn’t just clicking into this one era or something, so that was a challenge. Because I knew that one day we were going to be filming in 1974 and the next day we would be in ‘56. And so, I had to get as specific as I could about each one of those voices of his.”

Credit: Will Heath/NBC

December 2022

While hosting SNL, the Carrie Diaries alum poked fun at himself after the internet continued to call out his voice.

“There’s people out there that say ever since I played Elvis, my voice has changed,” Butler joked in his monologue. “That it got deeper, more Elvis-y, but that’s not true. I’ve always sounded like this!”

Credit: David Fisher/Shutterstock

January 2023

At the Golden Globes, Butler took home the award for Best Actor. Prior to receiving his accolade, the California native addressed his changing voice while on the red carpet.

“It’s hard for me to talk about it. You’re a kid, you keep growing, that’s why you have to draw little lines on the wall,” he recalled. “It’s hard to feel because it's only ever happening in the moment. So I can’t really reflect on it too much. It's just this process that I don’t know the difference.”

Credit: Matt Crossick/PA Images/INSTARim/Cover Images

February 2023

While appearing on The Graham Norton Show, the Golden Globe winner got candid about all the attention to his accent and how he’s actively trying to stop talking like Elvis.

“It really made me feel self-conscious for a second because I thought, ‘Am I being phony? Is this not my voice?’” he reflected. “Then I thought, ‘Oh I’d have to think consciously to not talk how I am right now.’ But my voice sounds different when I talk to my dog or when I talk to my dad or when I’m here right now.”

Butler went on to hypothesize he might have damaged his vocal cords from all the preparation he did for the biopic’s soundtrack.