Q&A: Austin Butler on what ‘Elvis’ taught him about fear
Austin Butler, you may have heard, has taken a bit of flack for sounding too much like Elvis now that he’s no longer, um, Elvis. In any case, Butler says there’s something far more significant that’s remained with him since making “Elvis”: a new relationship with fear. The challenge of playing an icon who’s been imitated as often as Presley was so great, he says, that he suffered from “impostor syndrome” and could have been felled by the fear — fear that kept him from sleeping well for two years, he adds — had he not learned to use it as a “compass,” in his words. He spoke to The Associated Press shortly after winning his Oscar nod, musing about how he tried to approach the role so it felt human and not like “going to a wax museum,” about what he learned personally from the process, and also about the shocking death of Lisa Marie Presley. ___ AP: It’s been an emotional time for you: Winning a Golden Globe, then the tragic death of Lisa Marie Presley, then the Oscar nomination, all within days.
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