Austin Butler admits he worked with a dialect coach to help him “not sound like Elvis”

Actor Austin Butler revealed he hired a dialect coach to help him “not sound like Elvis” for new role Masters of the Air.

Up-and-coming actor Austin Butler shot to fame thanks to his portrayal of Elvis in the Baz Luhrmann film that was released back in 2022.

While Butler’s performance was praised by many and earned him an Academy Award nomination for best leading actor, others online began poking fun at the fact that he was still talking in Elvis’ iconic voice months and years after he wrapped shooting.

In a recent interview with The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, the actor admitted that, in the lead-up to his new starring role in Apple TV’s Masters of the Air, he hired a dialect coach to help train him out of his Elvis voice.

“It was a lot,” Butler began. “I was just trying to remember who I was, I was trying to remember what I liked to do. All I thought about was Elvis for three years.” 

The actor then admitted, “I had a dialect coach just to help me not sound like Elvis in that film.”

Distancing himself from his role as Elvis has been a major learning experience for Butler and has been a main source of conversation for the actor. 

Revealing in a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly that he had to “shed one skin and try to pivot into another” to play Maj. Gale Cleven for Masters of the Air.

Masters of the Air is the third installment in Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks’ WW2 ‘trilogy’, chronicling the heroic, tragic exploits of the 8th Air Force; more specifically, the ‘Bloody Hundredth’, a bomb group that suffered unimaginable losses as it carried out daytime bombings over Nazi Germany.

Based on Donald L. Miller’s book, it portrays the “psychological and emotional price paid by these young men as they helped destroy the horror of Hitler’s Third Reich… some were shot down and captured; some were wounded or killed. And some were lucky enough to make it home. Regardless of individual fate, a toll was exacted on them all.”

For those interested in seeing Butler back on screen, Masters of the Air has just dropped its first two episodes on Apple TV. The remaining seven are set to be released each week until the series is wrapped up.