{"id":17446,"date":"2022-06-24T13:18:29","date_gmt":"2022-06-24T11:18:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/?p=1668592"},"modified":"2022-06-24T13:58:11","modified_gmt":"2022-06-24T11:58:11","slug":"elvis-cant-be-an-impersonation-its-got-to-be-an-interpretation","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/rss_feed\/elvis-cant-be-an-impersonation-its-got-to-be-an-interpretation\/","title":{"rendered":"Elvis \u201ccan\u2019t be an impersonation \u2013 it\u2019s got to be an interpretation\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Patrick Cremona\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Friday, 24 June 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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Bringing a figure as iconic as Elvis Presley to life on the big screen can\u2019t have been an easy task for Elvis<\/a> star Austin Butler \u2013 and according to Australian director Baz Luhrmann, it was vital to make sure the performance wasn\u2019t merely an \u201cimpersonation\u201d.<\/p>\n

Speaking to RadioTimes.com<\/a> and other outlets at a press event back in February, he explained that in order to translate the King of Rock \u2018n\u2019 Roll for a modern audience, a degree of dramatic license had to be taken.<\/p>

\u201cThere\u2019s a line in the movie \u2013 \u2018When I first saw Elvis in the 50s, I cannot overstate how strange he looked, and how shocking he was,’\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, here\u2019s our job. How do we translate strange and shocking to a contemporary audience? So to a certain degree, there are things we absolutely went apples to apples with. I\u2019d like to think he\u2019d go \u2018Gee, that\u2019s exactly like it was in the \u201968 Comeback special,\u2019 right? Because it\u2019s in the modern era.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut there are other things where it can\u2019t be an impersonation \u2013 it\u2019s got to be an interpretation. Because we don\u2019t have the source material, and even if we did, it\u2019s filtered through old nostalgic technology. So Austin\u2019s number one mission, from the moment I met him, was to humanise Elvis Presley, was to show the person and the journey.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"""\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
Austin Butler as Elvis Presley in Elvis<\/span><\/figcaption> Warner Bros Pictures<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n

For his part, Butler says that when he was first cast, he spent a lot of time trying to perfect Elvis\u2019s voice \u2013 before ultimately realising that finding \u201cthe humanity and the life within\u201d was of greater importance.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I began the process of this, I set out to get my voice to sound identical to his,\u201d the actor said. \u201cThat was sort of my goal \u2013 if you heard a recording of me and you heard a recording of him, you wouldn\u2019t be able to tell the difference. And I held that for a long time.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd so what that does is it also instills fear, you know, this fear that I\u2019m not going to achieve that or whatever. And so that got the fire burning inside me to work, and work and work, and so maybe a year before we even started shooting I was doing six, seven days a week of voice coaching and working with different experts and just trying to get the register to be in the right place, and the dialect and the way he inflects and everything.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut ultimately, the life is important, is what we sort of realised. You can impersonate somebody, but to find the humanity and the life within and the passion and the heart, ultimately I had to release myself from the constraints of that and try to live his life as truthfully as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elvis is currently showing in UK cinemas. Visit our Movies<\/a>\u00a0hub for the latest news and features, or find something to watch tonight with our\u00a0TV Guide<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The latest issue of Radio Times magazine is on sale now \u2013\u00a0subscribe now<\/a>\u00a0and get the next 12 issues for only \u00a31. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to the\u00a0Radio Times podcast<\/a>\u00a0with Jane Garvey.<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/body><\/html>\n

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By Patrick Cremona Published: Friday, 24 June 2022 at 12:00 am Bringing a figure as iconic as Elvis Presley to life on the big screen can\u2019t have been an easy task for Elvis star Austin Butler \u2013 and according to Australian director Baz Luhrmann, it was vital to make sure the performance wasn\u2019t merely an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":17447,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/06\/elvis-cant-be-an-impersonation-its-got-to-be-an-interpretation-scaled.jpg",2560,1705,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/06\/elvis-cant-be-an-impersonation-its-got-to-be-an-interpretation-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/06\/elvis-cant-be-an-impersonation-its-got-to-be-an-interpretation-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/06\/elvis-cant-be-an-impersonation-its-got-to-be-an-interpretation-768x511.jpg",768,511,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/06\/elvis-cant-be-an-impersonation-its-got-to-be-an-interpretation-1024x682.jpg",800,533,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/06\/elvis-cant-be-an-impersonation-its-got-to-be-an-interpretation-1536x1023.jpg",1536,1023,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/06\/elvis-cant-be-an-impersonation-its-got-to-be-an-interpretation-2048x1364.jpg",2048,1364,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Patrick Cremona Published: Friday, 24 June 2022 at 12:00 am Bringing a figure as iconic as Elvis Presley to life on the big screen can\u2019t have been an easy task for Elvis star Austin Butler \u2013 and according to Australian director Baz Luhrmann, it was vital to make sure the performance wasn\u2019t merely an…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/17446"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}