Austin Butler has revealed he needed a dialect coach to ‘not sound like Elvis’ in new World World II drama, Masters of the Air – after three years prepping for the Oscar nominated role.
The acclaimed actor, 32, who baffled fans when he spoke in the music icon’s Memphis twang during the 2023 awards season, revealed he needed professional help to lose his accent for his role as Major Gale Cleven during an appearance on Wednesday’s The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
The Anaheim-born star said: ‘It was a lot. 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.
‘And then I had that week off and then I flew to London and at that time it was Covid so I’m quarantined for 10 days, so I thought alright just pour all this energy into learning about World War II now.
‘I had a dialect coach just to help me not sound like Elvis in that film, that was the whole thing.’
Discussing how he landed his role on Masters of the Air, he revealed Elvis co-star Tom Hanks was to thank.
Austin Butler has revealed he needed a dialect coach to ‘not sound like Elvis’ in new World World II drama, Masters of the Air – after three years prepping for the Oscar nominated role
The acclaimed actor, 32, who baffled fans when he spoke in the music icon’s Memphis twang during the 2023 awards season, revealed he needed professional help to lose his accent for his role as Major Gale Cleven
He said: ‘I was having dinner with Tom Hanks in Australia and he was sort of joking saying, “You’re going to lose your mind when you finish this three years of your life focused on this one thing, you’re gonna have to find something else to jump right into right afterward.”
‘And the other producer Pat McCormick, who is a good friend of mine, he said, “Well Tom, find him something to do,” and then Tom said, “Well I’ve got this World War II thing I’m working on.”’
Butler stars alongside Barry Keoghan and Callum Turner as Eighth Air Force Major Gale Cleven in John Shiban and John Orloff’s critically-acclaimed, nine-episode WWII miniseries, and the two-episode premiere airs this Friday on Apple TV+.
The $300M-budget limited series – based on Donald L. Miller’s 2007 book – was executive produced by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg.
Last year the star admitted to show host Graham Norton that he is still trying to get rid of the twang, almost two years after the film wrapped.
Explaining why he still sounds like Elvis, Austin said: ‘I am getting rid of the accent, but I have probably damaged my vocal cords with all that singing. One song took 40 takes!’
His voice coach explained earlier this month: ‘What you saw in that Golden Globes speech, that’s him. It’s genuine, it’s not put on.’
‘I feel sorry people are saying that, you know, it’s still acting [but] he’s actually taken [the voice of Presley] on board,’ she said, adding that the change might be permanent: ‘I don’t know how long that will last, or if it’s going to be there forever.’
He said: ‘I had a dialect coach just to help me not sound like Elvis in that film, that was the whole thing’
The star received critical acclaim and an Oscar nomination for his role as Elvis
But when at the AARP The Magazine’s 21st Annual Movies for Grownups Award last week, Austin sounded like a regular Southern Californian man and DailyMail.com was there to hear it.
When he spoke about how incredible it was to work with trailblazing director Baz, he spoke like most Los Angeles based actors.
Speaking with Graham Norton about his Oscar nomination, Austin added: ‘It has been a whirlwind and it’s amazing because when you are making a film you never really know how it will be received.
‘With this one there were so many ways it could go wrong so to be received in the way it has means the world to me.’
Butler was delighted as he scooped the award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama for his work on 2022 film Elvis – but the focus quickly switched to his incredibly different sounding voice.
