Austin Butler is happy his “Elvis” success is happening in his 30s and not when he was younger.
The actor is one of 12 young stars featured on Vanity Fair‘s 2023 Hollywood cover, and in his accompanying interview he talks about being inspired by Leonardo DiCaprio’s journey.
He shares when asked whether he remembers what he thought his career would look like when he started going to auditions as a teenager, “From the very beginning, when I first got on set, it was just a neat thing that I could do as a 12-year-old kid. Then once I started going to acting class and realized there’s a craft behind it—that sort of became this addiction for me. Addiction might be a strong word, but obsession with finding honesty, really.
“I started looking at a lot of different people’s careers. And Leo, when I was about 15, became that guy, because he’d made that transition. Every film that he chose, you could see the level of passion that he still had for the work.
“And that’s been a surreal thing, looking back at what my dreams were when I was 15, and then getting to work with the people that he got to work with, getting to be on set with him. There’s a lot of these pinch-me moments in my life and that’s definitely one of them.”
The reporter mentions how “Elvis” director Baz Luhrmann had said he was on a similar path to DiCaprio, but that being over 30 years old would be a “huge benefit” to him.
Butler says of whether Luhrmann had told him that too, “Yeah, he did. He said, ‘I think that it’s probably very healthy that this is happening now that you’re in your 30s.’ I remember being younger, being 16 or something, and comparing myself to what I saw in Leo’s career when he was 19 or something, going from ‘Gilbert Grape’ and ‘Basketball Diaries’ and then ‘Titanic’. I was 20 and I was looking back and going, ‘Oh, no, my dreams are never going to come true in the same way.’
“I mean, I had times where I just thought, ‘Oh, maybe it’ll never happen’ or ‘I’ll never get those opportunities.’ But now, in retrospect, I can look back and go, if I had some film that hit really big when I was younger, I wouldn’t have had to keep going back to the drawing board and saying, ‘How do you get better at this?'”
Elsewhere in the interview, Butler speaks about whether Elvis’ rough experience in Hollywood has made him think differently about the industry.
He tells the mag, “I think it’s definitely made me consider who I ask for advice and who I keep close to me. Playing Elvis also just made me think about the fact that you can have seemingly everything and yet still feel empty. You can have all your dreams come true and still be searching for something deeper and feel very alone. You experience a ton of public love, then you’re back in a silent room.”
Vanity Fair’s Hollywood issue hits newsstands Feb. 28.
