It’s possible that Austin Butler has permanently altered his speaking voice. Almost two years after wrapping Elvis, the star still sounded like The King while offering his acceptance speech at Tuesday night’s Golden Globes Awards. Butler won for Best Actor in a Drama and proceeded to thank director Baz Luhrmann, the Presleys, his family, and Elvis himself all with a noticeable curled-lip Southern drawl. For what it’s worth, he didn’t sound like this before.
“I don’t even think about it. I don’t think I sound like him still, but I guess I must because I hear it a lot,” he said after being asked about it backstage at the Globes. “I often liken it to when somebody lives in another country for a long time and I had three years where that was my only focus in life. So I’m sure that there’s just pieces of my DNA that will always be linked in that way.”
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Butler has previously explained his vocal change as part of the persona he takes on to perform as a naturally shy person. Now that he’s embodied Elvis, his extroverted charm takes on that specific flavor. Butler appears next in Jeff Nichols’ The Bikeriders and as Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen (Sting’s character) in Dune: Part Two, giving him a couple of chances to take on different accents that might wash away his blue suede croons.
(via The Hollywood Reporter)