Small Details You Missed In Baz Luhrmann's Elvis
Few people in the world possess such notable names that you immediately recognize. One such name is Elvis Presley, who changed rock music forever by combining the R&B feel and lyrics of Black musicians with the existing country music sounds. Fans know him not just from memorable hits like "Heartbreak Hotel," "Can't Help Falling In Love," and "Suspicious Minds," but also from his work in the film industry with movies like "Viva Las Vegas" and "Blue Hawaii," and from his marriage to Priscilla Presley.
But after Elvis' death in 1977, more and more information about his life, especially his relationship with his manager, Colonel Tom Parker, came to light. There were horrible stories of mismanagement and the conditions Elvis worked in, and Baz Luhrmann's "Elvis" showcases this. The film also pays homage to Elvis' work with Black musicians, his marriage and fatherhood, and his emotions throughout his rise to fame.
The film is a true spectacle, with a lot of information and insight about Elvis' life packed into it. However, there's even more than what you might notice on your first watch. Luhrmann includes many tiny details that further tell Elvis' story and add to the authenticity of the film. Interested to see what small details you may have missed? Read on for some of the blink-and-you-miss-it details Luhrmann included in his 2022 film, "Elvis."
Real blue jumpsuit
Elvis is certainly known for his stage presence, but part of what made it so memorable was his costume choices. For the film, Luhrmann emulated some of Elvis' most famous styles, including Elvis' blue jumpsuit that he wore during his Vegas residency. In the beginning of "Elvis," there are shots of Austin Butler's Elvis performing in Vegas and the crowd going wild. In this, there are multiple panels of Butler in the blue jumpsuit as he's performing.
There aren't many shots of the real Elvis in the film, but there is one during this early scene in the film where the real Elvis and Butler's Elvis are seen in a two panel shot. Both men have the memorable blue jumpsuit on and are dancing in their wild manner. The scene is so quick that if you blink you miss it, and you almost can't tell the difference between the two versions of the musician, but it's there nonetheless. This two panel shot helps to blur the lines between Butler's immersive performance as Elvis and the real deal himself.
Star Trek references
One small detail fans may have missed were all of the hidden "Star Trek" references throughout the film. First, in the beginning of the film at the International hotel in Vegas, there's an advertisement for the "Star Trek Experience" on the sign in the front. Within the first two minutes there's a reference to "Star Trek," but there's at least one other reference later in the film during the Christmas special. While Tom Parker and the NBC studio executives are walking through the hallways at NBC studios, there are several posters hanging up that include the "Star Trek" cast and promote the show.
Some might think these small "Star Trek" details are merely a coincidence, but they are actually purposely hidden in the film. In a documentary about Elvis , it's revealed that the king was actually a huge fan of "Star Trek," both the cast of characters and the show's plot. Celeste Yarnall, "Star Trek" actress and Elvis' on-screen costar, talked about how much Elvis loved the show, and even told the documentary makers that Elvis named one of his horses Star Trek. Because of his love for the show, Luhrmann wanted to include some small "Star Trek" details that Elvis' hardcore fans would recognize as an homage to his fandom.
The Blue Hawaii red shirt
One of Elvis' most famous films is " Blue Hawaii ." In the film, Elvis plays Chad, a boy who is meant to take over his family business but throws that away in favor of working for his girlfriend as a tour guide. The film also starred Angela Lansbury, and included some hits like "Blue Hawaii," "Aloha Oe," and, most famously, "Can't Help Falling In Love." There's a whole section of the film that pays tribute to Elvis' film career, but one of the homages to Elvis' acting is a small detail you might have missed.
A bit over 30 minutes into "Elvis," B.B. King and Elvis go shopping for new outfits at a store called Lansky's. While in the store, there's a shot that shows all the shelves and other products in the store aside from what the two musicians are purchasing. In this shot, you can see a row of shirts displayed behind Elvis, and one of the shirts is his iconic red Hawaiian-style shirt he wears in "Blue Hawaii." It's a small detail and the shot is fleeting, but diehard Elvis fans can keep their eyes peeled for this small homage to one of Elvis' most famous acting moments.
Kurt Russell's cameo
One of the most action-packed scenes of the film comes from the "Viva Las Vegas" montage, where the audience sees shots of real Elvis films, fake reenactments from Butler, and moments with Elvis and Priscilla or Elvis and his "Memphis Mafia," as they were called. There are several panels going at once, making it the perfect place to slip in some smaller details about the musician and actor. Though many fans see this as a moment where it's once again hard to tell the difference between the real Elvis and Butler's iteration, there's one panel where you can absolutely be sure it's the real Elvis because of the other actor in it making a cameo.
One of the panels behind Butler's Elvis while he's filming the surfing shots shows a memorable scene from Elvis' film "It Happened At The World's Fair." The scene involves Elvis asking a young child to kick him in the shin incredibly hard, and he even offers him a quarter to do so. The child agrees, and kicks Elvis really hard in the shin. In this scene, the child actor is actually famous actor Kurt Russell, who has starred in films like "The Hateful Eight" and "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2." This cameo from Russell is also meaningful because he eventually played Elvis in John Carpenter's 1979 biopic, "Elvis." The 2022 "Elvis" cameo for young Russell is brief, but there for those who pay close attention.
Sharon Tate's death in the paper
Elvis underwent a lot of mental stress throughout his career, mostly because of the way Tom Parker kept him continually running and didn't give him room to rest. This type of exhaustion is something that many celebrities experience, but Elvis in particular was dealing with the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy and the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. both, while watching other celebrities murdered or attacked just for their fame. This took a huge toll on him and, with Parker's assistance, created an air of paranoia that helped Parker control his life.
One scene, though, that perfectly encapsulates this is when Elvis is in the hospital for exhaustion and Parker is reading the newspaper with Sharon Tate's murder on the cover. This is used as a plot device to spark a discussion about fear of the lives of entertainers, but Butler fans know there's a deeper meaning to this detail. The choice of Tate's murder being the focus can be seen as an homage to Butler's role as Tex , one of Tate's killers in the Quentin Tarantino film "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood." It's a small detail that only fans of Butler or the Tarantino film would know, but it's a fun detail nonetheless.
I will always love you
The relationship between Elvis and his wife, Priscilla, is a large plot point of the film. The audience gets to see their romance at every stage, starting with how they meet and bond and ending with their divorce and co-parenting style. There's one scene that's particularly heartbreaking because of how clear it is to the audience that they still love each other, but just can't work as a couple anymore. When they are talking together in the car toward the end of the film, it's a heart to heart that only Priscilla could help Elvis get through. They both get out of the car to leave, and Elvis looks at Priscilla and mouths "I will always love you."
It's a tearful moment, but it's one with a deeper meaning than just the sentiment. Elvis famously sang Dolly Parton's "I Will Always Love You" to Priscilla when the two were getting divorced, and Priscilla told Parton about this. But even more than this, Elvis wanted to professionally record Parton's song, and she wanted that as well. However, Parker wanted to take half of the publishing rights for the song, and Parton wouldn't agree to it, resulting in Elvis never recording it. However, Parton was always honored that Elvis wanted to sing it, and about the detail that he sang it privately to Priscilla. She told W Magazine that it "touched her deeply."
The catalyst for Parker and Elvis' relationship throughout the film starts with their intense conversation at the carnival. Parker notices Elvis standing alone, and sees him as a lost outcast who would be easily influenced by his management. He approaches Elvis, but Elvis is suddenly called away by his friends to go into the house of mirrors, delaying the conversation between the musician and manager. However, when Parker first notices Elvis, he notices something else, too: the advertisement for "The Geek" posted behind his view of Elvis.
This hidden detail has a deeper meaning. First, the "geek" is known to circus lovers as the most grotesque or shocking element of all the acts. These performers usually bite the heads off animals or even eat certain animals alive to impress audiences, and appeal to the audience's forbidden pleasure. This slightly references "Nightmare Alley," which was Parker's favorite film , so that's one meaning to it. However, it also references the fact that Parker saw how audiences reacted to Elvis' act, and how they couldn't control the pleasure they felt from it but weren't sure if they were supposed to be enjoying it or rejecting it. That goes for most of the world's response to the musician, actually. Parker knew Elvis could be the music industry's "geek" act, and took advantage of that in his management of the musician.
Elvis' nervous hands
One of the biggest parts of the film is Elvis' comeback special, which is where you really see Elvis defy Parker in a large way to create what he wants his audience to see, not what Parker is making him do. Elvis fans will watch the film's version of the special and note that it is nearly recreated perfectly by Luhrmann. Every detail of it is so precise, and Butler's performance, though excellent throughout the whole film, is especially well done here. However, one detail that was particularly accurate to add is extremely subtle, but tells a huge story.
In the scene, when Butler's Elvis first starts singing, he reaches for the microphone. When he does this, his hand shakes slightly, like he's nervous to perform. This is because, as Elvis fans will note, in the original comeback special , Elvis hadn't performed in front of a live audience for a long time and was nervous. This caused his hand to shake as he was getting into the feeling of the performance, and Butler included this detail in the film version to make it more authentic and exact to Elvis' behavior at the special.
Comeback special's exact audience
Of course the comeback special in "Elvis" deserves ample praise for its authenticity and precise attention to detail. However, one element of the special that is technically a large detail, but one that only the most attentive Elvis fans will notice, is that every single member of the crowd is exactly replicated from the original Comeback Special. In an article from PopSugar , it's revealed that the costume and makeup team did each individual makeup and hair look for the audience of the special to perfectly replicate the Comeback Special. They even said they used around 450 wigs throughout the whole movie for the extras.
In the article, Shane Thomas, the hair and makeup designer for the film, talked about how every extra that sat around the stage had the same costumes, hairdos, and makeup as the real people from the special. He said, "[With] the real images and our images next to each other – it's quite mind-blowing how well we did with replicating it." Thomas isn't exaggerating; if you look at the two frames side by side, the ridiculously strong effort to recreate the different looks of the audience truly looks identical to its predecessor.
One of the defining moments of Elvis' life and in the film comes from Martin Luther King Jr.'s death. His assassination deeply impacted Elvis, and eventually sparked his rebellion against Parker's agenda and deciding to work with Steve Binder to create the special he wanted to make. However, there's a hidden detail before this, while Elvis is contemplating King Jr.'s death. In the scene, Priscilla walks into Elvis' trailer to find him watching Dr. King's memorial. She greets him by saying "Satnin," which some might take to be a pet name or not really notice she says it at all. This was no throwaway line, though.
"Satnin" is actually what Elvis used to call his mother , Gladys Presley. He used this word because of her Satin-like skin. It was more than that, though, because to the two of them this word was a form of affection. Elvis and his mother had an extremely close relationship, right up until her death. It was slightly strained by the influence of Tom Parker, but was still pure and lovely. Priscilla greeting Elvis in this way is not only a nice way to squeeze that reference into the film, but also especially meaningful because he's grappling with Dr. King's death and it likely brings up feelings about his own mother's death.
Priscilla's Makeup
Another small detail comes once more with the "Viva Las Vegas" Hollywood movie montage. There's a scene in the top left corner of the five panel layout where Elvis is seen doing Priscilla's makeup. This might seem like a small piece of romance between the two, but is really a detail that points toward a larger circumstance between Elvis and Priscilla. Most people might not know that Elvis was very particular about Priscilla's appearance, and actually taught her how to do her makeup.
In Priscilla's memoir, "Elvis and Me," she talked about how Elvis created her, and how she didn't really know who she was as a person without Elvis. She wrote , "He taught me everything. How to dress, how to walk, how to apply makeup and wear my hair, how to behave, how to return love- his way. Over the years, he became my father, husband, and very nearly God." Elvis had a huge control issue with Priscilla, which she didn't take in any nefarious light, but as more of a guidance to creating who she was. However, with no separation between what she wanted and what Elvis wanted for her, it became hard for her to see herself as her own person.
A Toxic connection
One element of "Elvis" that fans enjoyed was the mixing of the old Elvis tracks with new artists' music. Artists like Doja Cat teamed up with the Elvis and Big Mama Thornton hit, "Hound Dog" to create a new spin on the classics. One such mashup that audiences enjoyed was the Elvis song "Viva Las Vegas" mixed with Britney Spears' "Toxic." It circulated around TikTok and, because it wasn't released on the film's soundtrack, was severely requested to be released by fans of the film and the scene. Though this song is an absolute hit, it also serves as an important detail in the film for those wanting to do more of a deep dive on its meaning.
One of the biggest news pieces of 2021 and 2022 came from the movement to free popular musician Britney Spears from her conservatorship. She was poorly managed by her family, and particularly her father, and suffered a lot of abuse because of it. Because this song plays while Elvis is being manipulated in his acting career by Parker, it's clear the song is a reference to how both artists were mismanaged and put into toxic work environments for the profits of those who handled their affairs. It's a small detail that people might not immediately put together, but, as Bustle writes, it's a way to link two of history's most iconic musicians through some of their shared negative experiences.
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Laurel Goodwin Dies: Elvis Presley Co-Star, Last Surviving Cast Member Of ‘Star Trek’ Pilot, Was 79
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NY & Broadway Editor
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Laurel Goodwin , an actor who made her movie debut at age 19 opposite Elvis Presley in the 1962 feature Girls! Girls! Girls! and four years later played a crew member in the original, failed Star Trek pilot starring Jeffery Hunter, died February 25. She was 79.
Her death was announced by her sister Maureen Scott. A cause was not disclosed.
Born in Wichita, Kansas, and relocating to California with her family during World War II, Goodwin studied drama at San Francisco State University and was soon signed to a contract with Paramount Pictures. She debuted in Girls! Girls! Girls! as one of two potential love interests for Presley’s character (the other was portrayed by Stella Stevens).
The following year, Goodwin played a daughter of Jackie Gleason’s railroad executive in the comedy Papa’s Delicate Condition .
Over the next decade, Goodwin would appear in numerous TV series, including The Virginian, Get Smart!, The Beverly Hillbillies, Mannix and The Dain Curse, but it was a performance in an episode that never made it to air for which she earned an enduring cult following: She played Yeoman J.M. Colt in “The Cage,” the unaired 1965 pilot for Star Trek that starred Hunter as Captain Christopher Pike. The pilot was rejected by NBC, though some scenes were recycled for a 1966 two-part episode (“The Menagerie”) after William Shatner had replaced Hunter as the Enterprise captain. (“The Cage” subsequently was released in various home entertainment formats.)
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Goodwin, along with her husband, producer Walter Wood, produced the 1983 Burt Reynolds-Loni Anderson NASCAR comedy Stroker Ace . She is survived by her sister.
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Austin butler and tom hanks in baz luhrmann’s ‘elvis’: film review | cannes 2022.
The King of Rock and Roll gets suitably electrified biopic treatment in this kinetic vision of his life and career through the eyes of the financial abuser who controlled him.
By David Rooney
David Rooney
Chief Film Critic
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How you feel about Baz Luhrmann ’s Elvis will depend largely on how you feel about Baz Luhrmann’s signature brash, glitter-bomb maximalism. Just the hyper-caffeinated establishing section alone — even before Austin Butler ’s locomotive hips start doing their herky-jerky thing when Elvis Presley takes to the stage to perform “Heartbreak Hotel” in a rockabilly-chic pink suit — leaves you dizzy with its frenetic blast of scorching color, split screen, retro graphics and more edits per scene than a human eye can count. Add in the stratified, ear-bursting sound design and this is Baz times a bazillion.
If the writing too seldom measures up to the astonishing visual impact, the affinity the director feels for his showman subject is both contagious and exhausting. Luhrmann’s taste for poperatic spectacle is evident all the way, resulting in a movie that exults in moments of high melodrama as much as in theatrical artifice and vigorously entertaining performance.
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Venue: Cannes Film Festival (Out of Competition) Release date: Friday, June 24 Cast: Austin Butler, Tom Hanks, Helen Thomson, Richard Roxburgh, Olivia DeJonge, Luke Bracey, Natasha Bassett, David Wenham, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Xavier Samuel, Kodi Smit-McPhee Screenwriters: Baz Luhrmann, Sam Bromell, Craig Pearce, Jeremy Doner; story by Luhrmann and Doner Director: Baz Luhrmann
As for the big question of whether Butler could pull off impersonating one of the most indelible icons in American pop-culture history, the answer is an unqualified yes. His stage moves are sexy and hypnotic, his melancholy mama’s-boy lost quality is swoon-worthy and he captures the tragic paradox of a phenomenal success story who clings tenaciously to the American Dream even as it keeps crumbling in his hands.
But the heart of this biopic is tainted, thanks to a screenplay whose choppy patchwork feel perhaps directly correlates to its complicated billing — by Baz Luhrmann & Sam Bromell and Baz Luhrmann & Craig Pearce and Jeremy Doner; story by Baz Luhrmann and Jeremy Doner. That mouthful suggests an amalgam of various versions, though the big hurdle is the off-putting character piloting the narrative, who creates a hole at its center.
That would be “Colonel” Tom Parker, played by Tom Hanks in arguably the least appealing performance of his career — a creepy, beady-eyed leer from under a mountain of latex, with a grating, unidentifiable accent that becomes no less perplexing even after the character’s murky Dutch origins have been revealed. It’s a big risk to tell your story through the prism of a morally repugnant egotist, a financial abuser who used his manipulative carnival-barker skills to control and exploit his vulnerable star attraction, driving him to exhaustion and draining him of an outsize proportion of his earnings.
Every time the action cuts back to Hanks’ Parker near the end of his life — refuting his designated role as the villain of the story from a Las Vegas casino floor where he ran up gambling debts that necessitated keeping Elvis under a lucrative International Hotel residency contract — the movie falters. As portrayed here and elsewhere, Parker was a self-serving con man who monopolized the star’s artistic and personal freedom and now gets to monopolize the retelling of his life. Elvis the movie works better when Elvis the man is a creation of ringmaster Luhrmann’s feverish imagination than when Parker keeps popping up to remind us, “I made Elvis Presley.”
The subject’s musical formation is illustrated in enjoyably florid Southern Gothic style as the young Elvis (Chaydon Jay) is seen growing up in Tupelo, Mississippi, moving to a poor Black neighborhood after his father, Vernon (Richard Roxburgh), is briefly jailed for passing a bad check.
Watching through the cracks in the walls of juke joints or from under the tent flaps of holy-roller revival meetings, Elvis absorbs influences that would allow him to fuse bluegrass with R&B, gospel and country, and create a sound unprecedented from a white vocalist. In one amusingly wild flourish, the roots of the “lewd gyrations” that would inflame screaming fans and conservative watchdogs in their respective ways are traced to the boy being physically possessed by the spirit during a religious service.
As they did in The Great Gatsby and elsewhere, Luhrmann and longtime music supervisor Anton Monsted freely mash up period and contemporary tunes once the teenage Elvis, his family by now relocated to Memphis, starts hanging out on Beale Street, where he befriends the young B.B. King (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) and thrills to the gospel sounds of Sister Rosetta Tharpe (English musician Yola). Given that Elvis’ vocal style drew from multiple inspirations, it makes sense for swaggering hip-hop and Elvis covers by a range of artists to weave their way into the soundtrack.
Initially enlisted by the Colonel to join a bill led by country crooner Hank Snow (David Wenham) and his son Jimmie Rodgers Snow (Kodi Smit-McPhee), Elvis soon becomes the headliner, with Hank stepping away due to concerns that his Christian family audience might blanch at Presley’s heathen hip-swinging. But Elvis’ doting mother Gladys (Helen Thomson), who calms his nerves like no one else, reassures her son, “The way you sing is God-given, so there can’t be nothin’ wrong with it.”
The rapid-fire cutting of editors Matt Villa and Jonathan Redmond allows Luhrmann to whip through the meteoric rise in popularity, the landing of an RCA recording contract and the encroaching threat of political morality police at the same time. Parker keeps the Presley family onside by making Vernon his son’s business manager, albeit without much clout or responsibility. Meanwhile, one of Elvis’ bandmates slips him a pill while on the road “to put the pep back in your step,” setting in motion a dependency that would famously spiral in later years.
Segregation rallies with alarmist warnings about “Africanized culture” and “crimes of lust and perversion” target Presley, and television appearances start coming with the stipulation of “no wiggling.” But Elvis’ fans don’t go for the cleaned-up, powered-down version; they want the excitement and danger that has female fans hurling their underwear at the stage. When Elvis gives them what they want, the Colonel fears he’s losing control of his meal ticket so he maneuvers to have him shipped off to serve in the U.S. Army in 1958 for an image makeover. Elvis blames his absence for his mother’s increased drinking and subsequent death, and yet Parker’s hold over him is too strong to shake.
By this point it’s clear that while the Colonel aggressively pushes himself forward as Elvis’ protector, he exhibits little to no genuine affection for his star client, regarding him merely as a revenue source. With Gladys gone, that leaves an emotional void around the title character, which may be true to life, but robs the film of immediacy. Even his marriage to Priscilla (Olivia DeJonge) doesn’t do enough to counter that, which keeps Elvis remote just as Luhrmann should be drawing us in closer.
Too often, Luhrmann builds sequences like isolated vignettes rather than part of a consistently fluid narrative, for instance a romantic montage of Elvis and Priscilla in Germany during his military service, set to a pretty, wispy cover by Kasey Musgraves of “Can’t Help Falling in Love.” The sequence is sweet and dreamy, but it’s no substitute for getting to know Priscilla, a thinly drawn role beneath the hairdos and knockout fashions.
The action sprints forward through the rise and fall of Elvis’ movie career without lingering long (no Ann-Margret representation, sadly), but finds juicy detail in NBC’s 1968 comeback special. It’s conceived by Parker as a Christmas family special and a fresh merchandising opportunity for nerdy sweaters. But Elvis’ frustration with his career downturn causes him to take the advice of his old friend Jerry Schilling (Luke Bracey) and rework it on his own terms, angering Parker and the show’s sponsors at Singer.
Director Steve Binder (Dacre Montgomery) reshapes the special, putting Elvis on a small stage surrounded by a TV audience. The raw rock ‘n’ roll set reaffirms Elvis’ influential place in American popular music just as he’s risking obsolescence. The recreated production numbers are a blast, with a gospel choir, “whorehouse” dancers and kung fu fighters. Elvis also shrugs off the Colonel’s insistence on closing with “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” instead performing the original protest song, “If I Can Dream,” which resonates powerfully just two months after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
The attention given in Elvis to the ’68 special suggests how much brighter Presley’s star might have burned had he gotten out from under Parker’s control more often. But when he tries to extricate himself, the Colonel convinces him to commit to five years at $5 million a year in Vegas, blocking the international touring plan of management team members who actually do appear to consider his wellbeing. Parker’s puppet-mastery is revealed to be about not just his gambling debts but also about his undocumented status in the U.S., which would have been exposed had he left the country.
Of course, this is ultimately a tragedy, and a different filmmaker less consumed by the bigness and brassiness of his enterprise might have dug deeper into the pathos. But there are moving moments, especially in Butler’s performance as he transforms into the puffy, sweaty Elvis of his final years (thankfully, his prosthetics are less of an eyesore than Hanks’), his marriage to Priscilla dissolving and causing sorrow for both of them.
One might wish for a biopic with more access to the subject’s bruised, bleeding heart, but in terms of capturing the essence of what made Presley such a super nova, Elvis gets many things right.
The live performance sequences are electrifying, shot by cinematographer Mandy Walker with swooping moves to match Presley’s dynamic physicality and with intimacy to capture the molten feeling he poured into his songs. The bold use of color and lighting is eye-popping. The same goes for the production design by Luhrmann’s wife and career-long collaborator Catherine Martin and Karen Murphy; likewise, Martin’s utterly fabulous costumes.
Luhrmann is often criticized for molding material to serve his style rather than finessing his style to fit the material. Many will dismiss this film’s unrelenting flamboyance as bombastic Baz in ADHD overdrive, a work of shimmering surfaces that refuses to stop long enough to get under its subject’s skin. But as a tribute from one champion of outrageous showmanship to another, it dazzles.
Full credits
Venue: Cannes Film Festival (Out of Competition) Distribution: Warner Bros. Production companies: Bazmark, Jackal Group Cast: Austin Butler, Tom Hanks, Helen Thomson, Richard Roxburgh, Olivia DeJonge, Luke Bracey, Natasha Bassett, David Wenham, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Xavier Samuel, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Dacre Montgomery, Leon Ford, Kate Mulvany, Gareth Davies, Charles Grounds, Josh McConville, Adam Dunn, Yola, Alton Mason, Gary Clark Jr., Shonka Dukureh, Chaydon Jay Director: Baz Luhrmann Screenwriters: Baz Luhrmann, Sam Bromell, Craig Pearce, Jeremy Doner; story by Luhrmann and Doner Producers: Baz Luhrmann, Catherine Martin, Gail Berman, Patrick McCormick, Schuyler Weiss Executive producers: Toby Emmerich, Courtenay Valenti, Kevin McCormack Director of photography: Mandy Walker Production designers: Catherine Martin, Karen Murphy Costume designer: Catherine Martin Music: Elliott Wheeler Music supervisor: Anton Monsted Editors: Matt Villa, Jonathan Redmond Visual effects supervisor: Thomas Wood Casting: Nikki Barrett
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Fact checking the new 'Elvis' movie: Did he really fire Colonel Tom Parker onstage in Las Vegas?
Spoiler alert! The following discusses plot points from the new "Elvis" movie and the real life of Elvis Presley . Stop reading if you haven't seen it yet and don't want to know.
The epic biopic “Elvis” covers a lot of ground – 42 years, to be precise – from the iconic singer’s birth until his death in 1977.
Given the inevitable event compression required of any movie looking to cover decades in hours, one wonders just how much of “Elvis” really happened to Elvis Presley ?
From director Baz Luhrmann’s research in Memphis and Elvis’ birthplace of Tupelo, Mississippi, to scores of well-researched biographies, there is laudable accuracy to the film, which is streaming and on demand now ( HBO Max , Amazon Prime , Apple TV , Vudu , Google Play and other platforms). Also credit star Austin Butler's studious depiction of the King of Rock 'n' Roll.
But we identified six moments in “Elvis” that made us scratch our heads. Just how true are they? For answers, we enlisted expert Alanna Nash, the author of several Elvis books (including “The Colonel: The Extraordinary Story of Colonel Tom Parker and Elvis Presley” and “Baby, Let’s Play House: Elvis Presley and the Women Who Loved Him”).
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Lisa Marie Presley dies: The only child of Elvis dies at 54 after a brief hospitalization
Did B.B. King and Elvis Presley really hang out together on Beale Street?
King, who worked as a DJ in Memphis at the time, would certainly have been aware of Elvis, and vice versa, but they would not have been hanging out and catching acts such as Little Richard as the movie portrays, says Nash.
“Elvis and B.B. were acquaintances, but not close friends," she says. "They probably first crossed paths at Sun Studio, but only briefly."
There was an encounter in December 1956, when King was the headliner on the all-black WDIA Goodwill Revue. Elvis was asked to perform, but his contract wouldn’t allow it, Nash says.
But toward the end of the evening, DJ Rufus Thomas brought Elvis out for a “leg gyration and the crowd went wild.” Backstage, King and Presley posed together for a picture.
'I couldn't be an imposter': How Austin Butler vanished into the role of Elvis Presley
Was Robert F. Kennedy killed while Elvis was taping the ’68 Comeback Special?
The senator was shot elsewhere in Los Angeles, andnot during the taping of that iconic Elvis TV special but during rehearsals, Nash says.
“Elvis arrived for the start of two weeks of rehearsals on June 3, 1968, and Kennedy was shot on June 5, dying the next morning, June 6,” she says. “The assassination put Elvis into an emotional spiral.”
The tailspin created by RFK’s death led directly to the special’s powerful finale. Show director/producer Steve Binder turned to songwriter Earl Brown to write an emotional ballad , "If I Can Dream," that reflected Elvis’ hopes that the nation could get through such a crisis and heal.
“Interestingly, Elvis didn’t immediately jump on it,” Nash says. “He thought it might be a little too Broadway. He said, ‘Let me hear it again,’ and it was only after he heard it seven or eight times that he said, ‘OK, I’ll do it.’ "
Review: Austin Butler rules as the King, but Baz Luhrmann's 'Elvis' is an unchained mess of a movie
Did Colonel Tom Parker convince Elvis to play Las Vegas to settle Parker's gambling debts?
The connection isn't nearly as direct as the film implies, which presents Elvis’ residency at the International Hotel as a way for Elvis' manager to settle his sizable gambling debts at the hotel's casino.
Nash notes that Parker ( played in the film by Tom Hanks ) was an inveterate gambler dating back to his early years in the carnival business, often decamping for Hot Springs, Arkansas, or Palm Springs, California, to satisfy his needs. Once he experienced Las Vegas, that became a frequent stop for the promoter.
That isn’t to say that Parker’s gambling and Elvis’ Vegas shows aren't linked, she says. The colonel was said to be worth $1 million a year to the International because of his gambling, according to onetime International executive Alex Shoofey, Nash says.
“The rumor floated around town that Milton Prell, Shoofey’s old boss at the Sahara, had brokered the (Elvis) deal for the colonel, getting money from the mob to put the deal together," Nash says. "Mob involvement is suggested in the film."
'Where has this been hiding?': Tom Hanks changed his mind about his favorite Elvis song
Did Elvis go into the Army to avoid being jailed for indecency?
Not true, Nash says.
“The colonel was delighted that Elvis was causing riots and grabbing headlines for being overly suggestive,” she says. “It’s part of why he wanted him in the first place. Parker, ever the carny, knew what brought people in the big tent.”
After Elvis was drafted, Parker – whom Nash notes was an Army deserter – worked with the Pentagon to ensure he'd be a regular soldier and not in the entertainment corps.
“He negotiated it as a PR move to make him appear to be the all-American boy,” she says.
Interestingly, when Elvis was stationed in Germany, he met future General Colin Powell, a lieutenant at the time.
Nash says Powell told her that he and Presley were out “in a field in the woods in Germany, and he just looked like every other pimple-faced (soldier), doing what other soldiers were doing and trying to get along. He properly saluted and sir’d me left and right, and I always admired that in him.”
Austin Butler as Elvis: His acting lessons began when Tom Hanks delivered a typewriter to his door
Did Elvis actually fire the colonel from the stage in Las Vegas?
“No, he never would have done that,” Nash says. Nor did he ever suggest onstage that he knew of the colonel’s immigration issues.
“He fully believed the colonel’s story that Parker hailed from Huntington, West Virginia; Elvis died not knowing the truth," she says. "That didn’t come out in this country until 1981."
However, she adds, there was an incident a few years before his death when Elvis exploded at Hilton owner Barron Hilton. Elvis had gone to the home of an employee he liked, whose wife was dying from cancer, and Hilton terminated the employee because of a rule banning any contact between employees and hotel talent.
That night from the stage, Elvis delivered a furious attack on Hilton, saying he “wasn’t worth a damn,” she says. Parker was livid. The two argued into the night until Elvis, in his 30th-floor suite, fired Parker, who immediately replied that he quit and, as the movie depicts, “retired to his offices to draw up a bill” for what he claimed Elvis owed him.
The sum varies from $2 million to $10 million, she says, and as the movie shows, Elvis ultimately decided he couldn’t afford to pay and went back to work for the colonel.
Did Priscilla Presley really arrange for Elvis to go into rehab?
No, Nash says.
“She says in her book ‘Elvis and Me’ that she would occasionally hear that he had checked into the hospital, and that she would then call to see if he was all right,” Nash says.
In another one book, “Elvis by the Presleys,” Priscilla Presley says many asked her why she didn’t initiate an intervention.
Her response: “People who ask that don’t know Elvis. Elvis would no more have responded to an intervention than a demand to give up singing. … He would have undoubtedly laughed away any attempt at an intervention. There’s no one, including his father, who could have pulled that off.”
By the time Elvis was trying to get help for his addictions, his ex-wife was no longer in his life on a daily basis. Adds Nash: “Priscilla was not as involved with Elvis after their divorce as she would now have people believe.”
‘Elvis’ Fact or Fiction: Colonel Tom Parker Biographer on What’s Real and What’s Not in Baz Luhrmann Biopic
By Chris Willman
Chris Willman
Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic
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Does the phrase “That’s All Right, Mama” apply to the new “ Elvis ” movie… as in, “that’s all correct, ma’am”? No one is probably expecting that ; any practiced watcher of biopics knows virtually any example will take deep liberties with the facts for dramatic purposes. And maybe it’s a given that a director who puts hip-hop and hard rock on his period-film soundtracks, as Baz Luhrmann does, might favor effect over total verisimilitude.
Still, “Elvis” is right on enough counts — literally or spiritually — that it’s worth trying to separate fact from fiction in the movie’s narrative of Elvis Presley (played by Austin Butler) and his nearly career-long manager, Colonel Tom Parker (Tom Hanks). There may be no one better to go to who can provide the truth on both Presley and “the Colonel,” in tandem, than the latter’s biographer, Alanna Nash. Nash, a veteran music journalist, published “The Colonel: The Extraordinary Story of Colonel Tom Parker and Elvis Presley ” to acclaim in 2010 and her book has just been reissued with a new afterword.
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The new “Elvis” film is not based on her book, nor did Luhrmann read it, by his account (although he says researchers presented him with notes from that and many other key Presley-related books). But Nash’s work is considered by many to be the authoritative word on Parker, a former carnie who made his fortune off the King, and whose pros and cons as a very, very controlling manager continue to be debated to this day. Variety spoke with her about how much rings true about both of the movie’s primary subjects, point by point.
Popular on Variety
What’s your overall feeling on the movie’s truth-ometer? Are the liberties worth it for creating an artistic picture? Does it veer off in ways that seem unnecessary?
The timeline… well, what timeline? It’s all a Baz Luhrmann fever dream. The past, present and future are all shook up like a ‘50s milkshake and served with a thousand straws! Other than the tremendous pains Baz has taken to make this story seem “woke,” the liberties are essentially fair — except to Parker. In making him such an antagonist, they have robbed him of his many accomplishments with his client.
Is it true, as portrayed, that Parker was consistently trying to pressure Elvis to tone down his sex appeal?
No, no, not at all. Elvis took care of what Elvis did and Colonel took care of what Colonel did. He liked it that Elvis did what brought folks into the big tent. Listen, this guy was no fool! Parker loved it that Elvis was like a male striptease artist… like the bally girls on the carnivals. That sold tickets! The only time Parker got critical is when the shows began to falter with drugs or erratic behavior on stage. But that was in the ’70s.
Was there a late ’50s concert riot in which Elvis deliberately disobeyed Parker’s orders not to move around or wiggle on stage?
There were concert riots, most notably in Jacksonville, Fla., but not a concert for which Parker issued orders like that. No, all that stuff was rehearsed and rehearsed. Colonel knew what Elvis was doing and going to do. And again, he did not advise Elvis on any aspect of his performance. Headlines about how lascivious early Elvis was sold concert tickets. When Parker crony Gabe Tucker threw a magazine piece on the Colonel’s desk that insinuated that Elvis was gay, Parker didn’t say a word until his friend stopped sputtering. “Well,” Parker finally said, “Did they spell his name right?”
Did Parker’s accent really sound like the one Tom Hanks is using in the film?
No. It was more American, more rural. And he had what sounded like a slight lisp or speech impediment. Turns out he didn’t have an impediment — he was just trying to wrap a Dutch tongue around the English language, Southern-style. It sounded like a weird (Southern) regional dialect, and you would know it was Dutch only by listening for certain consonants. But Baz wanted to make him seem more “other.” Or as Baz told me in an interview, “I thought it was very important that Tom present the audience with a strangeness, a sort of ‘What is going on with this guy?’”
Did the Colonel live out his later years being sickly in casinos, as portrayed in the movie’s framing device?
Yes. He was also a consultant to the Hilton, where he gambled every day.
Did Parker really have huge gambling debts he was able to pay off by committing Elvis to a single Vegas hotel for years before Presley’s death?
Yes. Elvis never knew how many shows he played free to satisfy Parker’s enslavement to the roulette wheel and the craps table. In fact, Colonel didn’t even have to go down to the casino. The hotel would bring a roulette wheel to his room. Alex Shoofey, the executive VP of the International, testified that Parker was good for $1 million a year in gambling, but others think that number is low.
Colonel Parker is seen as under pressure from secretive governmental forces who want to keep Elvis from corrupting youth — and to try to get him to tamp down Presley, they threaten to expose his past, as a non-American native of Holland, which he’s desperate to hide. Is there anything to that?
That’s total and unequivocal bunk, a complete invention in the movie. First of all, when Colonel Parker enlisted in the U.S. Army, he declared himself a Dutch citizen, with parents born in Holland. That was fine — we took foreign nationals — but he just had to swear he’d become a U.S. citizen, which he never did, because he went AWOL. But he worked closely with the Pentagon, planning Elvis’ army career and post-army concert to raise money for the U.S.S. Arizona monument.
Is it true that Colonel Parker’s reason for being attracted to Elvis was that he thought a white singer who sounded Black was bound to be a star and accomplish what a Black singer could not?
No. Eddy Arnold, whom Parker had built into a household name, had fired him as his manager over failing to honor their exclusive contract, though Parker continued to book him. The Colonel was now looking for the next big thing. He didn’t care what color he was. My guess is that, if Elvis had been Black, he wouldn’t have been as interested, because it would have been harder to take him to a larger audience, especially in the segregated South, which was Parker’s stronghold from his days on the carnival circuit.
Elvis’s first manager, Bob Neal, told me that he had a heck of a time getting stations to play Elvis’s first single. Country radio stations said Elvis sounded too Black to play, and the stations that played rhythm and blues said he sounded too much like a hillbilly. But a few of them started playing them all the time. The Colonel promoted Elvis’s first big tour with Hank Snow. Once a big crowd saw Elvis perform, there was a demand for his record.
But that gets telescoped in the movie. In the film, when the Colonel goes to the Louisiana Hayride and first sees Elvis, he’s told backstage that Elvis is on the pop charts and that the country DJs are playing him too, and that Black and white kids are buying Elvis’s records. That potential is what interests him. He also says in the film that if he could find an act that gave the audience feelings they weren’t sure they should enjoy, but did, he could create the greatest show on earth. That’s really what he was looking for all along.
Were Elvis’ primary music influences almost all Black artists, as portrayed in the movie?
No, Luhrmann has really framed this through a present-day lens. Elvis had just as many white influences and announced as early as seventh grade that he was going to sing at the Grand Ole Opry. Remember, he entered a talent contest as a child singing “Old Shep” — warbling about dead dogs is about as country as it gets. An early hero in Tupelo was a hillbilly singer named Mississippi Slim. But living in a “colored” neighborhood, as he did, he certainly heard early R&B, jump-blues and swing tunes pulsating through the walls at the nearby juke joints, and he loved it, as he did both Black and white gospel. Still, the odds were heavily in favor that he’d be a country singer and his stint on the Louisiana Hayride seemed to point him in that direction.
Would Elvis have gone to Black Pentecostal tent meetings as a kid, as seen in the film?
He might have gone to Black churches with his friend, Sam Bell, in Tupelo, as a kid. The Black-white divide didn’t mean much to the Presleys. Later, in Memphis, he certainly attended a white fundamentalist church, and — with his early girlfriend, Dixie Locke — the all-Black East Trigg Baptist Church to hear Black gospel. He mentions that church in the film.
He is seen attending so many performances by R&B singers, whether it’s Arthur Big Boy Crudup as a kid or Big Mama Thornton, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, B.B. King and Little Richard later. Is it fantasy that he was constantly seeing or meeting up with all these important artists?
Yes and no. This is Luhrmann showing us Elvis’s influences. Elvis is famously quoted as saying, “Down in Tupelo, Miss., I used to hear old Arthur Crudup bang his box the way I do now and I said, if I ever got to the place I could feel all old Arthur felt, I’d be a music man like nobody saw.” But it’s unclear whether this was on the radio or in person. Teenage Elvis, living in Memphis, certainly went to West Memphis, Arkansas and to Beale Street to hear Black performers. And he continued to go see Black performers, such as Jackie Wilson, throughout his life. He also paid a visit to Little Richard’s home in California in the late ‘50s.
With B.B. King, there was a chance meeting at Sun Studios and, in late 1956, at a famous all-Black charity show, where King was the headliner and Elvis, as an invited guest, came out and wiggled his leg, but did not perform. Backstage, he and King had a photo made. Marty Lacker told me that Elvis and B.B. King used to visit some in Las Vegas, but that was in the ‘70s. He told me: “There were times when B.B. King would be playing in the lounge, and Elvis would be playing in the big room. Elvis would invite B.B. up to the suite after the shows. He liked B.B. and B.B. liked him.”
Elvis’ influences were so diverse. Some people have said the movie undersells Elvis’ country and crooner influences to make him look like almost solely the product of blues and R&B. Any thoughts on that?
I would agree with that. But this is Lurhmann telling us Elvis didn’t steal Black music, as he has been accused of doing, but performed it in homage. I would say it was in his spiritual DNA, as he grew up with Black playmates and heard that music all around him. But Gladys was a big Grand Ole Opry fan, and it was in part the Colonel’s introducing her to Hank Snow that got her to let her boy go with the Colonel. But yes, adolescent Elvis listened to all kinds of music, from the Ink Spots to Dean Martin.
Any thoughts on the portrayal early in the film of country star Hank Snow, who first takes Elvis out on the road before becoming disgusted with him, and his son, Jimmie Rodgers Snow, who seems to worship Elvis?
Snow had a big ego and resented the fact that Elvis quickly became the draw on his shows, not Snow. And his son, Jimmie (later Jimmy), envied Elvis and yearned to counsel him on his “sinful” ways. Elvis kind of liked Jimmie. They went motorcycle riding together in Nashville. Parker used Jimmie to sidle up to Elvis and form a friendship to get Elvis to sign with Parker and the elder Snow, who were then business partners. But then Colonel cheated Hank out of half of Elvis and that was that. Jimmie later went to Graceland in 1958 to talk to him about how he had given up drinking and doing pills on the road and had turned his life over to Jesus. Elvis wasn’t ready for hear all that yet.
What’s the real origin story of Parker hearing about and going to discover Elvis?
He probably initially heard about Elvis from his cronies in Texarkana when Elvis was playing little clubs while on the Louisiana Hayride. What turned Colonel’s head, though, was a report from his old friend Oscar Davis, who went to Memphis in October 1954 to advance an Arnold appearance at Ellis Auditorium, and saw how Elvis packed a local dive, the Eagle’s Nest, night after night with screaming women. Davis went to have a look and went back to tell Colonel Parker all about him and how he wiggled and girls went wild. Charlie Lamb, who was present that day, told me that Parker got up from the lunch table and got in his car that minute and drove to find him.
What about Presley’s entrance into the Army? It’s shown as being Parker’s idea to get him away for a while to put a lid on the sexual energy and image.
Oh, Parker instigated that whole thing, but it wasn’t to put a lid on the sexual energy. He began negotiating it all with the Pentagon in 1956. He wanted Elvis to go not to Special Services, where the army was happy to put him, but to serve his time as any other soldier. This would sand the rough edges off his image and bring him back as the all-American boy fit for family entertainment with Frank Sinatra. It was all to make him into a beloved pop idol, not a dangerous, lugubrious rock ‘n’ roller.
Parker wanted to make Elvis clean-cut after he came back from the army in part because when Elvis went into the army, neither Elvis nor Parker thought rock ‘n’ roll would last. Elvis, especially, thought that it might even be over by the time he got out. So while he was gone (remember, Parker never went to Germany when Elvis was there), Parker set up all these appearances and movies for him, and the idea was to make him appeal to families — the all-American boy that would have longevity, and could grow into that role as he aged. But once Elvis was onstage, controlling the music, he did what he wanted.
It’s kind of like Priscilla letting Baz make Parker out to be such a villain, but is now having Hanks and Baz say they toned down the Colonel’s evilness once they met with her, because Parker was a good guy. They’re having it both ways.
Is the portrayal of the ’68 comeback special accurate, with Parker trying desperately to keep it a Christmas special, and resisting the rock ‘n’ roll throwback elements that everyone loved, because he was kowtowing to a deeply upset TV network?
Yes and no. It was supposed to be a Christmas show in the sense that it would air in December, and Parker wanted it to be a family show with Elvis as a ‘60s-era Bing Crosby or Perry Como. But there was never a Christmas sweater or a fairy-tale Christmas set. That’s Luhrmann being the showman. Parker was ticked that there was initially no Christmas music, though, and (TV producer) Steve Binder and Elvis threw him “Blue Christmas” as a bone.
Is the portrayal of Elvis’ relationship with Priscilla, however briefly that is dramatized, basically accurate?
It’s both sanitized and expanded. After the divorce, Elvis and Priscilla had little shared experience other than arranging Lisa Marie’s visits.
Did Elvis ever really fire Parker on stage, followed by Parker getting back at him by threatening to demand repayment for every tiny expense item over the years?
He never fired him on stage, but there was an incident in Vegas in 1974 where Elvis criticized Barron Hilton from the stage for firing one of Elvis’s favorite employees. That led to a colossal shouting match afterwards with Parker and talk of firing and quitting on both their parts, with Colonel ultimately presenting a bill that the Presleys could not pay. And so things resumed as they had been. Elvis would never have been so crass as to have fired Colonel from the stage.
Did Parker really do everything in his power to make sure Elvis didn’t fulfill his wish of touring internationally?
Yes. Parker had no passport and couldn’t go and didn’t trust any other promoter to take him. He cited several reasons — primarily security — and not big enough venues, or said the money wasn’t right. Near the end of his life, Parker is said to have been speaking with two promoters about this, since Elvis was so deeply unhappy about never getting to go tour Europe, but it never happened.
Did Parker really install Elvis’ dad, Vernon, as business manager to make sure he, the Colonel, could really run all things?
More or less. Vernon needed something to do, and he was always willing to take money under the table, and Parker saw how malleable he was, and would have suggested Vernon be the so-called business manager. Privately, Parker referred to Elvis’s family as “shit” and rubbed his thumb and forefinger together.
Did Parker talk of things in carnival or carnie or conman terms as much as he does in this movie?
Yes, he did. For example, in discussing how he didn’t ever want to get taken advantage of, he’d say, “I don’t want to end up with cider in my ear.” And he had an underling fix up a “cookhouse,” a so-called carnival kitchen, by throwing an oilcloth over the conference room table in his office on the MGM lot. One thing he did with me was to say, “I want you to remember this.” And then he launched into this carny double-speak that sounded kind of like pig Latin. Of course, I had no idea what he was saying, much less remembered it. He never left the carnivals, really.
Anything else to say about the Parker characterization?
The Colonel is a complicated character, and while he always took too much of Presley’s money, he made some very sound decisions for him. Luhrmann hasn’t really given him his due by a long shot.
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Elvis review: Baz Luhrmann’s sweaty, seductive biopic makes the King cool again
In luhrmann’s fairytale vision, elvis’ manager (tom hanks) is the evil stepmother, while austin butler’s king is the princess locked in a tower, article bookmarked.
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Dir: Baz Luhrmann. Starring: Austin Butler, Tom Hanks, Helen Thomson, Richard Roxburgh, Olivia DeJonge, Kelvin Harrison Jr, Shonka Dukureh . 12A, 160 minutes.
If we were to pull back the curtain on Elvis Presley, what would we even want to see? A soul stripped of its performance? Something cold and real behind the kitsch? I’m not convinced. America’s pop icons aren’t merely shiny distractions. They’re a culture talking back to itself, constantly interrogating its own ideals and its desires. I don’t think who Elvis was is necessarily more important than what Elvis represents. And, while you won’t find all that much truth in Baz Luhrmann ’s cradle-to-grave dramatisation of his life, the Australian filmmaker has delivered something far more compelling: an American fairytale.
“I am the man who gave the world Elvis Presley,” utters Tom Hanks ’s Colonel Tom Parker, his manager, as the curtain rises (literally) on Luhrmann’s expansive, rhinestone-encrusted epic. “And yet there are some who would make me out to be the villain of this story,” he adds.
Parker, who saw early promise in Elvis’s politically radical blend of country and R’n’B, slyly positioned himself as the sole overseer of the star’s creative enterprise – the man who won him a recording contract with RCA Records, who secured his merchandising deals and TV appearances, and who navigated him through a fairly brief but bountiful acting career. But Parker took far more in return. In 1980, a judge ruled that he had defrauded the Presley estate by millions. Some even blame him for pushing an overworked Elvis to the brink and ultimately contributing to his death.
For Luhrmann, the fairytale parallels couldn’t be more obvious. Parker is the evil stepmother, Elvis (here played by former child star Austin Butler ) is the princess locked in her tower – if that tower is, in fact, the vast and gilded stage of his Las Vegas residency. When Parker, a former carnival worker, first seduces Elvis to become his client, it’s in a literal hall of mirrors. That may sound a little absurd, but Luhrmann’s roots in the Australian opera scene have granted him a winning (though, to some, divisive) ability to deliver baroque stylings with a sincere, romantic sensibility.
I’ve always believed strongly in the purpose and necessity of Luhrmann’s outlandish visions – that it’s not enough simply to capture the grotesque consumption of The Great Gatsby ’s Jazz Age, but to prove that we, the audience, would be as weak to its charms as Fitzgerald’s protagonist, Nick Carraway. The same is true here, in the ways his subject is both seduced and betrayed by his own fame. And, anyway, Luhrmann’s always shot his films a little like Elvis performs – sweaty and kinetic, as the camera sweeps through the corridors of Graceland and through decades of his life with the fury of a thousand karate kicks.
Elvis will, and should, invite serious discussions about the musician’s outstanding legacy, and the film’s weakest spots speak mostly to how unsettled the debate around him still is. There’s certainly a lot to be said for how nervously the film tiptoes around his relationship with Priscilla (Olivia DeJonge), who was 14 when they first met. Can a film speak on behalf of a woman who’s still alive and able to share her own story? And where do we settle on the great debate of Elvis’s wider role in music history? Was his success really another chapter in white America’s long history of cultural appropriation, or did that early, rebellious appeal in fact prove to be a surprisingly powerful tool in the fight against segregation?
Luhrmann’s film arguably offers the most plausible, romantic ideal of Elvis, even if it turns him into something of a naïf trapped under Parker’s spell. He is always, in Parker’s narration, referred to as “the boy” and never “the man”. He is the sweet-souled, blue-eyed momma’s boy who just wants to buy his family a Cadillac and play the music of his childhood, which was spent in the Black-majority communities of Mississippi. Even at the height of Elvis’s fame, the film is careful to constantly bring us back to the Black artists who inspired him, either through the musician’s own words (and he was always deferential to his origins, to the very end) or through Matt Villa and Jonathan Redmond’s frenetic editing work. When singer-songwriter Big Mama Thornton (Shonka Dukureh) launches into her rendition of “Hound Dog”, a voice on the radio commands us to listen – this is the voice of Black America speaking.
By framing Elvis’s story through Parker’s, Luhrmann’s film is cannily able to take a step back from the intimate details of the musician’s life. Instead it views him as a nuclear warhead of sensuality and cool, someone stood at the very crossroads of a fierce culture war. Parker thinks he can turn him into a clean-cut, all-American boy for the white middle classes, compelling him to accept the draft, cut his locks, and go to war. Elvis resists, and his gyrating pelvis (captured in many, glorious, zooms to the crotch) helps fuel the burgeoning sexual independence of young women across the country. “She’s having feelings she wasn’t sure she should enjoy,” Parker notes, as the camera surveys one wide-eyed, lip-biting fan. Costume designer Catherine Martin – Luhrmann’s spouse, credited also as co-production designer and producer – dresses Elvis in an array of soft, dreamy pinks to sublime effect.
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To say that Elvis isn’t really so much about the real Elvis might sound like it’s taking the pressure off of Butler’s performance. But that’d be an entirely unfair judgement of what’s being achieved here – an impersonation of one of the most impersonated people on the planet, that’s at times uncanny without ever coming across as parody. Sure, Butler has the looks, the voice, the stance and the wiggle nailed down, but what’s truly impressive is that indescribable, undistillable essence of Elvis-ness – magnetic and gentle and fierce, all at the same time.
It’s almost odd to watch a performance so all-consuming that Hanks – the Tom Hanks – feels like an accessory. He’s all but buried underneath layers of prosthetics and a pantomime Dutch accent, seemingly cast only so that the warm smirk of America’s dad can trip a few people into questioning whether he’s really the villain of all this. Butler makes a compelling argument for the power of Elvis, at a time when the musician’s arguably lost a little of his cultural cachet. So does Luhrmann. So does the soundtrack, which is packed with contemporary artists (Doja Cat’s “Vegas” has sound of the summer written all over it). And while not everyone will be convinced by their efforts – I know that I’m ready for Elvis to be cool again.
‘Elvis’ is released in cinemas on 24 June
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Austin Butler (I)
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- 28 wins & 74 nominations total
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- Feyd-Rautha
- Wil Ohmsford
- 20 episodes
- Hunter Calloway
- 26 episodes
- Assistant Shnotzy
- Cody Beck (as Austin Robert Butler)
- performer: "I'll Fly Away", "That's All Right", "Baby, Let's Play House", "Blue Suede Shoes", "Heartbreak Hotel", "Hound Dog", "Are You Lonesome Tonight?", "Working on the Building", "Trouble", "Crawfish", "Here Comes Santa Claus (Right Down Santa Claus Lane)", "If I Can Dream", "Suspicious Minds", "Can't Help Falling in Love"
- performer: "All I Want"
- performer: "Life I Love You, Not", "Humming Medley"
- performer: "Possibilities"
- performer: "Lost in Your Own Life" (Acoustic)
- performer: "Whatever My Love"
Personal details
- Austin Robert Butler
- 6′ (1.83 m)
- August 17 , 1991
- Anaheim, California, USA
- Parents Lori Anne Butler (Howell)
- Ashley Butler (Sibling)
- Other works Stage play: Eugene O'Neill 's "The Iceman Cometh" - playing Don Parrit with Denzel Washington (Hickey), Tammy Blanchard (Cora), Bill Irwin (Ed Mosher), Colm Meaney (Harry Hope), David Morse (Larry Slade), Frank Wood (Cecil Lewis), Nina Grollman (Margie), etc. Director: George C. Wolfe . Set Design: Santo Loquasto . Costume Designer: Ann Roth
- 1 Interview
- 4 Magazine Cover Photos
Did you know
- Trivia His audition tape for the role of Elvis Presley in Elvis (2022) , he sang an emotional performance of "Unchained Melody". Director Baz Luhrmann was so moved and impressed with his audition that he gave the role to Austin.
- Quotes [talking about the coolest celebrities he ever met] I've met so many cool people! Samuel L. Jackson was such a nice guy. I've loved watching him since I was little, so it was really great to get to talk to him. Also, Andy Richter , Kevin Nealon and Tim Meadows .
- Elvis ( 2022 ) $700,000
- How old is Austin Butler?
- When was Austin Butler born?
- Where was Austin Butler born?
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- Baz Luhrmann’s <i>Elvis</i> Is an Exhilarating, Maddening Spectacle—But One Made With Love
Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis Is an Exhilarating, Maddening Spectacle—But One Made With Love
B az Luhrmann’s movies—even the great ones, like his 1996 Shakespeare-via- Tiger Beat romance Romeo + Juliet , or The Great Gatsby, from 2013, a fringed shimmy of decadence and loneliness—are loathed by many for what they see as the director’s garishness, his adoration of spectacle, his penchant for headache-inducing, mincemeat-and-glitter editing. But in 2022, in a culture where long-form series storytelling reigns supreme, Luhrmann’s devotion to two-and-a-half-hour bursts of excess is pleasingly old-fashioned, like a confetti blast from a cannon at a county fair. It’s true that his movies don’t always work, or rarely work all the way though, and that’s certainly the case with Elvis, his sequined jumpsuit of a biopic playing out of competition at the 75th Cannes Film Festival . At times it’s barely a movie—the first hour or so is exceptionally fragmented and frenetic, as if Luhrmann were time-traveling through a holographic rendering of Elvis Presley’s life, dipping and darting through the significant events with little time to touch down. But through all the arty overindulgences, one truth shines through: Luhrmann loves Elvis so much it hurts. And in a world where there’s always, supposedly, a constant stream of new things to love, or at least to binge-watch, love of Elvis—our American pauper king with a cloth-of-gold voice—feels like a truly pure thing.
Luhrmann and his co-writers Sam Bromell, Craig Pearce and Jeremy Doner use the story of Elvis’ supremely crooked manager, Colonel Tom Parker (Tom Hanks, lurking beneath prosthetic jowls), to frame the larger, more glorious and more tragic story of Elvis. Though he was born in Tupelo, Mississippi—his identical twin, Jesse Garon, died at birth— Elvis grew up poor in Memphis, adoring and being adored by his mother, Gladys (Helen Thomson). Luhrmann shows us Elvis as a preadolescent, splitting his time between a juke joint and a revival tent down the road. (Too young to get into the former, he could only peer through a crack in the wall, entranced by the Black blues guys performing inside.) These are the twin poles of young Elvis’ life, the foundation for all that came after, and Luhrmann connects them in one extremely stylized shot: in Elvis world, gospel and blues are literally connected by one dirt road. This junior version of Elvis goes back and forth freely, drinking deeply from one well before moving to the other, and back again.
His rise happens quickly, and before you know it, he’s become the Elvis we know, or the one we think we know: he’s played by Austin Butler, who goes beyond merely replicating Elvis’ signature moves (though he’s terrific at that); he seems to be striving to conjure some phantasmal fingerprint. For long stretches of the movie, Butler’s Elvis doesn’t really have many lines: we see him, in his pre-fame years, jumping out of the truck he drives for a living and walking down a Memphis street, swinging a guitar in one hand a lunchbox in the other. Did the real-life Elvis actually do this? Doubtful. But isn’t it exactly what you want to see in a movie?
Read more reviews by Stephanie Zacharek
Before long, our movie Elvis has landed a slot performing on the Louisiana Hayride, and Sam Phillips over at Sun Studios—who specializes in “race records,” music made by Black performers—takes a chance on him at the behest of his assistant, Marion Keisker, who hears something in the kid. Elvis cuts a record. Then he’s jiggling onstage in a loose pink suit, its supple fabric hiding more than it reveals, but even so, the world gets a hint at the secrets contained therein. The girls, and most of the boys, too, go nuts.
Butler conjures the guilelessness of Elvis’ face, his soft yet chiseled cheekbones, the look in his eyes that says, “I’m up for anything—are you?” He and Luhrmann hop through the major events of Presley’s life, sometimes going for long stretches without taking a breath. Elvis is exhausting, a mess; it’s also exhilarating, a crazy blur you can’t look away from. (Catherine Martin’s costume and production design is, as always, exemplary—period-perfect but also brushed with imaginative flourishes.) We see Elvis shopping at his beloved Lansky Brothers, lured in because one of his favorite musicians, B.B. King (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) shops there. We see him succumbing to the dangerous manipulations of Colonel Parker, and later kicking against them, most notably as he mounts his 1968 comeback special. (He was supposed to put on a garish Christmas sweater and sing some piece of holiday dreck, not become the stuff of legend in a black leather suit that, you just know, would be hot to the touch if only you could get close enough to it.)
But as we know, Elvis loses that fight. Colonel Parker sends a quack known as Dr. Nick to pump him full of drugs, to keep him on his feet even as he’s going out of his mind. The tragedy escalates. Does Luhrmann show us the real Elvis, or is he just re-embroidering the Elvis who already lives in our imagination? The answer seems to be that Luhrmann sees equal value in fact and myth. Though Elvis more or less follows the facts as we know them, there are moments of invention that are piercing. When Elvis’ long-suffering wife Priscilla (played by Olivia DeJonge ) finally leaves him, he chases after her, rushing down the staircase at Graceland in pants and a purple robe, a drugged-out mess. She can’t take it anymore; she’s got to leave, and she’s taking little Lisa Marie with her. Elvis stands there in bare feet, begging her not to go. And when he realizes he can’t stop her, he says, more in defeat than in hopefulness, “When you’re 40 and I’m 50, we’ll be back together—you’ll see.” Even if Elvis never really uttered that line, its map of romantic longing had long been written in his voice. In Elvis, when Butler sings, it’s Elvis’ voice that streams out, in lustrous ribbons of recklessness, of ardor, of hope for the future. That voice is a repository of every joy and misery that life could possibly hold.
Read More: He’ll Always Be Elvis: Remembering the ‘King’ 40 Years On
When the trailer for Elvis was released, a few months back, the responses on social media, and among people I know, ranged from “That looks unhinged! I’m dying to see it!” to “I can’t even look at that thing,” to “What accent, exactly, is Tom Hanks trying to achieve?” (The movie, incidentally, explains the unidentifiable diction of this man without a country, and probably without a soul.) In the movie’s last moments, Luhrmann recreates one of the saddest Elvis remnants, a live performance of “Unchained Melody” from June of 1977, just two months before his death. Butler, his face puffed out with prosthetics, sits at a grand piano littered with Coca Cola cups and a discarded terrycloth towel or two. The song, a swallow’s swoop of longing, begins pouring out of Elvis’s wrecked body—but as we watch, Luhrmann pulls a mystical switch, and footage of the real Elvis replaces the magnificent Butler-as-Elvis doppelgänger we’ve been watching. For a few confusing moments, the real Elvis is no longer a ghost—he has returned to us, an actor playing himself, and we see that as good as that Butler kid was, there’s no comparison to the real thing.
But the feeling of relief is fleeting. Elvis , now gone for more than 40 years, is a ghost, no matter how passionately Luhrmann and Butler have tried to reconstitute his ectoplasm. The only consolation is that when a person is no longer a person, he is at last free to become a dream. In the final moments of Elvis, Luhrmann returns his beloved subject to that world, like a fisherman freeing his catch. “Lonely rivers flow/to the sea, to the sea,” the song tells us, as the true Elvis swims back to his home of safety—he’s better off as a dream, maybe, safe from everyone who might hurt or use him. But for a few hours there, he seemed to walk among us once again, a sighting that no one would believe if we tried to tell them. But we saw him. We really did. And then he slipped away, having had enough of our claim over him, if never enough of our love.
Correction, July 5
The original version of this story misstated the film’s screenwriters; Jeremy Doner was omitted.
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Elvis cast guide: what the characters look like in real life.
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The Baz Luhrmann Elvis cast is a diverse group of talent, new and old, playing the real-life icons from the era of The King. Luhrmann is the director of such stylistic hits as Romeo + Juliet, Moulin Rouge!, Australia , and The Great Gatsby , known for his vibrant, kinetic visuals and a keen focus on music. Elvis is the director's first biopic about a famed musician, which had a tall order to fill in casting the film. However, with Austin Butler's Golden Globe win and Academy Award nomination for playing Elvis himself, it seems like the casting was quite successful.
Elvis Presley is the iconic legend who helped define a new era of music and changed the landscape of the industry, becoming known as "The King of Rock and Roll." A controversial figure at the start, Elvis' music and persona were accepted, and he continued his rise to fame as a singer, actor, and icon throughout the world over. Elvis Presley surrounded himself with a number of friends, family, and colleagues throughout his life, who are portrayed in Luhrmann's film by a talented group of actors. Portraying real-world individuals in The King's life, the Baz Luhrmann Elvis cast consists of heavy hitters like Tom Hanks, familiar faces like Dacre Montgomery, and newcomers like Olivia DeJonge.
Austin Butler as Elvis Presley
In the Baz Luhrmann Elvis cast, Butler plays the lead, Elvis Presley, the legendary singer from Tennessee who starts off as a talented up-and-coming artist that explodes onto the music scene to become one of the most prominent figures of all time and a true cultural icon. Butler's most recognizable role to date is as Wil Ohmsford in The Shannara Chronicles , as well as his part in Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon A Time...In Hollywood , where he played Manson murderer Tex Watson. The actor has also appeared in The Carrie Diaries and Arrow . Fans will next see him in Denis Villeneuve's Dune: Part 2 , as Feyd Rautha.
Tom Hanks as Colonel Tom Parker
Hanks plays Colonel Tom Parker, the controversial manager of Elvis Presley, who gets his hooks into the singer at an early age and remains with him throughout the entirety of his career, creating opportunity while also manipulating the singer's career. No stranger to playing real-life roles, Hanks is a multi-Academy Award-winning actor known for his roles in films like Forrest Gump, Cast Away, Philadelphia, Saving Private Ryan, and countless others, becoming a Hollywood icon in his own right. Elvis is one of the few movies in which Hanks's transformative performance is helped by the use of prosthetics and one of the few where he's playing a villainous character.
Olivia DeJonge as Priscilla Presley
Olivia DeJonge plays Elvis' first and only wife Priscilla Presley in the Baz Luhrmann Elvis cast, who first met the singer while he was in the Army, stationed in Germany. The couple was eventually married in 1967 just as Elvis began his Hollywood career. They had a daughter, Lisa Marie, before divorcing in 1973, although Priscilla would later become the executor of Elvis' estate forming Elvis Presley Enterprises (EPE) to keep his legacy alive and act as herself in The Naked Gun films. DeJonge is a relatively new talent, but has built a reputation in projects like TNT's Will , Netflix's The Society , and the HBO Max miniseries The Staircase .
Richard Roxburgh as Vernon Presley
Roxburgh plays Elvis's father, Vernon Presley, who would become Elvis' financial manager, helping to take care of affairs at Graceland and traveling with his son to help manage his career alongside Colonel Tom Parker. An Australian native, Roxburgh has been featured in numerous film and TV projects, notably Mission: Impossible II, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Van Helsing, Hacksaw Ridge, and Catherine The Great .
Helen Thomson as Gladys Presley
Thomson plays Elvis Presley's mother Gladys Presley in the Baz Luhrmann Elvis cast. Gladys came from a poor background and had a very close relationship with her son, which was believed to be in part to the fact that Elvis had been born a twin, but his brother was stillborn. She suffered from alcoholism and struggled with Elvis' rise to fame , which further distanced her from her son until her death at age 46 due to alcohol poisoning. Thomson is best known for her work in her native Australia, including multiple TV shows such as Bad Mothers, Stupid, Stupid Man, and Bad Cop, Bad Cop . Elvis is her first feature film work since 2004.
Elvis' Supporting Cast & Characters
Kelvin Harrison Jr. as B.B. King: Harrison plays legendary Rock and Roll Hall of Famer B.B. King in the Baz Luhrmann Elvis cast, the American blues singer-songwriter known as "The King of the Blues" who befriended Elvis in his early days as an up-and-coming musician. Harrison Jr. has been in a number of well-known projects throughout his career thus far, including films like The Trial of the Chicago 7 , Mudbound, Waves , and Cyrano . He'll next appear in Chevalier , a biopic about composer Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges.
David Wenham as Hank Snow: Wenham plays Clarence Eugene "Hank" Snow, the famed country music singer who spanned a massive 50-year career and was originally managed by Colonel Tom Parker. Snow initially sought Presley to perform as an opening act at the Grand Ole Opry, but eventually, Colonel Tom Parker would leave Snow to manage Elvis. Wenham has had an illustrious career in film and TV, starring in Peter Jackson's The Lord of The Rings as Faramir, Zack Snyder's 300 as Dilios, and most recently in the Netflix series Pieces of Her , among countless other credits.
Kodi Smit-McPhee as Jimmie Rodgers Snow: Smit-McPhee plays the son of Hank Snow in the Baz Luhrmann Elvis cast, a musician like his father who comes to idolize Elvis as he began his ascent to superstardom. Rodgers Snow would leave music altogether early on to become a preacher. Smit-McPhee has forged a notable career thus far, starring in films like The Road, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Alpha, and Power of the Dog . He also appeared as Nightcrawler in X-Men: Apocalypse .
Luke Bracey as Jerry Schilling: Bracey plays talent manager Jerry Schilling in Elvis , a lifelong friend, manager, and member of Elvis' "Memphis Mafia" group of friends, managers, and associates that commonly surrounded the singer. Bracey is an Australian actor known for his work in films like G.I. Joe: Retaliation (as Cobra Commander), the Point Break remake, Hacksaw Ridge, and the Netflix action film Interceptor with Elsa Pataky .
Dacre Montgomery as Steve Binder: Montgomery plays Steve Binder in the Baz Luhrmann Elvis cast, a TV producer who helped make Elvis' 1969 comeback TV special come to life, which was a tremendous success, much to the chagrin of Colonel Tom Parker. He would also later produce the Star Wars TV Special, one of the most critically-panned specials ever made. Montgomery, another Australian native, is best known as Billy Hargrove in Netflix's Stranger Things as well as the Red Ranger in the Power Rangers movie.
Alton Mason as Little Richard: Mason plays singer-songwriter Little Richard in the Baz Luhrmann Elvis cast, known as "Architect of Rock and Roll" for his influence on the genre, including his hits like "Tutti Frutti" and "Long Tall Sally," traveling in the early circles of the movement with the likes of B.B. King, Elvis, Buddy Holly, etc. Mason is best known as a male model with Elvis being his first-ever feature role.
Austin Butler's Oscar Nomination Cemented His Portrayal Of Elvis As Definitive
There have been many actors to play Elvis in the past. However, in the Baz Luhrmann Elvis cast, the actor that gave what may go down as the definitive performance of the "King of Rock" in a biopic is Austin Butler. Taking on such an iconic role is a daunting task for a young and relatively unknown actor, but Butler's performance captured the necessary charisma and ensured that film fans would remember his name alongside Elvis's for decades to come.
Following his Golden Globe win, Butler picked up a nomination for Best Actor at the Academy Awards, but ended up losing out on the role to Brendan Fraser for his role in The Whale . However, the loss was more of a credit to Brendan Fraser's talent than it was a critique of Butler's performance, which is arguably the best on-screen Elvis Presley so far. From his vocal changes to Butler drawing on his own sad connection to Elvis, it is a performance that brings this iconic figure to life in an impressive way and leads the Baz Luhrmann Elvis cast with the confidence of a Hollywood star.
Elvis Ending Explained (In Detail)
The oscars 2023 complete guide: winners & where to watch every best picture nominee, every song in elvis (& who sings what).
Baz Luhrmann and Austin Butler on Elvis and honouring the 'original superhero' while exposing the dark heart of the American dream
By Luke Goodsell
Topic: Arts, Culture and Entertainment
Butler and Luhrmann (pictured) were among the crowd at the film’s premiere at Cannes in May, and received a 12-minute standing ovation. ( Supplied: Warnes Bros )
Elvis: he's everywhere and nowhere, a mononym as familiar as Coke and a cipher as abstract as the clichés he came to (dis)embody. Both the King of Rock 'n' Roll and a costume party punchline, the man born Elvis Presley left the building an icon, his image now so ubiquitous — and for so long — that it's easy to forget how seismically his appearance ruptured the culture in the 50s.
As music critic Greil Marcus once wrote : "Elvis was not a phenomenon. He was not a craze. He was not even, or at least not only, a singer, or an artist. He was that perfect American symbol, fundamentally a mystery."
"We could call him the original superhero. He is born of dust," says Baz Luhrmann, whose new film – simply titled Elvis – confirms the Australian director as one of the few remaining non-franchise filmmakers whose movies are an event at the comic-book-dominated multiplex.
The film literalises that heroic parallel: before the jumpsuits and the capes and the Vegas excess, there's the young Tupelo, Mississippi boy (played by Chaydon Jay) poring over a Captain Marvel comic with fascination.
“I knew unequivocally [Butler] ... could embody the spirit of one of the world’s most iconic musical figures," Luhrmann said in press notes. ( Supplied: Warner Bros )
For a kid growing up in small-town Australia, as Luhrmann did, Elvis may as well have hailed from outer space. Luhrmann's father at one time ran the local movie house in Herons Creek, NSW, where, the director recalls: "Every Sunday we would have Elvis matinees. I'm probably forgetting how silly it all was, but I just thought he was the coolest guy in the world."
In Luhrmann's new film, an ambitious production that was filmed in Queensland and endured a pandemic shutdown thanks to co-star Tom Hanks's COVID diagnosis , the director may have found his perfect muse.
Never one to resist the grandest of pop tales (see: Moulin Rouge!, Romeo + Juliet and The Great Gatsby), Luhrmann doesn't so much set out to humanise Presley, or seek to explain his life — an impossible, foolish errand — as he does to capture his ability to channel both personal emotions and ideas that span the entirety of post-war pop culture, from music to race, politics, sex, and stardom.
The result is a hyperkinetic whirl of sound and vision that rarely slows to catch its breath. Luhrmann's film knows that Elvis was the rock star myth from which all the music biopic clichés were forged, and is canny enough to lean into those tropes — upholding the iconography in order to transcend it.
The cast and crew of Elvis on the red carpet at last year's Cannes Film Festival. ( Supplied: Warner Bros )
With Elvis, Luhrmann takes his feelings — our feelings — for the King and plays his life as a distinctly American jukebox tragedy, a prism through which to refract the rise, fall and eventual reincarnation of a star-as-eternal-product.
"I didn't do it to lionise him so much as to use Elvis as a canvas on which to explore these two big ideas in America, which is selling show and business," says Luhrmann.
"When the business gets out of whack with the show, then tragedy ensues."
To tell the story, the director turned to what he knows best: showbiz razzamatazz, framing the star's life through the slippery perspective of Colonel Tom Parker, the one-time carnival barker turned Elvis's infamously exploitative manager.
As played by Hanks — with a mischievous twinkle that occasionally strays toward Goldmember burlesque — the Colonel is a complex, paradoxical figure; an immigrant corrupted by the dark heart of the American dream.
"It's a kind of toxic marriage; a marriage that is amazing and loving in the beginning, and becomes stultifying and destructive," Luhrmann explains.
“What always fascinates me about any icon is the fact that they're first and foremost human," Butler said in press notes. ( Supplied: Warnes Bros )
Parker's shapeshifting narrative, a giddy blend of fact and fancy, lets Luhrmann loose from the shackles of realism to find the kind of truth that only artifice can reveal. Luhrmann's camera is both showman and fan, pop historian and swooning teenager.
With his smoky eyeliner and pretty perma-pout, there's a queerness to this Elvis that catches the singer's androgynous, otherworldly appeal.
For the daunting lead role, Luhrmann cast 30-year-old Californian Austin Butler, a musician and actor who — when he discovered the filmmaker was making an Elvis picture — sent in an audition tape of himself performing Unchained Melody , an ode to his recently departed mother who, much like Elvis, he lost at a young age.
It was an emotional moment for Butler, who grew up in a house of Elvis fans, including his grandmother, who was a high-schooler during the star's rise to fame.
"I don't really remember a time where I didn't know who he was. There was always Elvis music around," says the actor, whose hair is sandy, almost surfer-like when we meet – a detail that can't help but recall Elvis's own pre-dye locks.
Butler's electrifying performance doesn't so much impersonate Presley as commune with his spirit; it's wired and nervy, like a pop culture big bang detonated in a body that can barely contain the energy.
Elvis had naturally blonde until his late teens. While it gradually darkened, the colour he is associated with was dyed a shade known as "Mink Brown". ( Supplied: Warner Bros )
Luhrmann compares the actor's presence to Leonardo DiCaprio in Romeo + Juliet.
"Lightning doesn't often strike twice, but with Austin, we knew that we had one of the few tickets to the greatest show on Earth," he says.
Both director and star knew the performance couldn't be an Elvis impersonation, that they'd have to summon something special. Butler says the key was finding his character's internal motivation rather than simply focusing on external, physical mimesis.
"It is a tricky balance, because you [also] want to be incredibly specific. And so physically, it was like, 'What are his eyes doing? What is his mouth doing, and what is his head doing? What was every aspect of his body doing?' At times it felt nearly impossible because it was so much information that I was taking in."
The captivating thrill of the film might come as a surprise, especially for those who grew up knowing Elvis as little more than a caricature, or — for a younger generation — a cultural line in the sand.
"Elvis was a hero to most, but he never meant shit to me," went Public Enemy's notorious line in 1989's Fight the Power , a throwdown that vocalised Black culture's thorny relationship with Presley, who came to be the symbol of white rock 'n' roll's theft of their music. As cultural critic Margo Jefferson put it in her 1973 essay for Harper's : "Elvis Presley was the greatest minstrel America ever spawned, and he appeared in bold whiteface."
Luhrmann's film doesn't shy away from these elements, focusing on key supporting players, from Big Mama Thornton to B.B. King and Little Richard, who can only watch from the sidelines as their white peer is plucked for instant stardom.
But the film also gives us the Southern boy who grew up poor and lived for a spell in an all-Black neighbourhood; who immersed himself in the blues and gospel music to which he felt spiritually drawn.
The soundtrack, a typically Luhrmann-esque mix of contemporary pop and period-accurate music, draws a line from a star who scandalised white audiences in the 50s with his Black sound to the current chart dominance of Black pop. When Thornton's Hound Dog bleeds into Doja Cat's hip-hop track Vegas , it's as though time and space have collapsed.
That Elvis might continue to resonate in pop is a testament to just how much he set the template for superstardom. Yet he also established another blueprint, that of the tragic, Icarus-like icon who flew, as Luhrmann is fond of saying, too close to the sun — for dearly beloved artists like Prince, Whitney Houston, and Presley's one-time son-in-law and heir to his singular superstardom, Michael Jackson.
Luhrmann has cited his father's cinema in Herons Creek as influential in seeding his love of film. His mother ran a dress shop and taught ballroom. ( Supplied: Warnes Bros )
"All icons are really flawed. We want them to be perfect. We want them to be gods. We want them to be young and beautiful forever. And at some point, they're just human beings and reality and life just exhausts them," Luhrmann says, his voice contemplative, tinged with sadness.
"I knew Prince well. I knew Michael a bit. We were working on something, trying to do a song on Moulin Rouge! I'd get the occasional midnight phone call from Michael with a funny voice," he continues.
"The thing is, though, Michael and Prince and Elvis — who are icons, they're not just great pop stars — they are all only living for the unconditional love across the footlights. They all said that they're anti drugs but all of them ended up addicted to opioids, variously for physical ailments, and I think to numb the fact that, unfortunately, when you have that much love coming across the footlights, nothing else kind of does it for you, you know?
"Our icons become lonesome."
You can feel this in the film's extraordinary final sequence, in which the late-period Vegas performer — embodied first by Butler and then, via a startling jump cut, footage of real-life Elvis — sweats through his performance of Unchained Melody, a bloated, decaying husk from which that voice soars, like some supernatural entity finally freed of its human form.
The scene brought Butler full circle to that first audition tape.
"It was really emotional for me, getting to do that performance, it was really special and tragic, and difficult and euphoric — all at the same time," says the actor.
Butler moved in with Luhrmann and his costume designer wife Catherine Martin when filming was delayed by COVID. “We became very close,” he told IndieWire. ( Supplied: Warner Bros )
That sense of euphoric tragedy powers the movie's unabashed, heart-on-rhinestone-spangled-sleeve catharsis, which is unafraid of courting big, melodramatic sentiment: Elvis was living for the unconditional love of his fans, and that love killed him.
The film understands that there is power in cliché, that pop music's universality gives us permission to feel emotions and write them large. In that final sequence, Elvis is Michael and Prince, he's Whitney, he's Kurt and he's Amy. He's also, through the sound of that voice, a vessel for everything all of us might be going through in that moment.
When I tell Luhrmann just how much, and how unexpectedly, I was moved by the film, he pauses; the vulnerability is momentarily disarming.
"It's been hard times, you know," he says, pointing toward the theatrical experience as something that might bring audiences back together.
"I grew up in a small town, and the cinema was a place that you could go if you were lonely, where you weren't alone because you were sitting in a big room with strangers, feeling."
"If one person gets any emotion from anything we collectively toil to make, it means all the world to us. It really does."
Elvis is in cinemas now.
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‘Elvis’ Review: Shocking the King Back to Life
Austin Butler plays the singer, with Tom Hanks as his devilish manager, in Baz Luhrmann’s operatic, chaotic anti-biopic.
By A.O. Scott
My first and strongest memory of Elvis Presley is of his death. He was only 42 but he already seemed, in 1977, to belong to a much older world. In the 45 years since, his celebrity has become almost entirely necrological. Graceland is a pilgrimage spot and a mausoleum.
Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis” — a biopic in the sense that “Heartbreak Hotel” is a Yelp review — works mightily to dispel this funerary gloom. Luhrmann, whose relationship to the past has always been irreverent and anti-nostalgic, wants to shock Elvis back to life, to imagine who he was in his own time and what he might mean in ours.
The soundtrack shakes up the expected playlist with jolts of hip-hop (extended into a suite over the final credits), slivers of techno and slatherings of synthetic film-score schmaltz. (The composer and executive music producer is Elliott Wheeler.) The sonic message — and the film’s strongest argument for its subject’s relevance — is that Presley’s blend of blues, gospel, pop and country continues to mutate and pollinate in the musical present. There’s still a whole lot of shaking going on.
As a movie, though, “Elvis” lurches and wobbles, caught in a trap only partly of its own devising. Its rendering of a quintessentially American tale of race, sex, religion and money teeters between glib revisionism and zombie mythology, unsure if it wants to be a lavish pop fable or a tragic melodrama.
The ghoulish, garish production design, by Catherine Martin (Luhrmann’s wife and longtime creative partner) and Karen Murphy, is full of carnival sleaze and Vegas vulgarity. All that satin and rhinestone, filtered through Mandy Walker’s pulpy, red-dominated cinematography, conjures an atmosphere of lurid, frenzied eroticism. You might mistake this for a vampire movie.
It wouldn’t entirely be a mistake. The central plot casts Elvis (Austin Butler) as the victim of a powerful and devious bloodsucking fiend. That would be Col. Tom Parker, who supplies voice-over narration and is played by Tom Hanks with a mountain of prosthetic goo, a bizarre accent and a yes-it’s-really-me twinkle in his eyes. Parker was Presley’s manager for most of his career, and Hanks portrays him as part small-time grifter, part full-blown Mephistopheles.
“I didn’t kill Elvis,” Parker says, though the movie implies otherwise. “I made Elvis.” In the Colonel’s mind, they were “the showman and the snowman,” equal partners in a supremely lucrative long con.
Luhrmann’s last feature was an exuberant, candy-colored — and, I thought, generally underrated — adaptation of “The Great Gatsby,” and the Colonel is in some ways a Gatsbyesque character. He’s a self-invented man, an arriviste on the American scene, a “mister nobody from nowhere” trading in the unstable currencies of wishing and seeming. He isn’t a colonel (Elvis likes to call him “admiral”) and his real name isn’t Tom Parker. The mystery of his origins is invoked to sinister effect but not fully resolved. If we paid too much attention to him, he might take over the movie, something that almost happens anyway.
Luhrmann seems more interested in the huckster than in the artist. But he himself is the kind of huckster who understands the power of art, and is enough of an artist to make use of that power.
As a Presley biography, “Elvis” is not especially illuminating. The basic stuff is all there, as it would be on Wikipedia. Elvis is haunted by the death of his twin brother, Jesse, and devoted to his mother, Gladys (Helen Thomson). Relations with his father, Vernon (Richard Roxburgh), are more complicated. The boy grows up poor in Tupelo, Miss., and Memphis, finds his way into the Sun Records recording studio at the age of 19, and proceeds to set the world on fire. Then there’s the Army, marriage to Priscilla (Olivia DeJonge), Hollywood, a comeback broadcast in 1968, a long residency in Las Vegas, divorce from Priscilla and the sad, bloated spectacle of his last years.
Butler is fine in the few moments of offstage drama that the script allows, but most of the emotional action is telegraphed in Luhrmann’s usual emphatic, breathless style. The actor seems most fully Elvis — as Elvis, the film suggests, was most truly himself — in front of an audience. Those hips don’t lie, and Butler captures the smoldering physicality of Elvis the performer, as well as the playfulness and vulnerability that drove the crowds wild. The voice can’t be imitated, and the movie wisely doesn’t try, remixing actual Elvis recordings rather than trying to replicate them.
At his first big performance, in a dance hall in Texarkana, Ark., where he shares a bill with Hank Snow (David Wenham), Snow’s son, Jimmie (Kodi Smit-McPhee), and other country acts, Elvis steps out in a bright pink suit, heavy eye makeup and glistening pompadour. A guy in the audience shouts a homophobic slur, but after a few bars that guy’s date and every other woman in the room is screaming her lungs out, “having feelings she’s not sure she should enjoy,” as the Colonel puts it. Gladys is terrified, and the scene carries a heavy charge of sexualized danger. Elvis is a modern Orpheus, and these maenads are about to tear him to pieces. In another scene, back in Memphis, Elvis watches Little Richard (Alton Mason) tearing up “Tutti Frutti” (a song he would later cover) and sees a kindred spirit.
The sexual anarchy and gender nonconformity of early rock ’n’ roll is very much in Luhrmann’s aesthetic wheelhouse. Its racial complications less so. “Elvis” puts its hero in the presence of Black musicians including Sister Rosetta Tharpe (Yola), Big Mama Thornton (Shonka Dukureh) and B.B. King (Kelvin Harrison Jr.), who offers career advice. An early montage — repeated so often that it becomes a motif — finds the boy Elvis (Chaydon Jay) simultaneously peeking into a juke joint where Arthur Crudup (Gary Clark Jr.) plays “That’s All Right Mama” and catching the spirit at a tent revival.
There’s no doubt that Elvis, like many white Southerners of his class and generation, loved blues and gospel. (He loved country and western, too, a genre the film mostly dismisses.) He also profited from the work of Black musicians and from industry apartheid, and a movie that won’t grapple with the dialectic of love and theft that lies at the heart of American popular music can’t hope to tell the whole story.
In the early days, Elvis’s nemesis is the segregationist Mississippi senator James Eastland (Nicholas Bell), whose fulminations against sex, race-mixing and rock ’n’ roll are intercut with a galvanic performance of “Trouble.” Later, Elvis is devastated by the assassinations of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (who was killed “just three miles from Graceland”) and Robert F. Kennedy. These moments, which try to connect Elvis with the politics of his era, are really episodes in his relationship with Colonel Parker, who wants to keep his cash cow away from controversy.
When Elvis defies the Colonel — breaking out in full hip-shaking gyrations when he’s been told “not to wiggle so much as a finger”; turning a network Christmas special into a sweaty, intimate, raucous return to form — the movie wants us to see his conscience at work, as well as his desire for creative independence. But Luhrmann’s sense of history is too muddled and sentimental to give the gestures that kind of weight.
And Elvis himself remains a cipher, a symbol, more myth than flesh and blood. His relationships with Vernon, Priscilla and the entourage known as “the Memphis mafia” receive cursory treatment. His appetites for food, sex and drugs barely get that much.
Who was he? The movie doesn’t provide much of an answer. But younger viewers, whose firsthand experience of the King is even thinner than mine, might come away from “Elvis” with at least an inkling of why they should care. In the end, this isn’t a biopic or a horror movie or a cautionary parable: It’s a musical, and the music is great. Remixed, yes, and full of sounds that purists might find anachronistic. But there was never anything pure about Elvis Presley, except maybe his voice, and hearing it in all its aching, swaggering glory, you understand how it set off an earthquake.
Like a lot of people who write about American popular culture — or who just grew up in the second half of the 20th century — I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about Elvis. “Elvis,” for all its flaws and compromises, made me want to listen to him, as if for the first time.
Elvis Rated PG-13. Rock ’n’ roll, sex, drugs. Running time: 2 hours 39 minutes. In theaters.
A.O. Scott is a co-chief film critic. He joined The Times in 2000 and has written for the Book Review and The New York Times Magazine. He is also the author of “Better Living Through Criticism.” More about A.O. Scott
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Meet the Elvis cast — who’s who in Baz Lurhmann’s Elvis movie biopic
Take a look at the Elvis cast. Our guide to the new movie biopic.
Baz Lurhmann, the flamboyant director of The Great Gatsby and Moulin Rouge! has produced a bright, glittery movie about Elvis Presley that’s full of music, color and movement. Elvis the movie has a massive scope, covering Presley’s life from his childhood — growing up in poverty in the deep south of America with the influence of Black culture (evangelical church, gospel and blues) — to his early years as a singer on the Country Music circuit, his discovery by the shady Colonel Tom Parker and rise to fame and all the way to his all-too-early death, at 42. It’s a film that tells the story of America in the 50s, 60s and 70s alongside the story of The King and, as a result, it’s packed full of references to key figures in popular culture and has a huge cast of characters.
So, who's who in Elvis the movie? Here’s our guide to everyone to look out for, from the main cast to all the cameo appearances.
Austin Butler is Elvis Presley, aka The King
Austin Butler takes on the title role of Elvis Presley and according to most critics (including our own What to Watch film reviewer), he's done an outstanding job. Walking the fine line between caricature and inhabiting a character is a difficult one — especially when that character is as iconic as The King of rock and roll and has been memed, mimicked and impersonated for decades.
Even more difficult is Butler has to play Elvis from his teenage early days, starting out as a group singer, all the way through to Elvis in his mid-forties, overweight, worn down by life and addiction and yet still managing to put on a show that casts a spell on everyone watching. To believably hit that range of experience is a tough act — but Butler nails it. He's one to watch for the future. Where have you seen Austin Butler before? Starting out in Disney roles (like so many actors and entertainers), Butler has had lead roles in The Carrie Diaries and The Shannara Chronicles.
Tom Hanks is Colonel Tom Parker
Colonel Tom Parker (not his real name) was Elvis' manager and business partner — and all-round bad egg. Colonel Tom — actually a Dutch national called Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk — was a carnival con-man who changed his name, faked his military background and then moved into music promotion where we worked with various acts, including Hank Snow. Once he found Elvis and realized how rich Elvis could make him, he stuck limpet-like to his new protégé controlling what he wore, ate, drank and did — including encouraging him to serve in the Military, marry Priscilla and do Las Vegas concerts for so many years.
Tom Hanks transforms himself to play Colonel Tom with prosthetics, a bald wig and an odd (not Dutch) accent. We don't think he pulls it off, in fact, we'd go so far as to say he's the weak link in the movie, but you judge for yourself. Outside of this movie Hanks is an established dramatic actor with an impressive list of leading roles including six Academy Award nominations and two wins (for Philadelphia, 1993 and Forrest Gump, 1994) as well as seven Emmy wins. Most recently he's appeared in the western, News of the World and next up is the live-action remake of Pinocchio .
Helen Thomson is Gladys Presley
Elvis was close to his mother, Gladys. She adored him and he worshipped her. When she died young — aged just 46, while he was serving in the Army — he was devastated.
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Helen Thomson is an Australian actress, known for her TV work in Jane Campion drama Top of the Lake (with Elisabeth Moss), Blue Heelers and Bad Mothers .
Richard Roxburgh is Vernon Presley
Vernon Presley had a huge influence on his son Elvis after Elvis' mum Gladys died. He managed his Graceland estate, looked after Elvis' finances and even went with him on tour. He was probably a little too fond of the benefits that the rock star lifestyle could bring him, to make sure his son was being treated well.
Also from Baz Lurhmann's home country Richard Roxburgh is an Australian actor who's worked on a huge variety of shows and movies including Rake , Van Helsing (2004), and Moulin Rouge! (2001) which Lurhmann directed.
Olivia Dejonge is Priscilla Presley
Priscilla Beaulieu met Elvis Presley in Germany when she was just 14 years old and he was serving in the Army. They kept in touch after he returned to the US, finally marrying eight years later, in 1967. Elvis and Priscilla had one child, a daughter Lisa Marie, before becoming estranged and eventually divorcing.
Australian actress, Olivia DeJonge has most recently been seen in the true-crime drama The Staircase as well as TNT's young Shakespeare TV series, Will .
Kelvin Harrison Jr. is B.B. King
One of the most influential American R&B singer-songwriter-guitarists in music history, B.B. King had a stream of hits from the 1950s through to the 1990s — including "The Thrill Is Gone", "Is You Is or Is You Ain't (My Baby)" and the 1987 collaboration with Irish rock band U2, "When Love Comes to Town". B.B. King on his friend, "Elvis was different. He was friendly. I remember Elvis distinctly because he was handsome and quiet and polite to a fault. Spoke with this thick molasses Southern accent and always called me ‘Sir.’ I liked that. I liked his voice, though I had no idea he was getting ready to conquer the world."
Kelvin Harrison Jr. has been acting since he was a teen, in movies as diverse as It Comes at Night, The Trial of the Chicago 7 and Cyrano .
David Wenham is Hank Snow
Hank Snow was a Canadian country music singer in the 1950s who was popular in the early part of Elvis' career. After his son, Jimmie Snow heard Elvis on the radio — playing his first record “That’s All Right” — he encouraged Elvis to join Hank's small-town tour. It was on that tour that Colonel Tom first set eyes on his golden ticket...
David Wenham is probably best known for his role as Faramir in The Lord of the Rings but has also starred in Top of the Lake (alongside Olivia DeJonge), Van Helsing , as well as Baz Lurhmann, films Australia and Moulin Rouge!
Kodi Smit-McPhee as Jimmie Rodgers Snow
Son of country music star, Hank Snow, Jimmie Snow started out in his father's footsteps before becoming a Pastor. As Lurhmann's film has it, Jimmie heard Elvis on the radio and spotted his teen audience appeal and brought him onto his father's tour. He was also the host of Grand Ole Gospel Time at the Grand Ole Opry.
Kodi Smit-McPhee was last seen on the big screen besting Benedict Cumberbatch in a game of wits and cunning, in Jane Campion's The Power of the Dog . He's also appeared in films include Dolemite is my Name, Dark Phoenix and as The Boy, in the 2009 dystopian drama The Road .
Shonka Dukureh as “Big Mama” Thornton
Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton was an American singer-songwriter whose popular blues song, "Hound Dog", was later recorded by Elvis and turned into a smash hit — which became Elvis' longest-running number one.
The late Shonka Dukureh (who died in July aged just 44), was a sensational vocalist who also collaborated with artist Doja Cat on the song "Vegas" which is a Hound Dog/Doja Cat original mashup that has pride of place on the Elvis soundtrack.
Dacre Montgomery is Steve Binder
Steve Binder was a director who (in Luhrmann's words) "was responsible for the iconic 1968 television special, often referred to as Elvis' comeback." He saw the potential to break Elvis out of the cheesy money-making commercial stunts that the Colonel had him doing and get him back to his raw musical potential.
Yet another Aussie in the cast, Dacre Montgomery is best known for his role as Billy Hargrove in the Netflix fantasy drama Stranger Things . He was also in 2017's Power Rangers movie and the Selena Gomez-produced rom-com The Broken Hearts Gallery .
Luke Bracey is Jerry Schilling
Schilling was a close friend of Elvis since they were both teenagers. He was a member of Elvis' infamous "Memphis Mafia". He's now a film producer ( Elvis & Nixon , Heartbreak Hotel ) and a talent agent.
An Australian actor who started out in the long-running series Home & Away before getting roles in Point Break (2015), Little Fires Everywhere and Hacksaw Ridge.
Yola is Sister Rosetta Tharpe
Rosetta Tharpe was a Gospel singer and electric guitarist in 1930s and 40s America. She was referred to as "The Godmother of rock and roll" and her hit "Strange Things Happening Every Day", was considered the first true rock and roll record.
Yola, aka Yolanda Claire Quartey, is a Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter. She makes a cameo appearance in Elvis performing in a late-night club on Memphis' legendary Beale Street. If you want to check out what the fuss is all about she's playing at Glastonbury 2022 .
Alton Mason is Little Richard
A flamboyant rock & roll showman, Little Richard's hits included "Tutti Frutti", "Long Tall Sally" and "Good Golly Miss Molly." He was one of the first crossover musicians, reaching audiences of all races, a rarity in those times. Presley was so impressed by him he covered four of his songs and called him "the greatest".
Fashion model Alton Mason, who makes his acting debut, as Little Richard in Elvis , is yet another electric musical cameo appearance in the film. Little Richard's swaggeringly confident performance is a pivotal moment — it comes just as Elvis is starting to doubt himself and his musical instincts. Elvis watches a charismatic performer who makes his own rules and gets back in the game.
Natasha Bassett is Dixie Locke
Poor old Dixie Locke was Elvis' first serious girlfriend. We say "poor Dixie" because as soon as fame beckons, Elvis heads out of the door, off on tour with barely a backward glance at Dixie. She's a footnote in time, but she does make it into the movie — which is something, we guess.
Natasha Bassett who plays Dixie is yet another Aussie cast member. (We guess Luhrmann used the pandemic to recruit close to home!) She's had her own experience of portraying a famous singer, playing Britney Spears in the 2017 Lifetime biopic Britney Ever After .
More Elvis movie content
- Elvis movie review: we can't help falling in love with Austin Butler's King
- Why did Harry Styles miss out on the role of Elvis?
- The Elvis movie trailer has dropped and here’s what we learned.
I've worked in content strategy, editorial and audience development for leading film and TV companies for over 15 years. Always fascinated by digital trends, I'm currently obsessed with FilmTok. You can also find me extolling the virtues of classic TV shows like Fringe, Smallville and The West Wing, romance movies, Wong Kar Wei's back catalogue and anything that involves Monty Don/Gardener's World.
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'Elvis': Trailer, Release Date, Cast, and Everything We Know So Far About the King's Biopic
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In an age where legends in the music industry such as Freddie Mercury , Elton John , Eazy-E , Aretha Franklin , Ray Charles , and Johnny Cash , have all had the stories of their iconic careers told on screen, it was only a matter of time before the King of Rock 'n' Roll himself Elvis Presley was given his own proper big-screen biopic. While industry veteran John Carpenter did a made-for-television biopic starring Kurt Russell as the icon back in 1979, a tried and true mainstream biopic was inevitable. Who better to take on Presley's story than Baz Luhrmann , the hyper-stylized filmmaker behind Moulin Rouge! , Romeo + Juliet , and The Great Gatsby . It has been nine years since Luhrmann's last big-screen outing with his take on the F. Scott Fitzgerald classic and while he has done some work since, including creating the short-lived 70s-set Netflix series The Get Down , that was still all the way back in 2017.
Luhrmann's films may be polarizing to some thanks to his unique way of making movies, but much like the titular man behind his 2022 big-budget biopic Elvis , this is a film that will certainly have its vocal fans as well as detractors. Luhrmann has been trying to get the film off the ground for some time now. It was initially announced back in 2014, with Venom and Fifty Shades Of Grey screenwriter Kelly Marcel penning the script. Word went quiet on the project for the next five years until news broke that the film was officially on with America's darling Tom Hanks in talks to play the role of Presley's ruthless manager Colonel Tom Parker and Luhrmann undergoing a lengthy search to find the right young actor to fill the mighty shoes of Presley.
The film has gone through a variety of setbacks since production commenced back in early 2020, thanks of course to the then-emerging COVID-19 pandemic with Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson being two of the very first celebrities to announce that they were tested positive. Now after countless hurdles, the film is finally set to hit theaters this summer, and we have everything you need to know before checking out the high-profile biopic.
Editor's Note: This piece was updated on May 25 to add the latest trailer.
Related: Bedazzled 'Elvis' Poster References the King of Rock's Iconic Belt Buckles
Watch the Official Trailer for Elvis
Warner Brothers posted the first official trailer for Elvis on February 17, 2022. The trailer is set to a variety of hits and covers by Presley, sung by star Austin Butler , including "Suspicious Minds," "Jailhouse Rock," "C'mon Everybody," "That's Alright (Mama)," and concluding with "Unchained Melody." The latter is one of the last songs Presley ever performed on stage prior to his death, which adds an extra emotional anchor to the 3-minute trailer.
Warner Bros released the second trailer for Elvis on May 23, previewing more footage of the ambitious biopic as well as featuring other covers performed by Butler including "Trouble," "Money Honey," and an even better grasp at Butler's cover of "Suspicious Minds." The trailer also features the song "Vegas" which Bazz Luhrmann enlisted Doja Cat to write and perform for the film.
When Is Elvis's Release Date?
Much like many other movies coming out this year, Elvis has found its release date shift multiple times because of the ongoing Pandemic. It was initially slated to release last year with an awards-friendly date of October 1, 2021, but Warner Bros later pushed it back a little over a month to November 5, 2021. After the controversial announcement that Warner Bros. would simultaneously release all of its 2021 films in theaters and on HBO Max, the film was pushed back half a year to June 3, 2022. The film was eventually pushed back one last time to June 24, 2022 , where it'll be opening against Scott Derrickson 's horror movie The Black Phone starring Ethan Hawke . In this release slot, Elvis would be opening two weeks after Jurassic World: Dominion , which is likely to be the biggest film of the Summer, as well as a week after Disney and Pixar's epic Toy Story spin-off Lightyear , which is also likely to do big business.
Related: Warner Bros. Agrees to 45-Day Theatrical Window in 2022, Per AMC Theatres Boss
Who Are in the Cast of Elvis?
Former Disney Channel and Nickelodeon star Austin Butler is taking on the role of Elvis Presley. Luhrmann and his team undertook a lengthy casting search to find the right young actor to step into the role of the King of Rock 'n' Roll before deciding on Butler. Other actors who were initially up for the role included Ansel Elgort , Harry Styles , Miles Teller , and Aaron Taylor-Johnson .
Despite being the lesser of the known names amongst his competitors, Butler's audition won over the hearts of Luhrmann and co. Early in his career, Butler scored background and supporting roles in various Nickelodeon and Disney Channel series including iCarly , Zoey 101 , Hannah Montana , Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide , Jonas , and Wizards Of Waverly Place . Butler then transferred over to shows for a (slightly) older audience with roles on series such as Switched At Birth , The Carrie Diaries , Arrow , and The Shannara Chronicles . Butler soon got a big boost in his career nabbing a supporting role in indie auteur Jim Jarmusch 's zombie-comedy The Dead Don't Die and played the real-life Manson Family member Tex in Quentin Tarantino 's Oscar-winning Once Upon A Time In Hollywood . Butler will also soon be starring in Apple's big-budget World War II series Masters of the Air , from the team behind Band Of Brothers and The Pacific , where he'll be joined by other rising young stars including Barry Keoghan , Callum Turner , and Sex Education breakout star Ncuti Gatwa .
Easily the biggest name on the cast list is Tom Hanks , who will be playing Presley's domineering manager Colonel Tom Parker . Hanks, a two-time Academy Award winner, is typically prone to playing the 'good guy' throughout his filmography and his role in Elvis will be showing a different side to the thespian in an unconventional antagonistic role. From the trailers, it looks like Hanks will be unrecognizable in the role, donning a fatsuit, a healthy amount of makeup and prosthetics, and a strange accent.
Hanks has been keeping busy. Even during the pandemic, he headlined two original films at Apple with Greyhound and Finch , re-teamed with his Captain Phillips director Paul Greengrass to star in his first western in News Of The World , and he even made a surprise cameo in the critically acclaimed comedy sequel Borat Subsequent Moviefilm . Hanks looks to have a busy year ahead of him as well. Besides Elvis, he'll also be reuniting with his Forrest Gump director Robert Zemeckis for Disney's live-action remake of Pinocchio where he'll be playing the role of Geppetto, opposite a cast that also includes Cynthia Erivo , Luke Evans , Joseph Gordon-Levitt , Keegan Michael-Key , and The Haunting Of Bly Manor star Benjamin Evan Ainsworth in the title role of the wooden puppet who wants to be a real boy. Hanks will also be working with the celebrated filmmaker Wes Anderson for the first time in a new comedy titled Asteroid City , where he'll be starring opposite an all-star cast that also includes Margot Robbie , Scarlett Johansson , Jeffrey Wright , Jeff Goldblum , Bill Murray , Bryan Cranston , Adrien Brody , Tilda Swinton , and Sophia Lillis among many others. Lastly, Hanks will be capping off the year playing the title role in A Man Called Otto from director Marc Foster , an American remake of the Swedish dramedy A Man Called Ove .
Other cast members joining Hanks and Butler include Kelvin Harrison Jr. as B.B. King , Olivia DeJonge as Priscilla Presley, Helen Thomson as Gladys Presley, Richard Roxburgh as Vernon Presley, recent Oscar-nominee Kodi Smit-McPhee as Jimmie Rogers, David Wenham as Hank Snow, Dacre Montgomery as Steve Binder, and Luke Bracey as Jerry Schilling, along with plenty of other names.
Related: Baz Luhrmann Finds His Priscilla in Elvis Presley Biopic
What Is Elvis About?
Well, it's about Elvis Presley of course! The trailer seems to hint that the film will chronicle Presley's childhood to his rise to fame all the way to his early death in 1977 at the age of 42. The film will also tell of Presley's tumultuous relationship with Colonel Tom Parker, his romance with the young Priscilla Presley, and his friendship with other musicians including B.B. King. In a recent interview with Memphis Commercial Appeal , Luhrmann stated that he's using the story of Presley "to paint a canvas of American life in the 50s, 60s, and 70s."
Will Elvis Be Coming To HBO Max?
After receiving backlash from many of their top talent as well as major theater chains, Warner Bros will be releasing their big-budget tent poles in theaters only and HBO Max subscribers will have to wait until 45 days after the film's premiere before they can watch it on the streaming service. Though with the Warner-Discovery deal closing quicker than expected and the head-brass at the studio changing, there is a slight chance that the new head of the studio will lengthen that theatrical exclusive window. It'll be interesting to see how the shorter window factors in with The Batman 's box office as if it shows any signs that it diminished some of its potential sales, the studio might forgo the 45-day window plan. Only time will tell.
When and Where Was Elvis Filmed?
Filming for Elvis did not, in fact, take place in Presley's native land of Tennessee. Well, at least most of it didn't. Instead, filming predominately took place in Luhrmann's home country of Australia. Production initially kicked off in January 2020 but just two months in, filming was halted when Hanks and his wife Wilson tested positive for COVID-19. Filming picked back up in September 2020, which caused it to lose some of its talent including recent Oscar-nominee Maggie Gyllenhaal who was originally slated to play Gladys Presley. The shoot lasted until March 2021, an entire year after filming had initially been shut down.
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Celeste Yarnall, who appeared in the Star Trek episode, "The Apple," starred alongside Presley in Live a Little, Love a Little and was told by an excited Elvis that he named one of his horses 'Star Trek.'. In real life, Elvis was a huge fan of Star Trek, so its inclusion in the Elvis movie is a fitting part of its tribute to the King of Rock ...
According to actress Celeste Yarnall, "Elvis was a 'Star Trek' fan — he even had a horse named 'Star Trek.'". Yarnall appeared with Elvis in the film "Live A Little, Love A Little ...
Fans of Elvis know that "The King" was a massive fan of "Star Trek." According to his co-star from the film "Live A Little, Love A Little," Presley named one of his animals after the show.
Some might think these small "Star Trek" details are merely a coincidence, but they are actually purposely hidden in the film. In a documentary about Elvis, it's revealed that the king was ...
As per Baz Luhrmann, the ELVIS film has many Star Trek Easter eggs because Elvis was a HUGE Star Trek fan! // Video New ELVIS Q&A Nov 26 2022. Baz also said that he will likely release full concert performances of AB as Elvis and has many other stories to share about this film and Priscilla. Interesting Priscilla refers to Elvis as "her husband ...
This part 2 includes another 8 actors/actresses that were in an Elvis movie and in Star Trek.They include Shari Nims,Theodore Marcuse,Tanya Lemani,Angelique ...
The Following actors and actresses have appeared in movies with Elvis Presley either before or during the time Star Trek was originally on TV in the 1960's. Included are the characters they played on Star Trek and the episodes they appeared in followed by the Elvis movies they appeared in. Sort by: View: 16 names 1.
However, the accuracy of the movie is still in question. While Elvis Presley and Colonel Tom Parker's relationship was certainly fraught, and even fractious, Elvis doesn't provide a fully-rounded representation of their time together. Some scenes either entirely invent or twist events to suit the narrative of Parker as an out-and-out antagonist.
Laurel Goodwin, an actor who made her movie debut at age 19 opposite Elvis Presley in the 1962 feature Girls! Girls! Girls! and four years later played a crew member in the original, failed Star ...
Director: Baz Luhrmann. Rated PG-13, 2 hours 39 minutes. As for the big question of whether Butler could pull off impersonating one of the most indelible icons in American pop-culture history, the ...
Elvis had gone to the home of an employee he liked, whose wife was dying from cancer, and Hilton terminated the employee because of a rule banning any contact between employees and hotel talent ...
No, Luhrmann has really framed this through a present-day lens. Elvis had just as many white influences and announced as early as seventh grade that he was going to sing at the Grand Ole Opry ...
Parker, who saw early promise in Elvis's politically radical blend of country and R'n'B, slyly positioned himself as the sole overseer of the star's creative enterprise - the man who won ...
Austin Butler. Actor: Elvis. Austin Robert Butler was born in Anaheim, California, to Lori Anne (Howell), an aesthetician, and David Butler. He has always enjoyed movies of all types. When he was 13 he was walking around at the Orange County Fair and was approached by a representative from a background-acting management company, who helped him get started in the entertainment industry.
Baz Luhrmann’s movies—even the great ones, like his 1996 Shakespeare-via-Tiger Beat romance Romeo + Juliet, or The Great Gatsby, from 2013, a fringed shimmy of decadence and loneliness ...
James Cawley II. (1967-06-23) June 23, 1967 (age 57) Ticonderoga, New York, U.S. Years active. 2004—present. James Cawley (born June 23, 1967) is an American executive film producer and actor, known for his portrayal of Captain James T. Kirk in the fan film series Star Trek: New Voyages.
The Baz Luhrmann Elvis cast is a diverse group of talent, new and old, playing the real-life icons from the era of The King. Luhrmann is the director of such stylistic hits as Romeo + Juliet, Moulin Rouge!, Australia, and The Great Gatsby, known for his vibrant, kinetic visuals and a keen focus on music.Elvis is the director's first biopic about a famed musician, which had a tall order to fill ...
Luhrmann's film knows that Elvis was the rock star myth from which all the music biopic clichés were forged, and is canny enough to lean into those tropes — upholding the iconography in order ...
The voice can't be imitated, and the movie wisely doesn't try, remixing actual Elvis recordings rather than trying to replicate them. Image Butler with Tom Hanks, left, as Col. Tom Parker ...
Elvis's career spanned decades — from the 1950s, bringing rock and roll to the masses at the tender age of 21 and scandalizing audiences with his "suggestive" dance moves (hip thrusts weren't a thing in the 50s), serving in the Army and crossing over effortlessly to star in Hollywood movies he inspired the kind of wild fan worship we ...
Tom Hanks is Colonel Tom Parker. Tom Hanks as Colonel Tom Parker in Baz Luhrmann's Elvis movie. (Image credit: Warner Bros/Hugh Stewart) Colonel Tom Parker (not his real name) was Elvis' manager and business partner — and all-round bad egg. Colonel Tom — actually a Dutch national called Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk — was a carnival con-man ...
Much like many other movies coming out this year, Elvis has found its release date shift multiple times because of the ongoing Pandemic.It was initially slated to release last year with an awards ...