Austin Butler has a part in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in…Hollywood and was at the premiere last night. It’s been just over a week since Austin was announced as the new Elvis in Baz Luhrmann’s upcoming biopic about Elvis’s relationship with Colonel Tom Parker, to be played by Tom Hanks. Good timing for him to boost his profile before production begins on the film. 

This is, I think, the first time I’ve actually heard Austin speak. As I mentioned last week, most people probably know him, up to this point, as Vanessa Hudgens’s boyfriend. That’s obviously now changed with the biggest role of his career. So here he is, on the red carpet doing interviews:

As you can see, the hair is there already, and he has full lips like Elvis did, although Austin’s face is more narrow than Elvis’s, especially if the story is about young Elvis. Elvis had that youthful fullness to his face right up until the ’68 special, when his features started to really mature, but even then he was never gaunt. That said, it’s impossible to be an exact replica, physically, of someone so famous – it’s more about the vibe and, of course, the voice. Sounds pretty deep, even a little husky. Elvis could go low when he was singing but when he was speaking, I don’t know that I would say he had an exceptionally lowwwww speaking voice when he was talking casually. He did have a drawl though and that’s what I’m most curious to hear from Austin. I wonder if he’s started working on it yet. The film goes into production early next year and if he’s already Elvis-ed his hair, I can’t imagine he wouldn’t be Elvis-ing his voice.