Austin Butler needed a dialect coach to get rid of his Elvis voice: 'It was a lot'

Austin Butler took painstaking steps to master Elvis Presley's signature drawl for his role in Baz Luhrmann's Elvis biopic — and he needed professional help to make that voice go away.

On Wednesday's episode of The Late Show, the actor talked about how difficult it was to get out of the King of Rock & Roll's headspace when it came time to film his next project, the World War II miniseries Masters of the Air.

"It was a lot," Butler said. "I was just trying to remember who I was, I was trying to remember what I liked to do. All I thought about was Elvis for three years." He added, "I had a dialect coach just to help me not sound like Elvis in that film."

Butler has spoken previously about the work he put in to perfect his Presley accent, telling EW that he built his own personal "sound catalog" of every word the singer said, just to make sure he was nailing the pronunciations.

"I'd hear him say a certain word and I would clip just that bit out so I knew how he said that word," Butler explained. "I created my own archive of how he said every word and every diphthong, and the way that he used musicality in his voice."

Butler's Elvis performance won him a Golden Globe and earned him an Oscar nomination, but people joked online about him still using the voice while doing press for the film. He recently told EW that he had to "shed one skin and try to pivot into another" to play Maj. Gale Cleven for Masters of the Air.

Masters of the Air will unveil its first two episodes Jan. 26 on  Apple TV+. Watch Butler on The Late Show above.

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