-Man, oh, man. I'm so happy to meet you.
And thank you so much for coming on the show.
You hit a home run with this movie, buddy.
I can't even tell you what a great job you did.
We saw it. We screened it the other night.
You're fantastic in this movie.
-Thank you. -Congratulations.
-Thank you so much. -It was so good.
I want to get down to all the details
and ask you all the questions.
Here's some of the reviews, by the way, just so you know,
if you want to plug your ears.
But one says, "When Austin Butler shakes his hips
in Elvis' first gig as a full-blown rock 'n' roller,
it's like watching two stars being born,"
which is -- That was "Time Out."
I like that one. [ Cheers and applause ]
"Vanity Fair" says, "It may well be
a star-making turn for Austin Butler.
And I agree with that.
And then this one is my favorite.
"Entertainment Weekly" says,
"Austin Butler stares down the lens and melts it."
That's -- I've never heard that, melting it.
But I did feel that, when I was watching the thing --
Baz Luhrmann did such an amazing job creating it.
-Oh, yeah, he did.
I'm so proud of everything he's done.
-Yeah. -It was incredible.
-Did you feel when you're auditioning --
When you knew that there was an audition for Elvis
and you're like, "I'm close to it,"
did you get nervous?
Did you always know Elvis? -Yeah.
-You did. -Yeah, it's terrifying.
I mean, but it's that thing where it's --
I mean, it's the biggest responsibility I've ever felt.
You feel such a responsibility to him, to his family,
to all the people around the world who love him so much.
And so it's terrifying.
But it's also the thing where, as an actor --
Like, the actors that I always looked up to when I was a kid --
My dad always had Turner Classic Movies in the house.
And so "Raging Bull" and "East of Eden"
and "On the Waterfront" and all those.
So it was always like, "What did they do?"
And so it's always been about the challenge.
So I just leant into that as much as I could.
-But then once you got cast as Elvis,
do you go like, "Okay, now I got the gig.
Now it's really hard. I really got to get to work."
-Yeah, you feel like you're about to climb Mount Everest.
-Yeah. It really is. And you did it perfectly.
-Oh, thank you. -I can't even tell you.
You didn't do too much. It wasn't too little.
Wait till you see this performance.
I'm telling you, buddy, it was a knockout.
I mean, just even the accents that Elvis had,
the way he talked in the '50s,
the way he talked in the '60s and the '70s,
like three different Elvises.
And you sang differently.
And you actually sang in this movie.
-Yeah. -Yeah.
Well, I'm saying that because... [ Laughter ]
Sorry. But, I mean, we've had some actors
on this show.
They play parts in movies, and they don't sing
and they lip-sync.
But you can play guitar and you sang.
And you danced and moved just like -- It was --
But, I mean, how did you do the accents?
How did you remember what you were doing?
-Well, you know, I mean, for one thing,
you listen to Elvis speak.
And there's these amazing archives out there
of every interview he ever gave.
And that was the first thing that hit me was,
it's not just one voice of Elvis.
His voice changed so much over the years.
And so it's that thing of --
-Could you give us an example?
I'm sorry to put you on the spot.
-I told myself I wasn't gonna do this.
[ Cheers and applause ] Alright, alright.
-A little bit? -Alright.
So, I mean, I haven't done this at all.
And it's been a long time, so take it easy on the Internet.
But -- Alright, so, like, an example is,
when he was 19 and he goes on the "Louisiana Hayride."
It's 1954.
And his voice -- You know, he's nervous.
His voice at that time -- You speak a lot faster
when you're nervous.
And, also, he was young.
And so his voice at that point was like,
"Well, I'd like to say how happy we are to be down here.
It's a real honor for us to be --
get a chance to appear on 'Louisiana Hayride.'
So like that. -Yep.
[ Cheers and applause ]
And then like a couple years later, he's 21.
It's 1956.
And, honestly, this one I thought of earlier,
because it's how I feel right now.
It's that thing when you're not sleeping at night.
You're just buzzing.
I can't believe -- I've got to take a second.
I'm on "Jimmy Fallon" talking about playing Elvis Presley.
Like, you're my hero, man. Like, this is crazy.
It just blows my mind. I really...
Like, I just -- Yeah, so, at this point, he's 21.
And at that point, he's more like -- He says --
'Cause he's asked, "What are you thinking about at night?"
And he says, "Well, everything has happened to me
so fast in the last year and a half till I'm all mixed up.
You know, I mean, I can't keep up with
everything that's happening."
-Yeah. It's unbelievable. -So, there's that.
And then for, like, a juxtaposition,
like, we could fast-forward to '72.
Like, there's this great interview in '72,
and one of the first things he says is,
"Well --" 'Cause at this point, his voice goes more forward
than to his face, you know?
And, so, then he's like...
"Well, you know -- Well, we just came out here from Memphis."
That sort of thing. -Yeah, it's just coming out --
-It comes out of the front of --
-It's like three different characters.
It's such a great love letter to Elvis and any Elvis fan.
Dude, ultimate respect.
And I was reading some article about this,
and you were saying what kind of hit home to you is that --
his love for his mother.
-Yeah, yeah. -And how he lost his mom.
-Yeah. He was -- That was the first thing.
'Cause when I first started approaching this,
I think of Elvis is always 40 feet tall.
He's like -- You can only look up to him.
And it's hard to -- in the beginning,
to feel anything but small compared to him.
And all those questions -- You know, I'm a shy person.
I feel very -- you know, those moments of
"Am I enough?" and imposter syndrome and all those things.
And so it was a process in the beginning
of just trying to find his humanity.
And I tried many things, but I watched
this documentary and I learned that his mom passed away
when he was 23.
And that's how old I was when I lost my mom.
And that hit me like a freight train,
because it's the most human thing,
like, that grief that you feel.
And I know you've experienced, you know, that feeling.
And that's the thing where it just humanizes somebody,
and you suddenly don't feel alone in that.
And so that became the first key into finding his humanity.
-Yeah. You just played it perfect.
And you got to --
Obviously, you had to go to Graceland,
I'm assuming, and meet Priscilla and --
-That was so surreal.
The first time I went, it was about a month after I was cast.
And Baz and I took this road trip from Nashville to Memphis.
And I got to record -- The first recording studio I ever was in
was RCA, where Elvis recorded over 250-something songs.
You know, it was insane.
And, so, then we drove to Memphis.
-I'm freaking out. I mean, this is unbelievable.
-Also, I was just in Graceland, and Angie, who runs the spot,
she said, "Tell Jimmy, 'cause I know he's a big fan.
Tell him I will show him everything."
So take you in the archives, everything.
-Really? -Yeah, yeah.
-'Cause I've not been, 'cause I want to wait for
the exact right moment to go to Graceland.
-Oh, you'll get all the hookups.
-Really? -Yeah, for sure.
-Someone sent over this photo of you
in the Jungle Room playing -- Is it Elvis' guitar?
-Yeah. I still am waiting for somebody to wake me up.
-I mean, wait. So, how did you end up --
-So, this is -- Like, they had wanted me, you know,
for social media or something -- they were like,
"Well, we'll get you, like, playing a guitar."
And they were gonna just have me play
some random guitar at one point.
I kept putting it off
because I'm not a big social-media person, as well.
And then, when we got to Memphis,
they were like, "We're making you do it."
And so they got some other guitar.
And Angie heard that I was going to be playing a song.
And she said, "What guitar are you playing?"
I said, "Oh, it's a 1937 Epiphone.
And she goes, "Well, I got a '56 Gibson."
And I realized what she was saying.
And this is -- I actually didn't know this.
But that guitar is the guitar he played in
"Loving You," "Jailhouse Rock," "King Creole."
It's also the guitar -- Scotty Moore had it redone.
So it's the same guitar he plays in "That's the Way It Is."
It was the same guitar he plays in Vegas.
[ Cheers and applause ] Yeah.
And the last person to play it
in the archives was Paul McCartney.
-The last person to play it was Paul McCartney.
I mean, come on. What is going on?
How great is that? And what was Priscilla like?
-Oh, man, she's just a loveliest person.
And when I first met her, she said very few words,
but it was more looking in her eyes,
and you realize, this is the woman
that Elvis fell in love with all those years ago.
And she still loves him to this day
and she's the mother of his only child.
And it was so surreal.
And then -- But she said a couple things.
She said, "You have big shoes to fill."
And I said, "I know."
Just you feel the pressure.
And then she said -- And then she gave me this big hug
and she said, "You have a lot of support."
And then that was huge.
And then she said, "Have you been to Graceland yet?"
I said, "I'm about to go in for the first time."
And she said, "I truly believe that's where his spirit is."
And then I went over there for the first time.
And I spent the whole day in there by myself.
And now getting to, you know, spend time with her
and be in the Jungle Room and, like, be with Lisa Marie,
I just -- It made me feel like I was a part of the family.
It was so amazing.
-Are you a dancer?
I'm sorry to ask this, because --
-No, no.
-I was like, I don't know if I've seen you --
-No, I wasn't a singer or a dancer.
-No. But you definitely dance in this.
I mean, you're, like, a shy person.
You wouldn't -- Like, at a party --
-I was always a wallflower. -Really?
-Yeah. But that was the thing is you realize that Elvis wasn't --
He didn't do choreography in the way that Michael did
or something like that.
He was -- It was all the music moving him.
And, obviously, there are signature things
that he did that, you know, you have to be specific about.
But it was all about the way that the music moved him.
-Could you show me how to move? -Oh, God.
-Again, we... [ Cheers and applause ]
If you can't -- -Alright, alright, get out here.
Okay. I haven't done this -- It's been a long time.
♪♪
Alright. So, this is from the '50s.
He had this one that was really fun.
I just called it the sidewinder,
'cause you can kind of -- You can go from walking
into a side, you know?
It's hard on this carpet.
-So, you start here? -Yeah.
-You start here.
-Basically, what you're doing is, like --
You know when you move like this?
-Okay. Yeah.
-But you're going to put all your weight
on your right foot, and then your left foot
is just going to sort of tap.
So, you go to the side first,
and then, from there, you just tap to the side.
But you use this arm almost like a windmill.
-A windmill. Okay. Ready?
-And this hand can be almost like
you're holding a cane or something.
-Okay.
-So you're kind of from the side.
-That's why he's the best.
Come on, bud. I want to show everyone a clip.
Here's Austin Butler in "Elvis." Take a look at this.
[ Cheers and applause ]
-♪ Warden threw a party in the county jail ♪
♪ The prison band was there, they began to wail ♪
♪ The band was jumpin', and the joint began to swing ♪
♪ You should've heard them knocked-out jailbirds sing ♪
♪ Let's rock ♪
♪ Everybody, let's rock ♪
♪ Everybody in the whole cellblock ♪
♪ Was dancin' to the Jailhouse Rock ♪
♪ Dancin' to the Jailhouse Rock ♪
-♪ Dancin' to the Jailhouse Rock ♪
♪ Dancin' to the Jailhouse Rock ♪
-♪ Dancin' ♪
♪ They were dancin' ♪
♪ To the Jailhouse Rock ♪
Alright!
-Oh, my goodness. Austin Butler, everybody.
When we come back, Austin and I are doing something fun.
Stick around!