Elvis died before you were born. Did you grow up listening to his music? Well, that’s the thing about Elvis—he’s so ubiquitous. He is music, in a way. I grew up knowing so many of his songs. How did you prepare for your role? When I got the job, I just started listening to literally everything he had, and there’s some amazing, amazing songs. The whole ’68 Comeback Special was what really grabbed me. He does that whole concert in the round, finishing with “If I Can Dream” in that white suit. That song’s probably my favorite. Out of studying him and listening to him for a long time, I came out with a new favorite song of his. If anything, that was worth the job. You’re playing Jerry Schilling, Elvis’ childhood friend, the one person who always told him the truth. That’s a great way to put it. From my discovery, he was also the one who never wanted anything from him. That was a really nice thing for Elvis, to have a pure friend. Jerry was someone that knew him from a young age, and he just wanted the best for his mate. How does the movie depict the relationship between Elvis and Jerry? You see that Jerry cares for him in a way that other people maybe don’t, and in a way that maybe only a friend can. That’s a really pure and beautiful thing. There were a lot of people around Elvis taking things, wanting things. The Colonel was looking after certain parts of Elvis’ life and career, and it was Jerry who was there to make sure his friend was all right. Jerry is still alive. Did you get to meet him? I, hopefully, will be able to meet him soon, fingers crossed. I did send him a couple of emails when I got the job just saying, “Hi, I’m playing you. It would be nice to chat.” But I, unfortunately, didn’t hear back from Jerry in time for the movie. So I’m really looking forward to actually meeting him and going over a few of his stories about Elvis, but also stories about his life because Jerry’s life was interesting in its own way. He was such a fully fledged person. It made him easier to play. I really enjoyed it because I had someone to play who is a person that has his whole life that you can explore and study and see his journey through it. Jerry became a manager for the Beach Boys and Jerry Lee Lewis, so he had his own career. From a young man from Memphis who went to the University of Arkansas on a football scholarship, suddenly he was in Los Angeles, and he made his own life and career and path forward. I really respect him for that. He was always there for his friends, but he also led his own life. What about Colonel Parker? The Colonel was a great kind of illusionist in a way. He could hypnotize people, I think. And what I really respect about Jerry is that, in this movie, Jerry doesn’t get hypnotized by him. He doesn’t fall for it. He knows that Elvis needs a counterbalance to the Colonel in terms of people giving him advice. I think that’s with anyone in life. If you’re following one trajectory and not getting any other opinions, then you’re going to miss out on a few things. I think that was how I saw it with Jerry. The Colonel was looking after certain parts of Elvis’ life and career, and it was Jerry’s duty as a friend and as a mate to look out for the stuff that the Colonel might miss and not be aware of. What was it like being in a movie with Tom Hanks? Initially, I was intimidated, but Tom was great in all these moments we had together, where [our characters] were butting heads. Was Priscilla Presley, Elvis’ wife, supportive of the movie? I’ve heard that she’s seen it and really, really loves it, and is very supportive. I believe she was supportive all the way through. I know that [director] Baz [Luhrmann] met her prior to filming, and when you’ve got someone like Baz helming the ship, it’s pretty easy to trust him in terms of it is going to be a good movie. So I’ve heard that she’s seen the movie. I think she saw it with Jerry maybe, and they both really enjoyed it. I found out that Jerry is happy with what I did with him, so that’s a relief. That’s always good to hear. That’s the ultimate relief. If he says it’s good and Priscilla says it’s good, people that knew Elvis and were there, there’s a world where they’re the only critics that matter. So, yeah, I’m pretty happy to hear that she was happy with it, loved it and loved Austin’s performance. There are so many projects about Elvis. What is unique about this one? I think what Baz was maybe trying to do with the movie was to explore a few of the truths [about Elvis], to ultimately maybe find a rounded and generalized truth. Everyone’s going to have their different opinions on it and their different perceptions. So I think the movie touches on all those little aspects of everyone’s a little bit in it, and everyone’s part in the story. How much of his own singing does Austin Butler, who plays Elvis, do? I heard it was a combination of him alone and then combined with the real voice of Elvis. He was unbelievable. As you know with Baz’s films, music is a huge part of them. So I’m sure the genius he is has conjured up something that’s going to involve original Elvis, it’s going to involve Austin and it’s going to involve new artists and new takes on the songs. But I know that Austin did do a bit of singing for it for sure, and he was unbelievable. There were so many days on set where I’d be watching Austin all day being Elvis, and then he’d go back to get his makeup off and wig off in the makeup chair, and there were all these pictures of the actual Elvis around the makeup room. And I remember looking at them and going, “That’s not Elvis, because I just watched Elvis for a whole day.” And so, there were some confusing moments where suddenly you realized that you were watching Elvis, but you also weren’t watching Elvis, and the real Elvis was in these photographs. So Austin transported everyone every day really into that moment. You also have an action-adventure coming up, Interceptor, which was co-produced by your fellow Aussie Chris Hemsworth. What’s the story and who do you play? I play a guy called Alexander and it’s a real Aussie action movie. ElsaPataky is the protagonist, the lead in it, and she is just tremendous. It’s a cat-and-mouse game between her and me. And we also had SamHargrave, who did the directing of Extraction, he did a lot of the fight sequences. So it’s a big nonstop action movie in that way that writer-director MatthewReilly is famous for in his novels. And if anyone’s read any one of Matthew’s novels, you’ll know that the action starts on page one, and it doesn’t stop until the final page. And that is Interceptor as well, so I’m excited for it. I’m hoping that the people enjoy it. It’s a ride, that’s for sure. Then you have another movie based on a best-selling book, One True Loves, which looks like a more romantic story. Maybe more like Holidate. A little bit. One True Loves is one of those great romance movies. It’s got beautiful humor in it, but it’s got deep questions about love and life and personal experience. Are you the same person throughout your life, or do you morph out of that person? Do you hold on to bits of them? It’s a pretty intense movie at times, I must say. The story centers on me and Phillipa Soo, who are high school sweethearts who get married. Then, through a tragic accident, I disappear for a number of years, and I’m presumed dead, and Philippa rekindles with her old friend from high school, Simu Liu, and they fall in love. She’s thinking that I’ve passed away, and then suddenly she gets a phone call that I’m alive and I’m coming back. I have to confront the fact that my wife has a fiancé. And we have to figure out where to move from that and how life goes on that way. It’s intense. It’s got some beautifully funny bits in it. I think everyone’s performance is amazing. And there’s a lot of machinations on love and life, and what it’s about to spend your life with someone. Is there one person for you, or do you need to evolve with them to make them stay the right person for you? I think that’s the good message of it. Do you and Holidate co-star Emma Roberts have another movie together? We just wrapped Maybe I Do. My parents are played by SusanSarandon and William H. Macy, and hers are played by DianeKeaton and RichardGere. It’s a story about Emma and me deciding if we want to get married or not. Did they reunite you and Emma for Maybe I Do because you had worked together successfully before? Well, Emma and me, because we had so much fun doing Holidate, once we finished, we thought, Oh, we’ve got to do this again. We became really good friends. Going to work was an absolute dream when you can go to work with one of your mates. And so, ever since Holidate, we’ve been looking at scripts, and one of us would find one and then send it to the other. We just wanted to make sure it was the right one. At the end of 2021, Emma sent me this script and said, “Please read it. I think it’s really good. Would love to do it with you.” I had one read of the script and thought, “This is going to be amazing.” And then to find out that Diane Keaton, Richard Gere, Susan Sarandon and Bill Macy are in it, it was just a no-brainer. That was how it came together. It’s a really great romantic drama-comedy about what’s it like to be with someone for your whole life. And can you progress together, and can you grow together, or does something happen and you fall apart? So that’s a funny movie that we just finished filming about a month ago. I think for Emma and me, it took what we did in Holidate in a way, but it had some meat on the bones that Holidate didn’t. It had a different weight to it than Holidate did. We still have great moments and a bit of comedy, but there were more stakes at play in this one. Which is something that Emma and I were really interested in doing together. The next one we wanted to do, we wanted to make sure that it was something different and something that was the next step for us. So many Australian actors get their start on the Australian soap series Home and Away, as did you and Chris Hemsworth, and then go onto great film careers. What is it about that series do you think that launches so many film careers? I loved starting on Home and Away. As someone who never wanted to be an actor ever, I completely fell into it being on Home and Away. I can’t think of a better place to start because you learn real basic stuff about how to make drama. And also, when I was on it, it had already been going for 20-something years. So you come into it knowing nothing, never having been on a film set or a TV set in my life, and they said, “Hey, you come in, you put your costume on and you go to makeup. And then you go over and have a cup of tea and a piece of toast and then you do your work. And then at the end of the day, you take your makeup off and your costume off and you hang it up.” I think there was this great part of it where, as an actor, you saw yourself as a part of a machine, a part of a team. It’s not you. The great thing that Home and Away teaches young actors is that it’s a team effort, and there’s a part of it that you need to fit into, you need to do your best work, you need to show up on time, and know your lines, and there’s pressure that way. And so suddenly when you get to movies where there’s a lot more time, you already have this great intense learning process that you did on Home and Away. So I loved it as a place to begin, and I think that’s got a lot to do with it. There’s a work ethic involved in the culture of it. You want to make everything as high quality as you can, and you have to do it in a certain time period. So in terms of a place to learn as a young actor, it’s invaluable. I am thankful for every day I spent on that set.
