10 Strange Ways Actors Prepared For Recent Movie Roles

2. Austin Butler Did Karate Every Day - Elvis

marilyn monroe grave
Warner Bros.

Similarly to Ana de Armas when taking on her larger than life role in Netflix's Blonde, Austin Butler had some rather large boots to fill when it came to Baz Luhrmann's recent Elvis epic.

Away from the expected focus on nailing The King of Pop's unmistakable drawl and a decent amount of singing practise, Butler also found himself diving into another aspect of Presley as a person; that being his fondness for practising the martial art of karate.

As the Elvis star would reveal to AP Entertainment:

"I was doing karate training every day with my movement coach. We would study Elvis and we would study his movements and then all of the people who inspired him."

It turns out that trying to perfectly execute those iconic hip shake and thrusts is a pretty arduous task, too, with Butler also noting how he suffered a number of injuries during his preparation and execution of his version of the Rock N' Roll figure, throwing his shoulder out and popping his knee at one point in the process.

In fact, the star threw himself into all things Elvis so much that he actually wound up being hospitalised after shooting wrapped, claiming his "body just started shutting down the day after I finished ‘Elvis’.”

Contributor
Contributor

Lifts rubber and metal. Watches people flip in spandex and pretends to be other individuals from time to time...