The 59-year-old director also says that the audience at the film festival 'just went crazy' for the Austin Butler's depiction of the King of Rock and Roll during the debut of his biopic.
- Jun 3, 2022
AceShowbiz - Baz Luhrmann says the screening of "Elvis" at the Cannes Film Festival was "like a real rock concert." The 59-year-old filmmaker also shared that the audience "just went crazy" for Austin Butler's depiction of the King of Rock and Roll during the debut of his biopic of Elvis Presley at the legendary film fest.
Speaking to HeyUGuys at the U.K. premiere of the movie at the BFI Southbank on Thursday, May 31, Baz said, "When Austin, the first thing we shot was the leather suit thing, and when he came on in front of those extras that reaction wasn't rehearsed."
"They just went crazy, and at Cannes when he did the leather comeback performance, the entire auditorium broke into applause and the issue is that, I know because, we couldn't hear the dialogue because they keep applauding, so it seemed like a real rock concert," Baz added.
The "Moulin Rouge!" director called the performance of the leading man Austin as "once-in-a-lifetime" while praising his "spiritual connection" to the role. "I'd say once-in-a-lifetime does that come along, at that level. I mean, he lived it for two years, and his spiritual connection with it was so, so profound," he gushed.
The 30-year-old actor has spoken about measures he took to embody the "Can't Help Falling in Love" hitmaker, who died in 1977, that led him to need to take a trip to the hospital when shooting wrapped.
Austin said, "The next day I woke up at 4 in the morning with excruciating pain, and I was rushed to hospital. My body just started shutting down the day after I finished Elvis."
The "Once Upon A Time in Hollywood" star got "chills" when he discovered that they both lost their mother at the tender age of 23. He said, "His mother passed away when he was 23, and my mum passed away when I was 23. So when I learned that, it was one of those things where I got chills, and I just thought, 'Okay, I can connect to that. I've never loved somebody I've never met more than Elvis.' "
