Austin Butler had one other distinctive strategy to getting ready for a film function — and this time, it concerned baseball gamers’ butts.
The Oscar-nominated actor is starring in Darren Aronofsky’s upcoming movie Caught Stealing, the place he performs a baseball participant caught in an internet of crime. To embody the physicality of the character, Butler took his cues from Main League Baseball’s most interesting. And sure, that included finding out their backsides.
“I even have a complete part of simply baseball gamers’ asses that he would ship me,” Butler, 34, instructed Males’s Well being in his cowl story revealed on Tuesday, August 19. “He was like, ‘Look how thick they’re!’”
The thought got here from director Darren Aronofsky, who thought that the bodily construct of professional athletes would assist Butler perceive the physique language of the function. To arrange, Butler additionally labored intently with coach Beth Lewis, recognized for coaching Hugh Jackman in Deadpool & Wolverine.
Alongside an intense health plan, Butler needed to observe a weight loss plan which may sound enjoyable in concept — however wasn’t his favourite. “Ingesting has by no means been my factor,” he defined, regardless of being instructed to bulk up with pizza and beer. “I don’t like the best way it makes me really feel.”
When he began coaching, Butler weighed 150 kilos. Six months later, he had gained 35 kilos to succeed in 185. “I’ve bought a complete part of Celine pants that I simply can’t even put on anymore,” he admitted.
However the preparation wasn’t simply bodily. Over time, Butler has shifted his strategy to appearing. “For a very long time, I felt that it needed to be a tortured course of and I might come out the opposite facet damaged,” he mentioned. Now, as an alternative of hiding components of himself, he finds methods to combine even the “gross bits” into his performances.
That perspective grew after his transformative function in Elvis, which earned him an Academy Award nomination in 2022. Butler admitted that the expertise left him feeling misplaced when it was over. “It’s carried out, after three years,” he mirrored. “After which it’s like, ‘Wait, what do I deal with now? What do I examine? What do I watch? What do I like?’ And in addition, I haven’t talked to my mates. ‘Who do I name?’”
Now, Butler is studying to lean on his private connections to remain grounded exterior of Hollywood’s calls for. “There’s one thing about filming: All people tells you what time to indicate up, they get you dressed, they present you the place your mark is,” he defined. “It may be very infantilizing, and it may be very centered on me. It feels higher after I’m calling a buddy and simply going, ‘I don’t want something from you; I simply need to know: Are you okay? Can I do something for you?’”
