Tom Hanks was concerned for Austin Butler’s mental health following ‘Elvis’

Austin Butler has shared advice he received from his Elvis co-star Tom Hanks to save him from “emotional whiplash”.

The actor, who received an Oscar nomination for his performance as Elvis Presley in the biopic, said Hanks expressed concern after he was consumed “so deeply” by the role for two years.

• READ MORE: Austin Butler on playing Elvis Presley: “How do I let my soul meet his soul?”

Hanks’ concern led him to offer Butler a part in upcoming Apple TV+ series Masters Of The Air, which he’s co-producing with Steven Spielberg, to help him detach from Elvis.

Speaking to The Sunday Times, Butler said that Hanks told him: “[Hanks] said, ‘You have immersed yourself so deeply in Elvis that, for your mental health, it would be wise to go straight into something else. If you just jump off the train, you might have emotional whiplash…

“And, you know,’ Hanks continued. ‘I’ve got this thing I’m producing.’”

Butler will play Major Gale Cleven in Masters Of The Air, a war drama which follows the actions of the 100th Bombardment Group of the United States Army Air Forces during the Second World War. The series is the third TV collaboration between Spielberg and Hanks following 2001’s Band Of Brothers and 2010’s The Pacific.

Alongside Butler, the show stars Barry Keoghan, Callum Turner, Anthony Boyle and James Murray. It’s scheduled to be released later this year.

Butler’s first post-Elvis role will be playing Feyd-Rautha in Dune: Part Two, directed by Denis Villeneuve. The sequel is scheduled to be released in cinemas on November 3, 2023.

In a four-star review of Elvis, NME wrote: “Though it plays like a glitzy musical in the mould of Bohemian Rhapsody, Elvis also works as a much-needed lesson about America’s cultural history.”

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