Austin Butler Says Tom Hanks Urged Him to Prioritize His Post-‘Elvis’ “Mental Health”

After years spent entrenched in everything Elvis, Austin Butler received some valuable advice from costar Tom Hanks about how to leave Graceland behind.

As the Oscar-winning actor told him, “‘You have immersed yourself so deeply in Elvis that, for your mental health, it would be wise to go straight into something else,’” Butler recalled in a recent interview with The Times of London. “‘If you just jump off the train, you might have emotional whiplash…and, you know, I’ve got this thing I’m producing.’” That very project was AppleTV+ miniseries Masters of the Air, a follow-up to World War II epics Band of Brothers and The Pacific in which Butler plays Major Gale Cleven alongside Barry Keoghan and Callum Turner.

Butler only had a week to himself between wrapping production on Elvis in Australia and beginning Masters of the Air in London, he previously told Vanity Fair for our 2023 Hollywood cover. “It was a—looking back—‘what was I thinking?’ kind of thing,” Butler said. “But it was a great group of people, and I’m really fortunate I got to be a part of it because I think it’s going to be a great show. But for my own sanity, I think I could have used some more time to just decompress.”

After that series, Butler went on to roles in The Bikeriders and Dune: Part Two, both films out later this year that required a reset. “I was stretching myself and living within the shoes of somebody else for a bit that’s very, very different from Elvis,” Butler told VF. “I never want to say I shed Elvis or washed it off because it makes it sound like something that I want to leave me. It was such a gift and it was such an amazing time. But as far as the thing where you’re all consumed with something, my mind couldn’t think about anything that wasn’t Elvis-related—and I didn’t want to for over two years.”

As Butler explained to The Times, his Oscar-nominated performance in Elvis was a once-in-a-career endeavor. It made him “go to the very edge of what is possible, and not every experience will be like that,” the actor said. “I don’t think I’ll ever have an experience like that again, but if I have to really dig, it makes me feel alive.”