As Butler himself has noted, the film took multiple years to make, including during covid lockdowns, during which time he chose not to see his family so that he wouldn’t have to break character. In Byrne’s view, these conditions could have also contributed to significant changes in Butler’s body and brain. “What else are you going to do if you’re sitting in your apartment?” Byrne says. “If there’s not a lot else happening in your life, that can make the process much more powerful, and make the changes more long-lasting.”
On Marc Maron’s podcast WTF, Butler recalled a particular singing scene that took 40 takes, positing that it may have permanently damaged his vocal cords. Byrne, who runs a training program called The Singing Athlete, doesn’t recommend that a performer subject his body to that kind of abuse. “Film sets are extremely long days. So often when people start to get into vocal trouble, that has to do with fuel, not only in the voice, but in the body and the brain. When resources get depleted and you’re on take 40, you have a lot less in the tank to correct the mistakes that come up. It can create either temporary or permanent damage to the instrument, especially when you’re using a vocal quality that might not be the most central for you as a human, and you have to take on someone else in addition to the load of having to do it over and over again.”
Which brings us back to Paiella’s reporting about Butler’s hospitalization for exhaustion. “What I thought was interesting was that it was an appendix inflammation,” says Byrne. “The vagus nerve is what controls your larynx and your vocal cords, as well as the appendix … that’s part of the same system.
“The vagus nerve gives information to your brain about all of your organs,” Byrne explains. “So the reason vocal problems can be very emotional and very far-reaching is that that has an effect on many things in your system, including your heart, your lungs, your digestive system. So he had this trauma in another part of the vagus nerve, and then the voice [may have] responded to that and locked into this other place. It’s a potential theory that there’s a relationship there.”
The good news for Butler is that there is a process to undo the changes to his voice. Byrne has worked with students who’ve come to him to let go of a character. “A big part of vocal coaching can be to adjust habits,” he says. “That includes how they’re essentially moving the anatomy that deals with their speaking voice, everything from the tongue to the jaw to the soft palate and the larynx itself. These are all things that we deal with as vocal coaches to create the desired effect for the person—especially if they are receiving some kind of feedback that says that something needs to change.”
Tara Ariano
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