The Recreation of Elvis Presley: How Austin Butler Transformed into The King

Baz Luhrmann’s newest movie, Elvis, has taken Hollywood by storm. The film is nothing short of spectacular, but what caught the viewers' attention was how incredible the hair and makeup is. The makeup team had the task of recreating Elvis Presley and other incredibly well-known people in his life such as Priscilla Presley and Colonel Tom Parker.

Austin Butler completely immersed himself into this role, and with the help of his hair and makeup team, he was able to fully transform himself into a very honorable rendition of ‘The King.’ Shane Thomas, the head of the hair and makeup department was tasked with Luhrmann’s very specific vision for what he wanted Butler to look like. After strenuous hours of planning and creating their ideas, they were finally able to bring the vision of Elvis Presley to life.

Let’s take a look at how the hair and makeup team transformed Austin Butler into Elvis Presley.

Thomas wanted to create Elvis and Priscilla Presley to be “fashion-forward characters,” as the movie follows them through three decades of their life. Their use of prosthetics in the film is truly incredible and seamlessly transformed Butler in such a way that towards the end of the movie, viewers were unable to tell if it was Butler or real clips of Presley.

“As soon as you see even a silhouette of Elvis, it’s his hair that stands out the most,” Thomas states. Known to carry a comb in his pocket, the slicked-back high hairstyle was truly one of The King’s trademarks. To recreate Elvis’s iconic hairstyle for the first part of the movie that took place in the early 50s, they used Butler’s real hair and just dyed it black. As the movie progresses through his life, they began to incorporate wigs at Luhrmann’s request to make the hair “higher and higher.” In total, they used six wigs throughout the film.

The use of prosthetics throughout the movie was so captivating; they were able to transform Butler’s bone structure to look exactly like Elvis in every stage of his life. In order to fake the progression of time, they applied a prosthetic chin and cheekbones to play Elvis in the 1950s. With each decade they were able to further alter his appearance as he aged and put on weight. In the 1960s stage of the film, the makeup team applied another chin prosthetic as well as a jaw prosthetic. "We added jaw prosthetics when he got older to harden his jawline a little bit and make it more pronounced," Thomas reveals.

Perhaps the most drastic look comes into the film when they jump to 1977. In the scene where Bulter performs “Unchained Melody,” shortly before his passing was when a majority of the prosthetics came into play. For this look, they included face, neck, and chest prosthetics, but what is even more amazing is the fact that each individual chest hair was placed on one by one.

The final result of the intense makeup had fans speculating if the end scene were actual clips of Elvis’s final performance or if it was Austin Butler, that was just how believable the makeup was.

What are your thoughts on the hair and makeup throughout the movie? Leave us a comment down below.