Austin Butler discusses his experience working on the television series Masters of the Air, his next project after Baz Luhrmann's Elvis. He also shares how he prepared for the role and his admiration for the previous series and films in the wartime trilogy.
Austin Butler had barely warbled his final note as the King before he moved onto his next blockbuster project, Masters of the Air. Actually, the 32-year-old actor recalls, there was a week between shooting Baz Luhrmann ’s Elvis (for which Butler earned a Best Actor Oscar nomination) and his flight to England, where filming for the television series about World War II pilots took place. In that time, he managed to get sick. Like, really sick: he was rushed to hospital with a virus.
Only after that was he able to hop on a flight to London and quarantine (this was 2021, when there were still COVID protocols). “I was still focusing so much on Elvis that I didn’t even have time to read the book or anything,” he says. “So that two-week period was when I cracked open and read Masters of the Air and started to learn everything I possibly could.” He rewatched the first two series in this wartime trilogy – also executive-produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks – Band of Brothers and The Pacific, as well as films like Memphis Belle and The Best Years of Our Live
Austin Butler Masters Of The Air Television Series World War II Pilots Baz Luhrmann Elvis Band Of Brothers The Pacific Steven Spielberg Tom Hanks