Lisa Marie Presley: Austin Butler Should Win the Oscar for ‘Elvis’ Performance

Lisa Marie Presley is throwing Austin Butler into the Oscar conversation ahead of Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis” world premiering at the Cannes Film Festival later this month. Butler stars as the King of Rock and Roll in the film, which also features Tom Hanks as Elvis’ infamous manager Colonel Tom Parker. Lisa Marie, the daughter of Elvis and Priscilla Presley, saw Luhrmann’s movie twice and took to social media to rave about what she saw.

“Let me tell you that it is nothing short of spectacular,” Lisa Marie said. “Absolutely exquisite. Austin Butler channeled and embodied my father’s heart and soul beautifully. In my humble opinion, his performance is unprecedented and finally done accurately and respectfully. (If he doesn’t get an Oscar for this, I will eat my own foot, haha.)”

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“You can feel and witness Baz’s pure love, care, and respect for my father throughout this beautiful film, and it is finally something that myself and my children and their children can be proud of forever,” Lisa Marie continued. “Baz, your utter genius combined with your love and respect for my father and this project is just so beautiful and so inspiring. I know I’m being repetitive, but I don’t care. Thank you for setting the record straight in such a deeply profound and artistic way.”

The relationship between Elvis Presley and Parker makes up the backbone of “Elvis,” which also stars Olivia DeJonge as Priscilla, recent “The Power of the Dog” Oscar nominee Kodi Smit-McPhee as country legend Jimmie Rodgers, Yola Quartey as Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Kelvin Harrison Jr. as B.B. King. Luhrmann recently told Entertainment Weekly that his movie “isn’t a nostalgia piece.”

“While respecting and loving the fans, I’m opening Elvis’ journey out to a new audience that knows only the guy in the jumpsuit and doesn’t understand that he was a rebel,” Luhrmann. “He was the first real pop-cultural youth rebel on a mass level.”

Luhrmann continued, “The ‘Apocalypse Now’ of musicals is what I’ve joked about calling the movie — and that’s the ’70s period. It’s so sprawling and it’s beautiful, but it’s powerful. It’s a three-act pop-cultural opera…His life fits beautifully into three acts. There’s Elvis the punk, if you like, the original punk rocker, the rebel. Then there’s Elvis the movie man, and that’s when he is pop and family-friendly. And then there’s ’70s Elvis, which is epic.”

“Elvis” opens in U.S. theaters June 24 from Warner Bros.

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