Austin Butler Shares How He Increased Weight For Role In 'Elvis'

Austin Butler had quite a fun time while trying to gain weight for his role in "Elvis."

The 31-year-old Academy Award nominee said he took a cue from Ryan Gosling in adding a few pounds to play the older version of Elvis Presley in the Baz Luhrmann-helmed musical biopic.

"I heard that Ryan Gosling when he was going to do 'The Lovely Bones,' had microwaved Häagen-Dazs and would drink it," Butler said in a preview clip of the latest episode of Variety's "Awards Circuit" podcast. The full episode will drop on Friday.

"Elvis" followed the story of the music icon's rise to fame and the different eras of his career. Butler had to gain weight in order to play the older version of the King of Rock and Roll in the movie.

"So I started doing that. I would go get two dozen doughnuts and eat them all. I really started to pack on some pounds. It's fun for a week, and then you feel awful about yourself. But we were planning on shooting chronologically in the beginning. That quickly went out the window with COVID. It was just impossible," the Golden Globe winner shared, adding that he also wore a body suit to portray the "Can't Help Falling in Love" singer.

Previously, Butler said he put his "life on pause for two years" to absorb "everything" about Presley.

"I just went down the rabbit hole of obsession. And I broke down his life into periods of time where I could hear the differences in how his voice changed over the years and how his movement changed over the years and I spent two years studying, trying to find his humanity as best as I could through that," he said in a press conference at the Cannes Film Festival last May.

In January, Butler recalled the "terror" he felt while playing the legendary "Love Me Tender" singer.

"I really just was guided by my terror," Butler revealed on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" at the time. He added that he worked with voice coaches and would listen to compilations of Presley's voice and songs every day for hours.

"And then once I was allowed to leave the apartment, I would usually wake up every day around 3 or 4 in the morning with this terror," Butler told Kimmel.