Austin Butler says Bruce Springsteen once tried and failed to bring a song to Elvis Presley
Austin Butler has recalled the epic story of Bruce Springsteen hopping the gates at Graceland to try and deliver Elvis Presley a song he had written.
The 32-year-old actor, who starred as Presley in the 2022 Oscar-nominated biopic Elvis, shared the “mythical story” during an appearance on Monday (June 17) night’s episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live!.
Recounting a recent star-studded party that they had both attended, Kimmel said: “I got to watch Bruce Springsteen tell you a story about Elvis. Do you remember the story?”
“I had heard this sort of mythical story,” Butler responded, “and then to hear from him of him being a huge Elvis fan and then hopping the gates at Graceland to try and get up there and he knocked on the door and he wanted to give Elvis a song to sing.”
“Do you remember what he said to the guy? ‘Is Elvis home?’” Kimmel laughed, with Butler continuing: “And he said, ‘No, he’s in Tahoe,’ or something.”
“And this is when Bruce Springsteen, by the way, had been on the cover of Time magazine, on the cover of Rolling Stone,” Kimmel said incredulously. “I mean, he was not like some unknown kid from New Jersey. He was famous, jumped over the fence...”
“Somehow evaded the dogs,” Butler added. “He’s a fast runner.”
Kimmel remembered: “And he gave the guy a song he had written for Elvis and then Elvis never – I don’t know. Nothing happened. He didn’t record the song.”
“I’m so bummed I never got to hear that song,” Butler said.
Butler’s performance as the King of Rock and Roll in the Baz Luhrmann-directed Elvis earned him his first Oscar nomination for Best Actor.
He’s since been booked and busy, starring in back-to-back projects, including Dune: Part Two, which was released in March, and the Apple TV+ miniseries Masters of the Air.
The latter tells the journey of a group of 10 men who fly an aluminum bomber, called the “Flying Fortress,” to battle German forces in WWII.
“It’s hard to resist the pulse-quickening action of this epic Second World War tale,” Nick Hilton wrote in a four-star review for The Independent. “The Bloody Hundredth, staffed by men scarcely into adulthood, might be a glamorous bunch, but they are also losing their innocence. Playing out on a canvas in the skies, this is daring, big-budget filmmaking that just about sticks the landing.”
Butler currently stars in Jeff Nichols’s new crime thriller, The Bikeriders, alongside Jodie Comer and Tom Hardy.
The movie follows a Midwestern motorcycle club through the course of a decade as they evolve from a gathering place for local outsiders to a sinister gang.
The Bikeriders is out in cinemas on June 21.
