HOT RIGHT NOW

AUSTIN BUTLER IS RIDING HIGH

The strikes may have meant actors hiding away, but the star of Elvis is everywhere right now thanks to his swaggering ad campaign for YSL’s new fragrance. Striding around in black while sniffing orange blossom and talking (in interviews and ads completed pre-strike) about his multifaceted self-expression, Butler will be showing that his range extends considerably further than his award-winning portrayal of the King.

He should have been following the rockand-roll wiggles with the murderous moves of a ‘psychotic Mick Jagger’ as bald Big Bad Feyd-Rautha in Dune: Part Two, which he told TF flexed similar acting muscles in terms of presence and ‘when you need to own a room with your energy’. But since Dune moved its

release date into next year, the 32-year-old’s next turn is as a moody 60s biker in Jeff Nichols’ star-laden The Bikeriders, based on Danny Lyon’s seminal photo-essay book. With ecstatic reviews out of Telluride (‘cooler-than-cool’, ‘a bona-fide movie star’), Butler could be on the campaign trail again this year as well as fronting Apple TV+’s Band of Brothers follow-up Masters of the Air as a heroic WW2 pilot in the new year. He’s also making his move to producing with an adaptation of Don Winslow’s addictive Danny Ryan trilogy, kicking off with City on Fire. Potter’s David Heyman is co-producing and Butler will play Danny, a mob muscleman whose world is upended by turf warfare. A former teen star who admits to despairing of his output in his 20s, Butler pragmatically chose to focus on quality over quantity, treading the stage opposite Denzel and playing against type in Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood to hone his craft.

‘I’ve been working as an actor since I was 12 years old, and hoping to do certain types of work, and work with certain people,’ he told TF before the strikes. ‘The thing that’s been guiding me is directors and other actors that I would just adore working with. I’m doing that.’ Sometimes you need a crooked road to get your head straight…

THE BIKERIDERS RELEASES IN CINEMAS ON 1 DECEMBER. DUNE: PART TWO OPENS ON 15 MARCH 2024. MASTERS OF THE AIR AND CITY ON FIRE ARE CURRENTLY TBC.