Austin Butler credits Tom Hardy and Laura Dern for guidance after method acting caused body shutdown

Austin Butler revealed that his body “shut down” after completing 'Elvis' which led to a hospital visit.

Austin Butler has reflected on the toll method acting once took on him and the changes he has made since his Oscar-nominated performance in Elvis.

In a new Men’s Health cover story, the actor revealed that his body “shut down” after completing the 2022 biopic, leading to a hospital visit.

“For a long time, I felt that it had to be a tortured process and I would come out the other side broken,” Butler said. “Rather than just putting parts of yourself away and trying to pretend that they don’t exist, it’s like going into the gross bits of yourself — going into the bits that you don’t want to look at — and finding a way of integrating that into the whole.”

While filming Darren Aronofsky’s thriller Caught Stealing and later A24’s crime film Enemies, Butler worked to establish healthier habits.

He credited Tom Hardy, his co-star in The Bikeriders, with inspiring him to balance intensity with discipline. “After shooting all night, Hardy would go home, put on a weighted vest and do 1,000 box jumps,” Butler recalled, adding that exercise, cold showers and time in the sun have helped him to unwind and sleep better.

Butler also credited Laura Dern, who he met at an event, with helping him understand that exploring darker roles does not have to “destroy the rest of his life.” He said: “She’s helping me more and more to see that you can come out the other side, and maybe bits of you have healed, and synthesized, and metabolized. It can be therapeutic, in a way.”