Read
6 June, 2022
Elvis Article
Book your tickets now or Remind me later!

The “Elvis” filmmakers built the interior sets to show Graceland the way it appeared when Elvis first purchased the house, and also changed elements to show updates the family made over time—for example, the floorboards seen when Elvis and his parents moved in are later carpeted in red shag for scenes that take place after the real Elvis had this bold design element installed.
Filmmaker Baz Luhrmann felt it was important to include scenes in the film “Elvis” that show Graceland as it is most remembered today, so the design team continued to make changes for scenes that take place in the 1960s and `70s, when many interior decoration changes were made.





Filmmaker Baz Luhrmann felt it was important to include scenes in the film “Elvis” that show Graceland as it is most remembered today, so the design team continued to make changes for scenes that take place in the 1960s and `70s, when many interior decoration changes were made.


In “Elvis,” soul singer Shonka Dukureh portrays famed blues artist Big Mama Thornton and performs her version of the original “Hound Dog”; director Baz Luhrmann also turned to modern rapper Doja Cat to help reinterpret it, incorporating the familiar refrain into her original song “Vegas” for the soundtrack.
Elvis Presley recorded his first song, “My Happiness,” at Sun Records when he was only 18; like Elvis, Grammy Award-winning artist Doja Cat, who’s song “Vegas” appears in the film, began her career in music as a teenager, making her first upload to Soundcloud in 2013, at just 16-years-old.


The Film
The “Elvis” filmmakers viewed Graceland as a symbol and expression of Elvis’s success and built the interior sets on the massive Village Roadshow sound stages in Australia’s Gold Coast to reflect this. The exterior façade of Graceland was constructed on a rural property in the Gold Coast that possessed remarkably similar topography to the actual site in Memphis, including the pitch of the grassy slope leading up to the house.The “Elvis” filmmakers built the interior sets to show Graceland the way it appeared when Elvis first purchased the house, and also changed elements to show updates the family made over time—for example, the floorboards seen when Elvis and his parents moved in are later carpeted in red shag for scenes that take place after the real Elvis had this bold design element installed.
Filmmaker Baz Luhrmann felt it was important to include scenes in the film “Elvis” that show Graceland as it is most remembered today, so the design team continued to make changes for scenes that take place in the 1960s and `70s, when many interior decoration changes were made.


Austin Butler
It was a Christmas in Los Angeles when Austin Butler found himself singing along to Elvis Presley’s “Blue Christmas.” A prescient choice for the actor, who recalls, “A couple of weeks later I was playing the piano at home and started to sing some more Elvis songs. A good friend of mine who was with me grabbed my arm and said, ‘You really have to play Elvis.’”Two days later, Butler’s agent called him to tell him that Baz Luhrmann was going to make a film about the icon. “It felt like a sign,” he continues, “and I felt like I had to drop everything to get that role. I let myself obsess; I started reading and watching everything I could about Elvis’s life, his friends, his relationships. I listened only to his music. Before they had even begun to audition I sent Baz a video of me playing the piano and singing ‘Unchained Melody.’ ”When he was finally able to meet Baz in person, Butler says he discovered that “Baz is such an amazing human being. We really connected and started a process over many months where we would workshop and play around with ideas” until at last the day of the official screen test arrived. Surprisingly, the actor confesses, “I thought I blew it. I had prepared three songs but Baz changed them at the last moment, so I had to sing three other songs I hadn’t prepared. Knowing Baz now as I do, I’m sure it was a test to see how I would perform under pressure, but at the time I thought I had absolutely blown it.” He needn’t have worried. When the call came a few days later to tell him he’d be playing Elvis Presley, Butler remembers, “That’s when I really did feel the weight of it. Every day I was nervous because I wanted to do him justice and to do his family justice, to honor him and his life. It was hard not to feel like a little kid in your dad’s suit, like you’re wearing these big shoes that you can hardly walk in.”
Baz Luhrmann (waiting on Cannes imagery)
Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis” had its world premiere at Cannes this year, marking Luhrmann’s fourth film to go to the prestigious festival, following his lush interpretation of “The Great Gatsby” in 2013, his musical “Moulin Rouge!” in 2001, and his first feature, “Strictly Ballroom,” in 1992.
The Presley Family (waiting on Izzy)
The “Elvis” filmmakers built the interior sets to show Graceland the way it appeared when Elvis first purchased the house, and also changed elements to show updates the family made over time—for example, the floorboards seen when Elvis and his parents moved in are later carpeted in red shag for scenes that take place after the real Elvis had this bold design element installed..Filmmaker Baz Luhrmann felt it was important to include scenes in the film “Elvis” that show Graceland as it is most remembered today, so the design team continued to make changes for scenes that take place in the 1960s and `70s, when many interior decoration changes were made.

The Music
Anyone who’s seen a Baz Luhrmann film, no matter the subject or style of storytelling, knows he takes the score and soundtrack as seriously as any scene, any performance, any frame of film. “I consider music, the script and the visual language all as one,” he states. “I have the same sort of depth of collaboration with my music team as I do with camera—Anton Monsted is the music supervisor on ‘Elvis,’ Elliott Wheeler is the composer and executive music producer, and I've worked with them both before. The music script, the written word, and the visual script—at a certain point with those collaborators, I bring it all into one synthesis, so that when actors come into my world, there's a visualization already. There's ‘musicalization’ already, which I know is not a word,” he laughs, “I use it but I made it up. Because to me, all the elements, they all live at once. I don't come in and say now that there's a script, let's think about the music. Music is not a background.”Especially with “Elvis,” the filmmaker asserts. “To access the inner life of Elvis...He was not a particularly verbal person, but when he opens his mouth and he sings, you feel you know him. You feel you understand him. You feel him. That's just a very particular gift.”In “Elvis,” soul singer Shonka Dukureh portrays famed blues artist Big Mama Thornton and performs her version of the original “Hound Dog”; director Baz Luhrmann also turned to modern rapper Doja Cat to help reinterpret it, incorporating the familiar refrain into her original song “Vegas” for the soundtrack.
Elvis Presley recorded his first song, “My Happiness,” at Sun Records when he was only 18; like Elvis, Grammy Award-winning artist Doja Cat, who’s song “Vegas” appears in the film, began her career in music as a teenager, making her first upload to Soundcloud in 2013, at just 16-years-old.