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On the edge of stardom: Austin Butler on the pressure of playing Elvis

By Brooks Barnes
New York Times·
12 mins to read

Hollywood thinks he might be the next big star. But with the risky "Elvis" riding on his performance, the magnetic actor is feeling the pressure.

"Are you ready to fly?"

The question comes early in "Elvis", Baz Luhrmann's latest cinematic fever dream. It is the mid-1950s, and Tom Parker — ersatz colonel, wannabe talent manager, borderline psychopath — is sitting beside a shy nobody named Elvis Presley. They have just boarded a ferris wheel at a country fair in Mississippi,

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