Austin Butler as Elvis Presley: Meet the woman who taught the Oscar nominee to move like The King
When Elvis star Austin Butler arrived at this year’s BAFTA Awards, it wasn’t his model girlfriend Kaia Gerber who accompanied the actor as his plus-one.
Instead, Butler attended the ceremony with Polly Bennett, the movement coach who spent months working with the star to help him transform into The King.
When the camera panned to his seat after his name was called out as the winner of this year’s best actor award, it was Bennett he was hugging; on stage, she was his first thank you very much: “I could not have done this without you and I love you so much.”
Pic: Warner Bros
Bennett, a British movement director and choreographer who is based in London, is the go-to woman for transformations when actors need to portray very famous real-life people.
After working on the London 2012 Olympics and later as an assistant choreographer for Steve Coogan and John C Reilly for 2018’s Stan & Ollie, she landed the job as the chief movement coach behind Rami Malek‘s Oscar-winning portrayal of Queen frontman Freddie Mercury. Taking on the royals for The Crown soon followed, and this year she completed her “musical icon trilogy” with British actress Naomi Ackie’s metamorphosis into Whitney Houston in I Wanna Dance With Somebody.
With millions watching their every move, actors are used to being scrutinised, critiqued and criticised. But playing an icon, knowing your performance is going to be compared with the much-worshipped real thing, is perhaps one of the hardest jobs in the business.
“I think it’s a massive task because people have such an affiliation for Elvis,” Bennett tells Sky News. “People know him, people know the performances, so it didn’t slide past either of us that it was quite a big deal.”
‘Imagine you’ve got a mosquito on the back of your knee…’
Pic: Ruby Bell
Bennett’s planned six months working with Butler for the Baz Luhrmann production, which was filmed in Australia, ended up turning into a year-and-a-half, on and off, in part due to breaks during the pandemic. They worked together for several hours every day.
The Butler she met before their rehearsals started was “a really musical guy” already; he played the piano, had played guitar to a certain level, “and was a sort of closet singer”. The groundwork was there. They practised swing and tap dancing to get the feel of Presley, and recited his lyrics as poetry.
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We have met at a dance studio in central London, and Bennett demonstrates her methods for conveying movements to make them real. It’s not simply “shake your hand”, but “reach out to show off your wedding ring” and shake “as if you’re taking off a glove”. For the Elvis leg shake: “I’d like you to imagine you’ve got a little mosquito on the back of your kneecap. So it’s not coming from your hip, it’s coming from your knee.”
This is where it all comes from, she says. “There’s so many ‘isms’ that people think [Elvis] does, and it’s all based in a truth, it’s all based in an understanding of something. But actually, the more footage I watched, the more research I did, the more books I read, the more interviews I saw… actually, it’s not really his hips that are the first thing that move, it’s his feet, it’s his knees.”
No copying allowed
(L-R) Rami Malek, Bennett and Butler at the BAFTAs. Pic: Greg Williams
Luhrmann’s Elvis charts the singer from his teenage years until his death at the age of 42, so Butler, now 31, had to learn different Presleys as he aged. “We had to keep him flexible in that sense because the filming schedule was out of sequence. He’d be in the ’50s one day and then the next day he would be in a jumpsuit [in the early ’70s] on stage.”
Bennett also used Presley’s heritage to teach Butler. “His mum used to tap dance and do the shuffles and the bops in their house. That’s what Elvis grew up around – a mum who was quite effervescent, and moved. So rather than just looking at one piece of footage and going, that’s how he moves now, it’s trying to rewind and go, where did he get this from? That’s so much more helpful for an actor than just copying.
“We’re trying to understand the difference between imitation and embodying. And obviously Austin, as much as he tried, isn’t an exact replica of Elvis; his arms are different lengths, his body is a different shape. So you have to try and find the essence of a person rather than try and do everything exact, because everything exact actually doesn’t sit right in Austin’s body.”
‘I made Rami walk up and down Oxford Street with his mic’
Malek as Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody, and Naomi Ackie (below) as Whitney Houston in I Wanna Dance With Somebody. Pics: 20th Century Fox/Sony Pictures
Working with Butler was different to Malek, who was not such a natural mover. “We had to do a lot of work of just understanding music, hearing beats in music, hearing accents, being able to hear the half counts… at that point he wasn’t a performer that had ever been on stage himself. So I made Rami walk up and down Oxford Street with his microphone above his head, while he was training, to get him used to the idea of people looking at him, and wanting people to look at him.”
Mercury boxed as a child, she says, which is reflected in the way he performed. “[I said to Rami], what do you see in his stage performances that feels similar to that? And Rami was like, ‘he does the fist raises’. He’s not just doing it because it feels good, he’s doing it because it’s something that he’s worked on his whole life.”
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Naomi Ackie on her transformation into Whitney Houston
Ackie’s transformation into Houston was just as impressive, says Bennett, despite the film falling a little under the radar in comparison with the other two. They worked on her background as a gospel singer and also the fact she was a tomboy growing up, very different to the glamorous superstar people came to know.
“When she was a kid, she didn’t wear dresses, she was wearing dungarees and hanging out with her brothers, and she was exposed to drugs very early. We spoke a lot about a boy in a dress, as Whitney. So the idea that she was a little boy, and she’d put a dress on, so she’s sort of acting feminine, rather than inherently being what we understand as feminine.”
Will Butler win the Oscar?
Pic: Warner Bros
With a BAFTA and a Golden Globe already under his rhinestone belt, Butler could well find himself following in Malek’s footsteps and making a winner’s speech on Oscars night, too (it appears to be a two-horse race between him and The Whale actor Brendan Fraser).
Win or lose, Bennett says she is proud of what they have achieved. “I mean, the fact that there’s nobody going, ‘he doesn’t look like Elvis’ or ‘he doesn’t sound like Elvis,” she laughs. “It’s quite nice that we’ve achieved that for the fans, for the family, and for the people involved in telling the story.”
For an actor playing a real person, those behind-the-scenes roles – the hair and make-up artists and vocal trainers, as well as movement coaches – play a huge part in winning those awards.
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Bennett agrees and laughs. “I’m not trying to go, look at me, look at all the amazing things I’ve done. But I do love the idea of people being recognised for the work they do, because it’s not just people out there on their own, watching YouTube late at night, thinking about how to play Elvis Presley.
“It was amazing to go with [Butler] as his guest to the BAFTAs because that’s also him acknowledging that people in my position – choreographers, movement directors – we don’t have awards, we’re not part of that circuit.” She pauses and gives a wry smile. “Which is a shame.”
You can watch the Academy Awards on Sunday 12 March from 11pm exclusively on Sky News and Sky Showcase. Plus, get all the intel from our Oscars special Backstage podcast, available wherever you get your podcasts, from Monday morning
The last blast furnaces left operating in Britain could see their fate sealed within days, after their Chinese owners took the decision to cut off the crucial supply of ingredients keeping them running.
Jingye, the owner of British Steel in Scunthorpe, has, according to union representatives, cancelled future orders for the iron ore, coal and other raw materials needed to keep the furnaces running.
The upshot is that they may have to close next month – even sooner than the earliest date suggested for its closure.
Read more: Thousands of jobs at risk as British Steel consults unions over closure
The fate of the blast furnaces – the last two domestic sources of virgin steel, made from iron ore rather than recycled – is likely to be determined in a matter of days, with the Department for Business and Trade now actively pondering nationalisation.
The upshot is that even as Britain contends with a trade war across the Atlantic, it is now working against the clock to secure the future of steelmaking at Scunthorpe.
The talks between the government and Jingye broke down last week after the Chinese company, which bought British Steel out of receivership in 2020, rejected a £500m offer of public money to replace the existing furnaces with electric arc furnaces.
The sum is the same one it offered to Tata Steel, which has shut down the other remaining UK blast furnaces in Port Talbot and is planning to build electric furnaces – which have far lower carbon emissions.
These steel workers could soon be out of work
However, the owners argue that the amount is too little to justify extra investment at Scunthorpe, and said last week they were now consulting on the date of shutting both the blast furnaces and the attached steelworks.
Since British Steel is the main provider of steel rails to Network Rail – as well as other construction steels available from only a few sites in the world – the closure would leave the UK more reliant on imports for critical infrastructure sites.
However, since the site belongs to its Chinese owners, a decision to nationalise the site would involve radical steps government officials are wary of taking.
They also fear leaving taxpayers exposed to a potentially loss-making business for the long run.
The dilemma has been heightened by the sharp turn in geopolitical sentiment following Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
The incipient trade war and threatened cut in American support to Europe have sparked fresh calls for countries to act urgently to secure their own supplies of critical materials, especially those used for defence and infrastructure.
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Gareth Stace, head of UK Steel, the industry lobby group, said: “Talks seem to have broken down between government and British Steel.
“My advice to government is: please, Jonathan Reynolds, Business Secretary, get back round that negotiating table, thrash out a deal, and if a deal can’t be found in the next few days, then I fear for the very future of the sector, but also here for Scunthorpe steelworks.”
British Steel declined to comment.
UK
Prince Andrew’s Pitch@Palace branded ‘crude attempt to enrich himself’ as Chinese spy documents set to be released
Prince Andrew’s efforts to make money from his Pitch@Palace project have been branded as a “crude attempt to enrich himself” at the expense of “unsuspecting tech founders”, as new documents may shed more light on what he and his team have been attempting to sell.
Today is the deadline for documents to be released relating to Prince Andrew‘s former senior adviser Dominic Hampshire and his interactions with the alleged Chinese spy Yang Tengbo.
In February, an immigration tribunal heard how the intelligence services had contacted Mr Hampshire about Mr Yang back in 2022. Mr Yang helped set up Pitch@Palace China, a branch of the duke’s scheme to help young entrepreneurs.
The alleged Chinese spy, Yang Tengbo, has links with Prince Andrew
Yang Tengbo. Pic: Pitch@Palace
Judges banned Mr Yang from the UK, saying his association with a senior royal had made Prince Andrew “vulnerable” and posed a threat to national security. Mr Yang challenged that decision at the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC).
Since that hearing, media organisations have applied for certain documents relating to the case and Mr Hampshire’s support for Mr Yang to be made public. SIAC agreed to release some information of public interest. It is hoped they may include more details on deals that he was trying to do on behalf of Prince Andrew.
So what do we know about potential deals for Pitch@Palace so far?
In February, Sky News confirmed that palace officials had a meeting last summer with tech funding company StartupBootcamp to discuss a potential tie-up between them and Prince Andrew relating to his Pitch@Palace project.
The palace wasn’t involved in the fine details of a deal but wanted guarantees to make sure it wouldn’t impact the Royal Family in the future. Sky News understands from one source that the price being discussed for Pitch was around £750,000 – there are, however, reports that a deal may have stalled.
Photos we found on the Chinese Chamber of Commerce website show an event held in Asia between StartupBootcamp and Innovate Global, believed to be an offshoot of Pitch.
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Who is alleged Chinese spy, Yang Tengbo?
Documents, released in relation to the investigations into Mr Tengbo, have also shown how much the duke has always seen Pitch as a way of potentially making money. One document from 21 August 2021 clearly states “the duke needed money at the time, and saw the relationships with China through Pitch as one possible source of funding”.
But Prince Andrew’s apparent intention to use Pitch to make money has led to concerns about whether he is unfairly using the contacts and information he gained when he was a working royal.
Norman Baker, former MP and author of books on royal finances, believes it is “a crude attempt to enrich himself” and goes against what the tech entrepreneurs thought they were signing up for.
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He told Sky News: “The data given by these business people was given on the basis it was an official operation and not something for Prince Andrew, and so in my view, Prince Andrew had no right legally or morally to take the data which has been collected, a huge amount of data, and sell it…
“And quite clearly if you’re going to sell it off to StartupBootcamp, that is not what people had in mind. The entrepreneurs who joined Pitch@Palace did not do so to enrich Prince Andrew,” he said.
Rich Wilson was one tech entrepreneur who was approached at the start of Pitch@Palace to sign up, but he stepped away when he spotted a clause in the contract saying they’d be entitled to 2% equity in any funding he secured.
He feels Prince Andrew is continuing to use those he made a show of supporting.
He said: “It makes me feel sick. I think it’s terrible – that he is continuing to exploit unsuspecting tech founders in this way. A lot of them, I’m quite grey and old in the tooth now, I saw it coming, but clearly most didn’t. And a lot of them were quite young.
“It’ll be their first venture and you’re learning on the trot, so to speak. So to take advantage of people in such a major way – that’s an awful, sickening thing to do.”
We approached StartupBootcamp who said they had no comment to make, and the Duke of York’s office did not respond.
With reports that a deal may have stalled, it could be a big setback for the duke – especially with questions still about how he’ll continue to pay for his home on the Windsor estate now that the King no longer gives him financial support.
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