Austin Butler's Life Changed Forever After The Death Of His Mom Lori

After gaining initial recognition through teen roles on a series of Nickelodeon shows, Austin Butler shot to the top of Hollywood's A-list for the lead role in the Baz Luhrmann 2022 biopic "Elvis," which earned the actor his first Golden Globe and Oscar nomination. Butler's portrayal of Elvis Presley was the result of a deep dive into the man behind the King of Rock and Roll. "My big goal right from the beginning was not becoming a caricature of him," he told Entertainment Weekly in June 2022.

It helped that they had a few things in common, including deep familiarity with grief. Butler and Elvis both lost their mothers at a time when their careers were about to take off. "I'd been watching all these documentaries and learned a couple days prior that Elvis's mom had passed away when he was 23, the same as me," he told Vogue in April 2022. Both artists shared a close bond with their mothers, which helped Butler get a better understanding of Elvis's pain.

Butler's mother, Lori, died in 2014 from duodenal cancer, just months after she was diagnosed. While working on "Elvis," Butler often thought of his mother. "I had this nightmare that my mother was alive again, but dying. And it felt so fresh and painful," he told Vogue. Lori had been a big part of his early acting, going so far as to give up her career to support his aspirations. And her death could have been just as decisive.  

The months that followed the cancer diagnosis of Austin Butler's mother, Lori, were marked by suffering. "I'd never experienced pain like that before," he said on The Hollywood Reporter's "Actor Roundtable" in January 2023. Shortly after Lori's death, Butler jetted off to New Zealand to shoot "The Shannara Chronicles," which he enjoyed but didn't love. Having fun wasn't enough at that point. "I was dealing with grief, but it was also this feeling that I wasn't aligned with something that felt truly fulfilling," he said.

The experience made Butler look at his career from a different perspective as he lived out his worry and pain in cold hospital settings. "Suddenly I was around doctors and people that were hurting a lot in hospitals, and I thought, 'Is acting a noble profession? Should I be doing this or should I give myself in some way that can help people who are dealing with cancer or something like that?'" he questioned. 

But he's glad he didn't. Butler knew how much Lori had done for his career and knows how proud she would be of him for where he's gotten. "She sacrificed so much. She quit her job to drive me to auditions ... And also, when she was in high school she wanted to be an actor, so I think I'm sort of getting to live this life for both of us in that way," he said on Today's "Sunday Sitdown" in February.

Austin Butler actually took time off after "The Shannara Chronicles" was canceled. But it did nothing to help his emotional state. "I started sinking into a deeper and deeper depression," he said on the "Actor Roundtable." A few months after, his agent convinced him to try out for George C. Wolfe's 2018 Broadway revival of "The Iceman Cometh" with Denzel Washington. He snagged the role on the spot. "They gave me the job in the room. And that's the moment that changed my career," he detailed.

From that point on, Butler changed his approach to acting and his focus. "Something Denzel told me is: There is no stage acting or film acting; there is the truth," Butler told Backstage in January 2023. But Washington went beyond sharing his philosophy. He became a mentor to Butler. "He really took me under his wing. He'd start telling me thoughts about the scene, and suddenly I've got Denzel almost as an acting coach," Butler told GQ.

Washington took the time to pass on his knowledge because he saw the potential in Butler. "You could see he was going to be a star," the two-time Oscar winner told the Los Angeles Times in 2022. In fact, Washington actually called Baz Luhrmann during the "Elvis" casting process. "He said, 'I've just worked with this guy on stage. I've never seen a work ethic like it.' And I'm like, 'Okay, I must see him,'" Luhrmann told Entertainment Weekly.