During a conversation for Interview magazine’s fall 2025 cover story, published Tuesday, Butler brought up what it’s like to play “private moments” in the personal lives of characters based on real people. “I remember having moments early on where I was going, ‘Vocally, is this something Elvis would’ve said? Is this how his voice would’ve been?'” he recalled of his experience playing Presley.
Butler went on to say that the experience “becomes a boundary.” He continued, “And then at a certain point you blow the roof off and it’s your soul and his soul merging in some way.”
“I know exactly what you’re talking about,” White said before revealing he had a similar experience while portraying Springsteen. “I can look at his performances, and I can watch interviews, but these are public versions. They’re performative in some sense. No matter how honest you are when you’re talking to the press, that’s not how you’re going to talk to your mother.”
White continued, “I was running into the same thing where I was like, ‘Does this sound or look like him?’ Because I had all this footage I could go off of, but you don’t know what this man looks like alone in a house. There’s more freedom, but then you’re questioning that freedom. It’s exactly what you said. At a certain point, you let go and hope that whatever feeling you’re getting close to at least held hands with Bruce’s feeling.”
Another topic the actors discussed was how they managed to find inspiration for their characters.
While Butler wasn’t able to to personally get to know the late Presley, he said he benefited from filming Elvis away from home in Australia. “I was fortunate to be far from the life that I lived on a day-to-day basis, because I was in Australia. And then COVID happened, so the entire world was a different place,” he said. “It allowed me to immerse myself in the delusion a little bit more than I would’ve otherwise.”
White’s experience of playing Springsteen was much different because the musician was present for much of filming, and they also got to know each other outside of set.
“Bruce was a producer on the film, and he and his manager, Jon Landau, who Jeremy Strong plays in the film, were both around quite a bit. They’ve had this beautiful relationship for so long, and they’ve been so in control of Bruce’s career, of his image, of every aspect of his public life,” he said. “It makes total sense why these guys would want to be around as much as they were because I think it’s the first little bit of control that they’ve ever given up, to Scott [Cooper], our director, and to me and to everybody. And so I totally understand him wanting to be there.”
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