There’s no doubting the gusto with which Austin Butler throws himself into roles. Yes, obviously, as Elvis — and no doubt in the forthcoming Dune: Part Two and Steven Spielberg’s Masters of the Air — but also in his latest gig: as the face of YSL Beauty’s new fragrance, MYSLF.
For Butler, there is a synergetic, immersive relationship between scent and acting. Back in 2018, when he played in the Broadway revival of The Iceman Cometh alongside Denzel Washington, Butler hit on the idea of applying an essential oil before rehearsals and each performance. ‘It sort of became this ritual. That smell eventually got linked to the emotions I was exploring and the memories of the character that I was building,’ he explains. ‘Smell could bypass my conscious mind and evoke those memories and emotions that I’d been working on.’ He did it again with Elvis, finding the exact cologne the King wore and using that to ‘spark the imagination’.
