Austin Butler, the guest on this episode of The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast, which was recorded in front of students at Chapman University, is one of the most talented and exciting young actors in Hollywood. For his electrifying portrayal of Elvis Presley between the ages of 19 and 42 in Baz Luhrmann’s 2022 film Elvis, he won best actor BAFTA and Golden Globe awards; was nominated for best actor Critics Choice and SAG awards; and is now, at the age of just 31, nominated for the best actor Oscar, as well.

As Butler discusses during this episode, he started out in the business as a pre-teen on TV series aimed at kids and young adults, and then briefly walked away from it after losing his beloved mother when he was just 23; he then returned to acting in a 2018 Broadway revival of The Iceman Cometh opposite Denzel Washington, who became a mentor and champion of his; and he then was cast in two 2019 films helmed by some of the world’s top filmmakers: Jim Jarmusch’s The Dead Don’t Die and Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

But his big breakthrough, of course, came in Elvis, for which he beat out the likes of Ansel Elgort, Harry Styles and Miles Teller, and to which he devoted some three years of his life, body and soul. The resulting film had its world premiere at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival and went on to become one of the most popular releases of the year. Butler’s performance, meanwhile, received the sorts of reviews that actors dream of, and between those and the reactions of the public, it quickly became clear that a new star had been born.