Award-winning actor Colin Farrell asked “Elvis” star Austin Butler for the number of his ex-girlfriend Vanessa Hudgens during an interview released this week.
During a video interview between Butler and Farrell hosted by The Hollywood Reporter, Butler recalled how a friend of his years ago encouraged him to find a way to play the king of rock onscreen.
“So I was looking at Christmas lights, there was an Elvis Christmas song on the radio, and I was with a friend of mine, and I was singing along, and my friend kind of looked over at me and goes, ‘You’ve got to play Elvis,'” Butler told Farrell. “I said, ‘Oh, that’s such a long shot.'”
“Then a couple of weeks later, I was playing the piano. I never really sang for any of my friends or anything. That same friend was there, and I was playing the piano. She said, ‘I’m serious. You’ve got to figure out how you can get the rights to a script,'” Butler continued.
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Farrell interrupted Butler to ask, “Who is this friend?” The actor then made a phone gesture to indicate he wanted the friend’s phone number before Butler replied, “Yeah, I’ll give you their number!”
The friend Butler referenced was, in fact, his ex-girlfriend Vanessa Hudgens who he dated from 2011 until 2020. Hudgens recounted a similar story while appearing on “Live with Kelly and Ryan” in 2019, according to Insider.
“It’s so crazy because last December, we were driving along, and we were listening to Christmas music, and then an Elvis Presley Christmas song came on,” Hudgens said. “He had just dyed his hair dark – he’s a natural blonde – and I was looking at him and he was singing along and I was like, ‘Babe, you need to play Elvis.'”
She continued, “Then in January, he was sitting at the piano – he’s a musician – and he’s playing, and he’s singing, and I’m like, ‘I don’t know how, but you need to figure out how you can play Elvis. Like, I don’t know how we get rights or what we do, but you need to play him.'”
“Elvis,” directed by Baz Luhrmann, was a major blockbuster success and has earned Butler a variety of awards, including best actor for a motion picture at the Golden Globes on Tuesday.
