Austin Butler suffered ‘temporary blindness’ and feared he was dying

Austin Butler has suffered an array of unusual health scares over the years, but perhaps the most bizarre came when he lost his vision for ‘several minutes’ while on a plane.

The Elvis star, 34, was flying to film The Bikeriders – Jeff Nichols’ crime drama also starring Tom Hardy and Jodie Comer – when he was overcome by a horrific migraine as the plane was landing.

He ‘lost his vision for several minutes, reports Men’s Health, and then ‘willed’ his sight to return, and it did eventually. Austin worked the whole day, and put the bodily glitch down to a lack of sleep.

Not only that, but the magazine reports in an interview with the Masters of the Air actor that he also suffered from a sudden foot pain while on a Dune: Part II press tour, which left his toes curled up to ease the agony for eight months.

He went to the doctor and it turned out there was a shard of glass lodged in there.

Austin has previously put his health on the line for work, having opened up about the huge toll becoming Elvis had on him mentally and physically.

The day after filming wrapped, Austin was hospitalised from a virus which gave him symptoms of appendicitis.

‘I woke up at 4 in the morning with excruciating pain, and I was rushed to hospital,’ he told British GQ before the film came out.

‘My body just started shutting down the day after I finished Elvis.’

In the role, Austin took up The King’s southern drawl, which he struggled to shake once filming had wrapped in his red carpet interviews and TV appearances.

Speaking at a press conference at the Cannes Film Festival, Austin explained how he obsessively studied the Jailhouse Rock hitmaker for the role.

‘I basically put the rest of my life on pause for two years and I just absorbed everything I possibly could,’ he said.

‘I just went down the rabbit hole of obsession. And I broke down his life into periods of time where I could hear the differences in how his voice changed over the years and how his movement changed over the years and I spent two years studying, trying to find his humanity as best as I could through that.’

He said he had placed ‘unrealistic expectations’ himself to bring Elvis to life, recalling: ‘When I first started, I put these unrealistic expectations on
myself that somehow, if I worked hard enough, I could make my face
identical to Elvis’ face.

‘And that my eyes would look exactly like Elvis’ eyes and you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.’

When filming was halted over Covid-19 Austin’s obsession was exacerbated.

 ‘I had these compilations of his voice I would listen to every day, his laugh, different songs,’ he once recalled on Jimmy Kimmel Live.

‘And then once I was allowed to leave the apartment, you know, I would usually wake up every day around 3 or 4 in the morning with this terror,’ he said.

‘It was such a daunting thing. And I really just was guided by my terror really.’ 

Austin’s graft did thankfully pay off, as he won a best leading actor Bafta and was nominated for an Oscar for his portrayal of the rocker.

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