CAUGHT STEALING Star Austin Butler Covers MEN’S HEALTH Magazine

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To Austin Butler, acting had always meant alienation from his body and mind. After his Oscar-nominated performance in ELVIS, he required a dialect coach to un-Elvis. To play the wraithlike, psychopathic nepo baby Feyd-Rautha in DUNE: PART TWO, he went underwent a grueling physical transformation. Ditto for his starring role in Darren Aronofsky’s new nail-biter CAUGHT STEALING. But after a series of burnout-related health scares, he’s learned not to erase himself—and his needs—to put in a great performance. The actor, famous for immersing himself in his roles, decided to go Method on Austin Butler. Featured on the cover of the September/October 2025 issue of MEN’S HEALTH, Butler opens up about his latest whole body, whole mind transformation.

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On how his title role in Elvis took over his life: “And then it’s done, after three years. And then it’s like, Wait, what do I focus on now? What do I read about? What do I watch? What do I like? And also, I haven’t talked to my friends. Who do I call?”

 On how his view of the acting process has changed throughout his career: “For a long time, I felt that it had to be a tortured process and I would come out the other side broken. Rather than just putting parts of yourself away and trying to pretend that they don’t exist, it’s like going into the gross bits of yourself—going into the bits that you don’t want to look at—and finding a way of integrating that into the whole.”

On how building real connections has become a grounding mechanism for him: “There’s something about filming: Everybody tells you what time to show up, they get you dressed, they show you where your mark is. It can be very infantilizing, and it can be very centered on me. It feels better when I’m calling a friend and just going, ‘I don’t need anything from you; I just want to know: Are you okay? Can I do anything for you?’”

 On the unusual challenge of transforming himself into a former baseball for Caught Stealing, and the pictures of baseball players that director Darren Aronofsky would send him for reference: “I actually have a whole section of just baseball players’ asses that he would send me. He was like, ‘Look how thick they are!’ ”

On the impact of his training for the role: “I’ve got a whole section of Celine pants that I just can’t even wear anymore.”

On alcohol: “Drinking has never been my thing. I don’t like the way it makes me feel.”

On a bizarre episode of temporary blindness he experienced while flying to shoot The Bikeriders: “It felt like the life was being sucked from my body. I suddenly felt a euphoric sensation, and I actually genuinely thought I was dying.”

On meeting Laura Dern and seeing serendipitous threads between Dern and his mother, who he lost in 2014: “It was like the whole room just quieted, and we connected on a soul level. We felt like kindred spirits. My mom was even told that she looked like Laura Dern, and so as soon as I see her, it’s like: She looks like my actual mom.”

On how Dern has taught him that when he’s playing dark roles it doesn’t have to destroy the rest of his life: “She’s helping me more and more to see that you can come out the other side, and maybe bits of you have healed, and synthesized, and metabolized. It can be therapeutic, in a way. You don’t have to destroy the light.”

On his go-to cheat meal: “French toast, pancakes, pizza, and pasta, all at the same time.”

On what he considers his favorite book: “Consolations by David Whyte, or Another Country by James Baldwin.”

 On what he thinks is the most exciting phrase in the English language: “That first time you hear somebody that you really care about say, ‘I love you.’”

[Photo Credit: Matthew Brookes for Men’s Health Magazine]

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