Gold Coast trainer Ryan Gambin reveals Austin Butler’s “hip dominant” workouts to play Elvis
A Gold Coast trainer has revealed he spent more than a year helping Hollywood actor move his hips like Elvis for Baz Luhrmann’s blockbuster movie
U on Sunday
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Actor Austin Butler enlisted a Gold Coast trainer to help him move his hips like Elvis for Baz Luhrmann’s new movie.
Strength and conditioning coach and former Olympic swimmer Ryan Gambin has been training Butler since he arrived on the Gold Coast in late 2019 for his leading role as the king of rock and role in the blockbuster Warner Bros. movie, which also stars Tom Hanks.
Gambin was approached by the production and had a meeting with Luhrmann and his wife and costume designer Catherine Martin before the production began to “get the right look” for Butler’s Elvis.
He said they focused predominantly on hip mobility so he could replicate Elvis’ iconic dance moves on screen.
“He was already in really good shape. I think they are going for mainly the 1950s look for Elvis,” Gambin told Confidential.
“He really enjoyed his dead lifts and his squats and he really enjoyed learning about the mechanics of his hips and making him feel more stable and more confident.
“He really takes his job seriously and obviously Elvis has a lot to do with his hip movement so we were doing a lot of hip dominant exercises. We didn’t have any strength goals … but we pretty much focused everything around his hips.”
Elvis began filming on the Gold Coast in September after a lengthy delay due to the COVID-19 pandemic, during which Butler stayed in Queensland and trained at Gambin’s CMBT training centre in Miami.
Butler trained three times per week before filming again and whenever his tight schedule would permit during filming at Village Roadshow Studios, often training in costume as Elvis.
“Austin has some serious performing roles. He had to learn like 30 different songs. He sings and dances and performs so it’s literally a workout every time he goes into work,” Gambin said.
“He just immersed himself in the character and just locked himself in his room, went over his lines and sang and danced, and I am 100 per cent confident that people are going to be blown away.”
Gambin, who coached himself to the Beijing 2008 Olympics for Malta, said he was surprised at the level of the detail that went into perfecting the Elvis character, with Butler given his own studio full of story boards and props and also a gym.
“When we train he has little quirks now. If we are doing a hard set of squats or something, halfway through the set he’ll be like, “Oh baby”, in an Elvis voice – and he doesn’t even know he does it,” Gambin said.
“They were talking about his jawline. We actually had to hold up on training his arms because Baz was a bit concerned his arms were getting too big at one stage … because his T-shirts were sitting a little tighter on Austin’s arms than they were on Elvis’s arms.
“But his hair is perfect.”
Gambin also trained Australia’s Olivia DeJonge, who plays Priscilla Presley.
“I’m super proud of both Austin and Olivia the way they train and show up. I had an expectation of them being in Hollywood, sort of prissy and hard work for me, but I’m really proud and impressed with the way they suck it up and train hard and enjoy their training,” Gambin said.
SURPRISE SET
The Stafford Brothers’ performance on the Gold Coast this month could be more memorable than they bargained for.
Matt Stafford’s wife, fellow DJ Brooke Evers, is due to give birth to their first child in the coming weeks, around the same time he is due to perform at So-Cal on The Lawn at The Star on February 27.
“It’s pretty much due around that date. We could be heading to the hospital after that show,” Stafford told Confidential, admitting he didn’t have a contingency plan.
“We’ll roll with the punches.”
After eight years in Los Angeles, the Stafford Brothers, Matt and his brother Chris Stafford, are back living on the Gold Coast considering the global pandemic shutdown the live music industry.
“Everything has been flipped around,” Matt said. “I think we’re the healthiest we’ve been in a long time.”
“I’m waking up before 7am regularly; normally I’m going to bed then.”
But when it comes to the pair of DJs becoming new parents and hopefully touring again, Stafford said “our little baby will be rocking around the world with us”.
PREMIERE COUP
Leah Purcell’s debut feature film has been selected for a major US film festival.
The Drover’s Wife The Legend of Molly Johnson will have its world premiere at the long-running South By Southwest (SXSW) Festival in Austin, Texas next month.
The film, Purcell’s directorial debut, is based on the award-winner play of the same name and is based on the Henry Lawson short story about a woman and her determination to protect her family from the harshness of life in a 1893 Snowy Mountains township.
“As an indigenous Australian woman and filmmaker, I am proud to be sharing a story that literally has mine and my family’s DNA all over it and to be able to share our cultural practise as storytellers through film to the world,” the Queensland actor and director said.
IT’S A NO FROM ME
Abbie Chatfield has ruled herself out of being The Bachelorette.
Despite her winning run on I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here!, the reality TV queen said she wouldn’t front the dating show “any time soon”.
“I think we need more diversity in the Bachie choice. That’s the most important thing. That’s the number one reason I wouldn’t do it,” the Brisbane reality star said.
While she has made a name for herself being open and candid, Chatfield said after living a public dating life since appearing on The Bachelor, she had decided not to discuss her relationships.
“It’s very hard having a public dating life and that’s the one part of my life I want to keep private,” she said.
Chatfield is now finishing her forthcoming book, adding that after the show had aired, “the slut shaming chapter will have some extra material”.
“It used to (get to me) more than it does now. I’m yet to see an educated or well-thought through comment that is anti me,” she said.
“It’s just, ‘Oh she’s so up herself’. And it’s like, ‘OK, how dare I like myself’.”
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