Austin Butler pays touching tribute to Lisa Marie Presley after BAFTA win, ‘It’s a bittersweet time’

Austin Butler remembered the late Lisa Marie Presley after he won the Best Actor award for his performance in Elvis at Sunday evening’s BAFTA Film Awards.

Butler, 31, who played the role of rock legend Elvis Presley in Baz Luhrmann’s biopic, admitted he felt “honored” to be welcomed into the Presley family as he grieved on Lisa’s death.

“It’s been a really unimaginably tragic time, you know, and grief is a long process,” said Butler, according to Variety.

“And so my heart and my love was with [the Presley family] always. I feel honoured to have been welcomed into the family. It’s a bittersweet time.”

Butler, who has been nominated at the Academy Awards this year as well, continued, “How lucky I was to get to have that experience… The feeling of standing on an international stage and looking out and looking down at the jumpsuit that I was wearing and realizing there were certain moments where I was seeing the closest thing to what Elvis would have seen during his ’68 Special or whatever that was and I miss it a lot. I miss that experience.”

“I don’t miss the terror,” Butler said, adding, “But I felt every day that the elation that you feel with that. And I miss the people that I got to make the film with, they became completely like family to me. I really miss them a lot.”

[via]