JD King

I’ve been performing as Elvis for nearly 20 years and I’m an old Elvis nerd, so I was weary going in, but I thought the film was fantastic. I wondered if they’d be able to capture this shy, humble country boy who just feels the music and translates it on the stage, but they really did. I knew the film would be quite bombastic and amped-up in the Baz Luhrmann style, but it really captured his humanity Austin Butler is excellent, particularly with the off-stage stuff. I can’t fault him for his body language, cadence and voice. He even nails his laugh. His on-stage performance was very, very good. Being a performer, I’ve been massively into studying his concerts. My favourite Elvis movie is a 1970 concert film called Elvis: That’s the Way It Is, which Elvis draws from. I loved the bit where he's putting together a big-band version of ‘That’s All Right Mama’ – it didn’t happen quite like that in real life, but it’s a lovely fun way to tell that part of the story.  Photograph: Courtesy Warner Bros. PicturesAustin Butler as Elvis Presley in ‘Elvis’ My favourite Elvis song to perform, ‘Polk Salad Annie’, appears briefly in the movie too. It's swamp rock track written by Tony Joe White.Elvis takes lots of liberties with the story, but I understand why. The one bit that stuck out to me is when he’s firing Colonel Parker on stage, because it didn’t happen – he fired him in private – and Elvis wouldn’t have made a big statement like that on stage. He wasn’t a publicly rebellious perso