Darren Aronofsky‘s Caught Stealing stars Academy Award-nominated actor Austin Butler as Hank, a former baseball player whose bad decisions landed him in an alcohol-induced haze through much of his existence. However, that becomes the least of his worries when what was supposed to be a pet setting job leads him to become involved in the chase for a key to a possession that different groups of very dangerous want for themselves.
Though Hank’s apartment was a set, Butler reveals to Variety that he slept overnight in the “apartment” to make it feel more lived-in. He says, “For one night, I had the whole apartment to myself. I played music, I danced around, and I ate Chinese food in there. It made me feel like I really lived there. I slept there all night, and I woke up to the crew coming in while I was in my underwear.”
Butler points out that the experience helped him feel like the apartment was truly “his.” He continues, “It made it feel like it wasn’t a set anymore. There are many things that conspire against you when you’re making a movie. You’ve got the lights and the camera and the set doesn’t have a ceiling, because they’ve got to light it from above. It’s tempting to look around and break the illusion. So the more I can do to trick myself, the more important it is.”
Hank in Caught Stealing is one of Butler’s recent roles that did not require him to wear prosthetics, wigs, or anything that would change his appearance. For Butler, that felt like a different experience. He says, “One of the reasons I got into acting in the first place was that I am very shy. Getting to play characters let me put on this other skin and put on this other voice and become this other person. That made me feel free. But playing a character that feels more like myself left me with nowhere to hide and made me feel vulnerable.”
When it comes to sympathizing with his character, Butler notes that it’s important for actors not to judge their characters too much, since it might affect their performances. He explains, “Sometimes I’d go, ‘Man, I want to like Hank more.’ I want him to make better decisions. I almost started to feel the seeds of judgment for my character. And that’s dangerous. That’s something I needed to stay away from. So a lot of my journey was finding his good heart.”
