Austin Butler Didn’t See Family for 3 Years While Filming Elvis

Austin Butler‘s voice isn’t the only thing that changed when he took on the role of rock and roll icon Elvis Presley.

As it turns out, his personal life took a hit while filming the Baz Luhrmann-directed biopic Elvis. “I didn’t see my family for—it turned out to be three years,” Butler said in an exclusive interview with E! News’ Daily Pop. “I didn’t see any one of my friends for that entire time. So, it was like the rest of my life, suddenly, I compartmentalized.”

Balancing real life with the “obsession of a role” is something Butler said he’s still trying to tackle, along with not letting people’s opinion of the film get to him.

“There’s this quality where you’re on the train, and you have people saying great things about you, you have people saying awful things about you,” the 30-year-old shared. “And for me, every day, it’s this thing of going, ‘Okay, what is reality?’ It’s just staying grateful and really just kind of not allowing those things to make me feel like they are me.”