Angela Bassett can relate to Austin Butler getting stuck in Elvis voice

From one Oscar-nominated biopic actor to another: It gets better. Angela Bassett has come a long way from What’s Love Got To Do With It—all the way to another Oscar nom, in fact—but she still remembers what it was like to embody an icon like Tina Turner. The acclaimed star reflects on that, among other aspects of her illustrious career, in a new interview with the New Yorker, wherein she reveals that she can relate to what Austin Butler is going through with Elvis.

Asked if what happened to Butler with Elvis’ voice happened to her with Turner’s, Bassett confirms, “It absolutely did. Tina’s laugh and the way she spoke took over.” She then “lets out a high, squeaky Tina Turner laugh” before explaining, “You so lived and breathed and began to see life through their perspective. You had to. They’re a part of you. I think that’s what’s going on with him.”

Tina Turner’s possession of Angela Bassett only lasted “about four months,” so “not as long as Elvis,” which has been going on for something like three years if you start from when Butler first began prepping for the role, as Butler does. The two stars’ processes actually sound very similar. Butler had his “own archive of how [Elvis] said every word and every diphthong” (per Entertainment Weekly) and in fact thinks he damaged his vocal chords from the amount of takes he’d done of each song.

Meanwhile, Bassett recalls how she “would study each and every detail within a phrase, or half a phrase” until she could mimic Turner perfectly, thinking to herself: “Did she inhale before she sang that? Did she exhale at the end?” She even lost her voice “a couple times” while “full-out singing,” even though her vocals weren’t used in the film like Butler’s were for Elvis.

“You have to bid it farewell, and it’s hard to let it go, because you’ve enjoyed it, you survived it, you delivered, and you’re proud of that,” Bassett acknowledges. “You got an opportunity and you hit it out of left field. So it takes a moment to get back to regular you. But you’re different after this moment. Now you’re Austin, who did that great performance.” And got a shout-out from Angela Bassett—not too shabby.