Austin Butler roars in The Bikeriders

During the 1960s, photographer Danny Lyon spent four years on the road with the Chicago Outlaws Motorcycle Club. Years later, Danny’s 1968 book The Bikeriders has inspired not just the title and character names in writer-director Jeff Nichols’ new film, but the look and feel of his fictional movie bike gang, the Vandals, and their search for identity.

The Bikeriders takes us along for a 10-year roadtrip with the Vandals, as their leader Johnny (Tom Hardy, Venom: The Last Dance) tries to groom new biker Benny (Austin Butler, Dune: Part Two) to take over his role, while another new Vandals member named Kathy (Jodie Comer, The End We Start From) tries to pull Benny away from the increasingly violent reality of life as a gang member. “It’s a man, Johnny, and a woman, Kathy, who are both chasing Benny. He’s everything that they both want but for different reasons. Everybody is trying to fill Benny up with their hopes and dreams and aspirations, but he isn’t built to contain those. He can’t hold them, and he doesn’t want to. It’s a tragedy because they both put so much into a thing that was not built to hold anything,” reveals Jeff Nichols.

While their tug of war or love triangle focuses on Benny, we also get into the strict rules and codes that dictate the lives of the other supposedly anarchic Vandals, including Zipco (Michael Shannon, Boardwalk Empire), Funny Sonny (Norman Reedus, The Walking Dead, Ride with Norman Reedus and American Gangster), Cal (Boyd Holbrook), Brucie (Damon Herriman), Wahoo (Beau Knapp), Cockroach (Emory Cohen), Corky (Karl Glusman), and The Kid (Toby Wallace), with Mike Faist as photographer Danny Lyon.

Writer-director Jeff Nichols notes, “We are all desperate to find and build an identity for ourselves. I think this is one of the greatest animating forces at work in our society right now. What I find interesting, and what The Bikeriders directly addresses, is that in our search for a unique identity, we very often turn to groups to help us define ourselves. The more specific the group, the clearer the identity. In some instances, this can be a wonderful, powerful thing in our lives. In others, it can be terribly destructive. The Bikeriders represents both.”

Read on as Austin Butler talks about what’s driving Benny.

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From Elvis in Baz Luhrmann’s biopic Elvis, to Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen in Dune: Part Two, Austin Butler is no stranger to being the IT Boy that older men want to train for world domination … while having a nature that they don’t understand.

The lone wolf

“Benny is a mysterious figure and a man of few words. He comes from a more affluent family than most of the bikers, which sets him apart,” reveals Austin. “He’s fallen out with his family and become a lone wolf. But there’s something in every human being that needs community. When he found the Vandals, he found a father figure in Johnny and camaraderie with all the guys.” But while Benny is keen to take what he wants, he’s less keen on giving back. “He and Kathy get married very quickly, but he’s always got one foot out the door. He doesn’t want anybody to need anything from him, but Kathy needs him to stop riding and get out of that life, and Johnny needs Benny to take over the gang,” Austin explains.

Austin also got to be the lone wolf when it came to working with Jeff Nichols’ sources – including Danny Lyon’s original interview voice recordings with the Chicago Outlaws Motorcycle Club members – since there were no recordings of the biker who inspired Benny. “I saw it as a blessing because there’s nothing to say that I do or don’t sound like Benny,” says Austin. “I listened to a lot of different recordings of people that Danny made and those were very helpful. But then at the end of the day, it’s more just about Benny’s essence and how that comes through in my voice.”

Austin’s wild rides

Austin wasn’t starting his ride from scratch. He grew up in a biker family, with both his father and grandfather riding. As a kid, Austin even took motorbike road trips with his dad, from California to Arizona, to visit his grandparents. “When I was 16, my dad decided it was time for me to learn so he just threw me on a bike in a parking lot,” says 33-year-old Austin. “After I spoke to Jeff (Nichols) about this role, I started riding all the time. Then when I was in Australia shooting Elvis, I met a man who fixed up old Harleys and we would go riding together. That was my first time getting on an older bike. It helped get me ready for the film.”

When Austin joined The Bikeriders’ training sessions, like Benny, he already had a leg up, but there was a lot more to learn. “We all bonded from training together. Jeff Milburn, our wonderful motorcycle stunt coordinator, brought these incredible period motorcycles, which are so different from riding on a modern bike,” Austin adds. “We had to practice a great deal on them to get comfortable. Most of the bikes you see in the film are his personal bikes, including the one I ride. I really learned so much about motorcycles from Jeff. We would ride for hours and hours together, even months before we started filming. Once production started and we were all together and you heard the engines roar – moments like that, you know, looking over and seeing Tom and Carl and Toby and all the guys – it was really amazing.”

Having bonded with The Bikeriders guys, Austin really felt the emotional impact of Benny’s final scene. “That very last sound of the motorcycles at the end is, for Benny, like the sound of his father and all his brothers calling out,” he says. “He’s like a lion that has been on the veldt its whole life and is suddenly living in captivity. Then he hears a wild roar and knows that is where he needs to be. That craving felt personal. As a young man, I want to be around a certain energy that makes me feel like I belong.”

Five fun facts

Jeff Nichols gave each of The Bikeriders’ production department heads a single specific image for reference: Danny Lyon’s colour photo of Cal, one of the real life bikers, sitting at a petrol station holding a cooldrink bottle. “I told them that if we could achieve a frame in this film that looks this dense, this filled with life and specificity, then we’ve won,” he says.

Production designer Chad Keith and set decorator Adam Willis sourced hundreds of their own inspiration photos, too, as they filled in the details, down to period-specific rubbish. “Nothing is ever really clean. There’s a roughness and the griminess that comes with working on motorcycles throughout the film that we wanted to bring to life, even down to details of period trash and graffiti,” says Chad.

Director of photography Adam Stone used a hand-held camera to bring viewers into the heart of the Vandals pack. For close-ups and medium shots, actors rode on a three-wheeled motorcycle with an attached platform that allowed the camera operator to ride alongside them with a camera on their shoulder.

Costume designer Erin Benach custom made and personalised each rider’s vest or “cut”. “Every single patch had to be cleared for legal reasons, so we had to design them, fabricate them, age them and sew them on in multiples,” she reveals. Benny stands out as the one exception. “He (Jeff Nichols) said there should be a kind of nonchalance about him. He doesn’t have a lot of elements to his vest and he doesn’t wear jewelry. He is as stripped-down and simple as they get in this world,” says Erin.

Jeff Nichols’ first encounter with Danny Lyon’s The Bikeriders was in the 2003 edition. “That book has a preface that Danny wrote himself. In it, he goes back and recounts what he heard had happened to some of the members. There is just one line about the leader of the club, this guy named Johnny, who had been challenged for leadership. Many people say that incident was the end of the golden age of motorcycles. Just that sentence started giving me the shape of the film and the narrative,” says Jeff.

Stream The Bikeriders now.