I am rarely nervous interviewing famous people, but when Austin Butler unexpectedly walked into the New York City YSL press room, I gasped. Beyond the fact that this man is strikingly handsome (and he was wearing a slick black Saint Laurent suit that fit his tall, slim frame like a glove), there’s a certain aura about him—that “star power” people speak of —that made it hard for me to take my eyes off him and made me suddenly feel flushed and giddy. (For the record, I was not the only one.) Later, when I sat down with the Oscar-nominated Elvis actor, I quickly learned that he’s both assertive and open, honest and vulnerable, funny and thoughtful. So it’s no wonder that YSL Beauty chose the rising star to represent its new men’s fragrance, MYSLF, which was designed with today’s generation—one that is sensitive and full of beauty and strength—in mind. This visionary scent combines floral and woody notes and could not be better timed given that we’re in a moment in history when there is a conscious re-examining and redefining of what it means to be a man. Although I only spoke with Butler about the new fragrance, scent memory and his rising career for a short period, the extremely kind and gracious star certainly made a lasting impression.

WHAT ARE YOUR FIRST MEMORIES ASSOCIATED WITH SCENT?

“They’re to do with my parents. My mother had this very floral scent that she used to wear, and my dad wore this sharper, spicier woody smell, and I would sneak into their room and steal their perfumes and sometimes even mix them together. I’d be doused in perfume—you could smell me from outside.”

WHY IS HAVING A PERSONAL FRAGRANCE SO IMPORTANT FOR YOUR IDENTITY?

“I think it’s similar to the way that clothing changes the way we feel—it elicits emotions in us and makes us either feel more confident or more introspective or whatever. I find that with fragrance, it just takes us back to some moment in our memory. I love when somebody wears the same fragrance all their life and that smell is them.”

DO YOU HAVE DIFFERENT SCENTS FOR DIFFERENT OCCASIONS?

“Again, it’s a bit like clothing in that it depends on my mood and it depends on the season. I started doing this thing when I was in a play on Broadway called The Iceman Cometh; in rehearsals, I put this particular essential oil on before the beginning of the play. And then I carried that through the entire run, and it became a trigger where when I smelled it, it put me right into that mindset. So, yeah, it’s cool how you can use scent like that.”

WHEN DO YOU TRULY FEEL LIKE YOURSELF?

“You know, I travel so much for work, so when I’m at home with my family and my friends and my dog, that’s when I tend to feel most like myself.”

BESIDES DUNE: PART TWO, WHICH EVERYONE IS SO EXCITED ABOUT, WHAT’S NEXT FOR YOU?

“[Making Dune] was the time of my life. Denis [Villeneuve] is an amazing director. It was so much fun because I could go in a completely opposite direction [with my character] and really swing for the fences and do something different. So that was a blast. And then I have a film called The Bikeriders with Tom Hardy and Michael Shannon where we’re just riding motorcycles, and it’s very fun.”

YOU ALSO GOT TO PLAY A VILLAIN IN QUENTIN TARANTINO’S ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD.

“Yeah, which was crazy—it was a dream of mine to work with him and with Brad [Pitt] and Leo [DiCaprio]. It’s so much fun to play [more sinister characters]. Gary Oldman is one of my heroes—he’s an acting god to me—and those performances he did in Léon: The Professional, The Fifth Element and True Romance…just to explore some of those types of characters has very much been a dream for me.”

Read more:
Austin Butler on ELVIS and Where True Credit Needs to Be Given
Sowing Seeds With YSL Beauty
Dua Lipa’s Star Power Keeps Rising