Austin Butler and Callum Turner talk WWII epic ‘Masters of the Air’

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Ask Austin Butler about playing a real-life hero and he’ll tell you one thing’s for certain: it’s a much harder task than stepping into the King’s Blue Suede Shoes.

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Butler, 32, who immersed himself in the world of Elvis Presley to bring the music icon’s story to the big screen, dove right into playing bomber pilot Major Gale “Buck” Cleven in Apple’s Second World War drama Masters of the Air.

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“I had a week off between finishing Elvis and then flying to England. It was too fast, to be honest, but I think it was something I needed,” Butler says seated beside his co-star Callum Turner (The Boys in the Boat) in a video call from Los Angeles.

But like his time on Elvis, Butler devoured everything he could about the real-life airmen depicted in the new miniseries, which is produced by Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg and Gary Goetzman and serves as a companion piece to 2001’s Band of Brothers and 2010’s The Pacific.

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Butler and his castmates, which also include Barry Keoghan, Anthony Boyle, David Shields, Ben Radcliffe, Rafferty Law, Ncuti Gatwa, Edward Ashley, Elliot Warren, Nate Mann and Darragh Cowley, went through a two-week boot camp and learned the technical aspects of the B-17 bombers flown by their real-life counterparts.

“We had boot camp which was a great way of setting the foundation and levelling the playing field … and building the bonds of brotherhood and that set us in motion,” Butler says.

Based on Donald L. Miller’s book of the same name, the nine-episode series (the first two episodes of which drop Friday) follows members of the “Bloody Hundredth” — a group of pilots in the 100th Bomb Group who conducted perilous daytime air raids over Nazi Germany during the Second World War.

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“I never thought about the psychological toll that would take,” Butler says. “Knowing that maybe only a quarter of you going up in the air are going to come home that day. But when you do come home, maybe you’ll go on a date that night in London. Then tomorrow you’re back in the air.”

Imagining that back and forth the tasks would entail was “unfathomable and mentally destructive” for the Oscar nominee to fathom. But it also gave him some insight into the type of heroism that is hard to come by nowadays.

“Honestly, I felt honoured to be a part of bringing their story to life,” Butler says.

As a teen, Turner heard stories about how his grandfather bravely took up arms against the Nazis in the Second World War, but the actor admits to knowing very little about the men who made up the “Bloody Hundredth.”

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“I didn’t know anything and that’s why it’s important that we tell this story,” he says. “I’m a Brit and I’ve always been fascinated with World War II. But what these guys went through was the most severe warfare of all time. It won’t ever be matched.”

Alongside his pal “Buck”, Turner‘s John “Bucky” Egan leads the cocky flyboys of the 100th Bomb Group who were crucial in maintaining a strong European front fighting against the Nazis as they operated out of an English air force base.

Like Butler, Turner, 33, says his work on the project taught him true heroism means actually standing up against evil tyrants.

“I’m just grateful that these men and others during this time stood up against evil. I have often thought about what I would do in these situations, whether I was a French teenager in the countryside or an American wanting to help and protect Europe from the Nazis. Johnny Egan is from this place called Manitowoc, Wisconsin, it’s on Lake Michigan. I always had this image in my head of him looking out at the horizon and thinking, ‘What am I going to do with my life?’ Then this war starts and he realizes that he’s there to protect and serve. To be that brave and valiant.”

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Playing Egan was a further revelation for Turner as he realized how today’s generation could be inspired by the camaraderie between the “Bloody Hundredth” as they battled the Nazis.

“How they protected one another and looked out for each other and the grief that they had to endure, losing friends consistently is unimaginable,” he says.