The 33-year-old actor recalled that when he was a child, his dad David exhibited a type of lifestyle that affected him in a positive way and ensured he developed a passion for the outdoors.
"My dad's a very practical man. His lifestyle has influenced me on a fundamental level. When I was growing up, he would take me to Arizona, where my grandparents lived," he told The Times.
"That variety (my father) showed me by helping me ride a motorbike, ride horses or going to the countryside."
Austin started his career as a teenager with small appearances on shows such as Hannah Montana on Disney Channel opposite Miley Cyrus and Nickelodeon's Zoey 101 with Jamie Lynn Spears before he became a mainstream Hollywood star in movies such as Elvis.
But Austin lost his mother Lori in 2014 when she passed away following a battle with cancer, and admitted that he almost gave everything up because he had "never experienced pain" like the grief he felt.
"After my mom passed away, I'd never experienced pain like that before, and I started to question," the Eddington star recalled in a roundtable interview for The Hollywood Reporter.
"Suddenly I was around doctors and people that were hurting a lot in hospitals, and I thought, 'Is acting a noble profession? Should I be doing this or should I give myself in some way that can help people who are dealing with cancer or something like that?"
After his mother died, Butler went straight to New Zealand to start shooting a young adult TV show.
"A lot of people enjoyed the show, and I had fun doing horseback riding and that sort of thing, but I'd go home and cry every night. I was dealing with grief, but it was also this feeling that I wasn't aligned with something that felt truly fulfilling," he said.
"I got done with that show, once they cancelled it after two seasons, and I said, 'I would rather not work as an actor than ever do something like that again'."
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