Gerard Butler Breaks Down His Most Iconic Characters | GQ

but come on, can I try another one? That moment comes and I turn around and my entire army is literally like this to meet him at the Opera. I was very surprised that they chose me for that role because I used to sing in a rock band. When I was a law student, Joel Schumacher called my agent and said, can Jerry sing? My agent said I can sing badly or if you can sing that, so I went to my first singing lesson and sang for Royal's music teacher. Academy of Music in London and I said look, just tell me, I'm wasting my time, I don't want to make a fool of myself and we finished, and she said, you absolutely can do this, you need to try really hard, you need to do it.

Learn the rules but you can do this, you know, so that's all I needed to hear. There are so many times I sit there thinking how the hell I got here. This is incredible. I can't even sing. I love the opportunity to try different things and hopefully surprise people and maybe prove them wrong, so sometimes when people have a lot to say, you say, okay, look, just up the ante. some way. 300 I wanted to release reels so badly and I remember the producers telling me that we love you, but we are afraid to go to Alan Horne, who is the president of Warner Brothers, in case he doesn't love you and then damages our film, we are going to look stupid, so we know that, by the way, you know Alan. the Phantom of the Opera then, why don't you call him?

And I called him. I would say Kings Road Cafe and I said Jerry Butler Dutch. He said how are you? Jerry. I know why you are calling and let me tell you that there is a process and you have to be nominated by them and I wanted to say that I have been they are the ones that told me to call you but I didn't say that but I pressed and if these little moments in your life that make all the difference but I said I know but and he said I'll tell you what, come have a coffee and I went to have a coffee and I had my whole speech prepared saying that everything I've done in my life has led me to this moment to interpret this man and I promise you that if you give me this chance I will not let you down and he gave me the chance and the rest was me trying to keep my end of the deal, take on this character, is Leonidas proud? proud Spartans blow our horns proud that led me to this type of preparation and focus incredibly tunnel vision they just die hard I trained every hour I could sounds weird but I would literally channel Leonidas If we don't just do these meditations where I would feel him enter me at through time through some kind of strange portal like he just entered my body and then I may have felt if he's in me then I'm just trusting that this is being transmitted The Spartans never retreat The Spartans never give up there's a great fight sequence when Nos had been rehearsing for months.

I know the day we were doing it, it was the first big action sequence we were shooting in the movie and there was a camera crew that had never used three different cameras before something went wrong, so it was the one in the afternoon we hadn't filmed anything basically they told my double, get off and get ready to leave because we don't have time to fail, thing eight was killing me and since I've already done all this I've trained and trained and trained and this is my great moment and I wanted to scream and scream but I did it and Tim Connolly my double who is also my father to the young me in the movie that he got to see and he's like look that's here he says I don't want to do this either, I want you to do this He said, so get up and start practicing with me so the director can see that you're good at this, so I get up and I'm doing my moves and I see Zack looking up and then I see him talking to someone and they say, okay, let's try one, Jerry, why don't you try it?

I did it and it was amazing and I finished maybe that biggest splash I've ever had in my career when I finished and I clicked on the sword with a guide and I looked up and everyone started with all the equipment, they just exploded and all the specialists jumped, everyone They exploded, this is Sparta, which has obviously become a pretty

iconic

line. I had done quite a few takes and

most

of them work. oh my army is literally like that and i go up zai and go that was too much that was too much ego yeah but it was amazing yeah i trained the dragon.

How to Train Your Dragon was surprisingly one of the

most

special experiences I've ever had. It was ever fun to go in and play this ignorant loud Viking who shocks people with his heart, they had cameras everywhere and I remember thinking why do you put cameras on, oh it's just my voice and then my main entertainer, his name It was Christoph. one day he showed me how they animated so it doesn't look like where I'm saying well I thought it was there you are thank God and I still didn't do it I didn't realize I was moving so much but that's how it was Me doing all this and then you see me in the movie and it's literally animated as if I were there.

God almost gave up on you, but here we are and he unites you with something so big that you know you realize it. It's okay, it's not just my voice. a little bit more than I am what I'm giving him he could crush meant this level forest seas tamed even when I was a child I knew what it was what I had to become hiccup is not that child and it's so funny because nowadays people introduce You know, they say kids, this is Stoick from How to Train Your Dragon and you see kids like us and then I say Harry, how are you?

We're going to go chasing dragons and it's so awesome. I love Danna Thieves. I read den. of thieves back in 2012 and it was one of my favorite scripts. The cards were very clever, but we couldn't get it done. It was a very difficult film to get, maybe because it wasn't cheap and Christian had never directed anything before. These conversations often arose. At this point, maybe it's time to move on. I've become very close to Christian and I loved this movie too. We finally raised the money and then we're making the movie, but I felt a lot of pressure because for years I would just have dinners and lunches with Christian and he would talk about being his big Knicks, these big Knicks, this big, then we're going to start the movie and I like it, she has told me a lot about the great Nick, I hope I remember how great it is here.

Nick and once we're not a restaurant, it's like a Benihana or something, there's a dish that I think is sushi and while he's talking, I do this alternating thing, this is very chewy sushi, but I'm like, Oh my God, this. How big is Nick? And you're talking about big Nick. I finished the plate and he said, by the way, that's raw chicken and that was basically big, Nick, right? Let me ask you this: Are we anything like the guys who arrest you and handcuff you? drag you to the station hmm, I'm asking you a question, no, we only filmed you and it was also the best time I spent with other actors, they were also great friends and in all my films I have never had so much love for them. people that I worked with and you know, we really tried to maintain that or the lack of bond, yeah, I love you, yeah, he plays a guy named Jerry, so that was already a good start, Jerry Kennedy, who is, a lot of people, many women, that perfect guy.

He has a great sense of humor and he loves his wife very much. I said: you know what? In this movie I'm not going to think like Jerry does. I'm not going to think about myself. I'll think about everyone else and it was amazing. how amazing was that, it took me out of my head and to be honest, it was the story of that movie, everyone made it for the right reasons and everyone had their own personal story, it was Richard, it was his best friend who died of a heart. The attack was on a director and then the producer Molly, his sister, who died of cancer, and you know, this was his story and that was about ten times throughout this film, it was his own personal stories.

I know what I want because I have it. In my hands right now, do you know what you want? You better tell me now if I'm not the right person to work with Hilary Swank, who is amazing, and for me to have the opportunity to do it because I very often play Americans and Scots in the The Irishman was so similar that my whole family , most of my family is Irish, to have the opportunity to incorporate that kind of Irish character into such a well-written script was just, I mean, I really had a great time filming it, I mean, even today. they come and go, they start, people often start crying as they tell me how much they cried during that beautifully written and beautifully directed movie by Richard, law abiding citizen, that's the first movie I produced, but I was always playing in the other room.

Playing the hero, the cop, but I kept saying I couldn't want to play this guy, but all my guys kept saying no, no, just stay with the hero, stay with the hero and we were trying to find someone to play to Clyde Shelton and we offered it to him. to Jamie Foxx and Jamie being as arrogant as they say no, don't buy deep klaich himself, but I will play the role of him. We were all on the call. Jamie wasn't in the car, but all the producers and I said, well, let's do it. We basically switched roles and I'm so glad that now I can't imagine that movie any other way, Counselor, you might want to cancel your 12:30 lunch with Judge Roberts, excuse me, in fact, you might want to cancel the rest of the movie. week because you're going to be busy, sit down.

I always felt like there came a certain point in the movie where the audience turned against the client when he started killing innocent people, but it was amazing how much Revenge there was in an audience that didn't say anything. He was so wronged and because you felt his humanity and because Jamie pushed him in the other direction, it was surprising how far my character could go and people still wanted to win and get their way, it's not how I imagined it, but I love that it was that way. It turned out, but it was an interesting psychological study about humanity as a whole.

The ugly truth. I was making a movie called Gamer every night, at dinner, we were all having dinner and I was saying maybe yes. One hundred and fifty thousand jokes I grew up in that culture and I still write them, so I tell jokes, jokes about you and then Tom and Gary would go over the truth and what's probably true and they kept telling ugly truths and winking and I. I'm thinking how ugly is the truth and I assumed it was some movie like Gamer and then he sent me the script. Are you kidding? I'm going to say this.

I had the role, but I'm like, can I audition for this role? I have an American accent, so I went in and did three of my biggest scenes with an American accent. I'm the UN, yes you're American. Suddenly I'm working with Katie Heigl. He was madly in love with Katie. I went and she just did our movie with Seth Rogen, which is one of my favorite movies of all time, but now we're on set together and I'm wondering: How is this happening? If you want it to work with this guy, then you'll listen to me. and you do exactly what I tell you, you have probably already caused irreparable damage with your psychoaggressive control phone call, it may even be too late and if you save the situation you will never be more than a desperate neighbor, it's a wonder.

Doing that thing of playing that guy is just fun. Olympus has fallen down and become intertwined and I had been working on a lot of different projects and I took it to him and said what's up with this, thinking he would say no, but he said, "You know how fun this is." Let's do this. I love developing scripts and he loves making movies and he filmed a ton of this, but even then I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out and it just turned out in terms of the best popcorn movie. you know, super fun, direct, inspiring, you know, the heroic London has fallen in love with every movie, we tried to find a different version, so London we made it more international, we could bring the Japanese to the Canadians, but again we found a way to do it. a city is unviable, not just an area, but it creates a situation in which in an entire city no one can move and a president has to be removed from there and he is like a hunted animal.

An angel is falling and then in this case we've gone into a situation in a completely different direction because you thought it can't really be a city or a white house so we turned to the Internet and himself and made it about the man who passed by All this. I feel like you know him just like I did. I got to know him more, I got to know him more in his challenges, his weaknesses and his vulnerabilities, but again, through all of that, his tenacity, his brutality and his need to be of service and get the job done.

I said this today. It's like he could be hit by a truck, but if there is one that is born intact, he will keep coming back, he will never stop. That works for me. I get a lot out of that in my life because I've been through a lot. In this movie I felt like I was in Mike's shoes, which funnily enough made acting ten times harder but 10 times easier in other ways because I was where he was. I think I'm not just getting to know him, I seem to be becoming him