Gerard Butler
Gerard Butler
Gerard James Butleris a Scottish actor who has appeared on film, stage, and television. After studying law, Butler turned to acting in the mid-1990s with small roles in productions such as Mrs Brown, the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies, and Tale of the Mummy. In 2000, he starred as Dracula in the horror film Dracula 2000 with Christopher Plummer and Jonny Lee Miller. The following year, he played Attila the Hun in the miniseries Attila...
NationalityScottish
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth13 November 1969
CityPaisley, Scotland
Up in the north of Scotland, a lot of the villages are completely Viking names. A lot of Vikings came down and settled in Scotland and in Ireland. And a lot of them didn't, but they took plenty of us with them - mostly the chicks.
When I was 12, I was in Oliver! at a theater in Glasgow.
The Phantom, as well as being backed up by that music, it just so was a role that I identified with so powerfully. From the first second that I walked on to perform.
I know I have within myself... a side of solitude. I think people who know me can see, but people who just meet me can't because I'm generally very fun and gregarious. I love to spend a lot of time on my own. I can seriously go into my own head and often love to let myself travel where I don't know where I'm going. I always felt that that was his kind of form of escape, in a way.
I don't know whether it's spiritual development or trying to learn the psychologically with being an actor, but I realise the more I get into it that this was something I was always supposed to do. That allowed me to sit easiser in the life I was living. But that doesn't mean to say you just stroll through it. It takes work and the work is not always about acting. It's sometimes about how you deal with the ups and downs of hope, of expectation.
Sometimes along the way in my life I don't want a smart woman right now, I want a dumb woman. But then you think, 'That doesn't work, now I want a smart woman.' Then you get a smart woman and you go, 'No, that doesn't work.' So it's just killing me right now.
Theres a great sense of achievement, testosterone, fun, being able to live out your masculinity when you play an action role or an action-adventure or a real tough-guy role.
I had to get used to wearing a mask and wearing a prosthetic and performing with those things while singing and expressing myself through stylized movement, while keeping it as human as possible so the audience could be closer to the horror of the Phantom.
I had to go and sing with the musical director of the film, Simon Lee, who is just incredible, and it went great. I sang with him about five things, things we'd worked on. And then I went to sing for Andrew Lloyd Weber.
On Phantom... I listened to the music while I was reading the script. And it had just blown me away. I really... I was so excited about it. It's been a long time since I really got so excited about something.
I was amazed and upset by the looks I got just walking around the studio... It illuminates the ugliness and the beauty that exists within each of us, and that's what this story represents to me.
I knew I'd just done one of the most amazing things that I will ever get a chance to do. Just to be part of a musical that's not your background and to pull it off and to think that we've done something that's really special.
I go to Scotland maybe three times a year, and I love it. When I'm at home, I feel at home, I feel myself, I feel connected.
I have literally run into 20 people all around the world with my face tattooed on them.