What got me excited was the scope on this canvas, just making the whole thing bigger and more fun, now we are in London and it's an attack on a whole bunch of the world leaders. It just happens on a massive scale, it is not just the White House anymore.

Gerard Butler

Categorized in : Entertainment

I felt that let's understand that all these people are just human, even the advisors in the White House, they're just real people trying to make real decisions and they make mistakes like anybody else does under pressure. If you can get that with these great performances then you claim it on that level as well.

Gerard Butler

real white mistake

To me, all those jobs I did [roles] have been amazing experiences for one reason or another. I got paid and I learned something. I think that's what helped me carry on because I've never really given out that energy of, "oh, I've lost my chance" or missed it in some way.

Gerard Butler

energy jobs thinking

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.

Gerard Butler

film musical directors

One thing I've learned as an actor as well as a producer is to trust my own instinct. When I first started acting I would sometimes have ideas about certain things, whether it's a scene, or a character or certain dialogue, that wouldn't be followed. I was never in a position to have the power to press the matter. Sometimes it wasn't even about my character. But I'd watch the movie afterwards and think I was right.

Gerard Butler

character ideas thinking

I mean, I made The Phantom, although The Phantom was, believe it or not, an independent film. It was just a very large, expensive independent film.

Gerard Butler

independent mean believe

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.

Gerard Butler

upset stories looks

At first it was a bit strange and daunting to have to wear a mask, but afterwards I came to enjoy it. In warm conditions, though, it started to slip off my face. Other times they used this double-sided sticky tape, and I literally couldn't get it off my face. I would feel like I was ripping my face off and I had a lot of cuts and bruises because of it-huge red marks. People might think it was method acting.

Gerard Butler

cutting people thinking

My manager and my agents, they go over my contracts.

Gerard Butler

managers agents contracts

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.

Gerard Butler

scripts reading long

I was born in Glasgow. But my family is pretty much from a little town called Paisley, famous for its cotton mills and paisley pattern.

Gerard Butler

cotton patterns littles

Funnily enough, when I originally went in for my screen test, that set was already built.

Gerard Butler

built tests enough

If you just tell the story of what the storys about, then it sparks curiosity, but I think it also arouses suspicion, as you say, that it could be overly sentimental. But it so isnt. And I think it was all about doing the inner work and then underplaying everything.

Gerard Butler

curiosity stories thinking

When I went to Scotland to do another movie, I would sing with a coach up there and then when I went to New York I sang with a coach over there-I mean I've now sung with coaches in LA, New York, London, Glasgow, St Louis and Rio de Janeiro!

Gerard Butler

scotland new-york mean

Generally I don't like doing remakes, but I think that's more in the cynical world of Hollywood where normally remakes are purely for commercial reasons.

Gerard Butler

cynical hollywood thinking

Wilbur brought the vision and Rodney executed it.

Gerard Butler

vision

Of course when you spend four hours in prosthetic makeup and you really are looking at yourself and you see how revolting you've become in a way, it obviously adds another strand and helps you... a little bit more.

Gerard Butler

makeup four add

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.

Gerard Butler

phantoms roles firsts

When I was 12, I was in Oliver! at a theater in Glasgow.

Gerard Butler

glasgow theater

My Range Rover is great for LA. You can take surfboards on it and stick some bikes in the back. And if you kidnap people you could tie them up in the back, there's space for your chloroform.

Gerard Butler

space ties people

In Scotland I'm just like a lot of other guys, but in America I'm seen as a very strong, masculine guy.

Gerard Butler

scotland strong america