Gerard Butler
Gerard Butler at the Berlin Film Festival 2011
Born	Gerard James Butler (1969-11-13) 13 November 1969 (age 42) Paisley, Scotland
Occupation	Actor/singer
Years active	1997–present

Gerard James Butler (born 13 November 1969) is a Scottish actor who has appeared on film, stage, and television. A trained lawyer, Butler turned to acting in the mid-1990s with small roles in productions such as the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), which he followed with steady work on television, most notably in the American miniseries Attila (2001). He garnered critical acclaim for his work as the lead in Joel Schumacher's 2004 film adaptation of the musical The Phantom of the Opera. In 2007, Butler gained recognition through his portrayal of King Leonidas in the film 300. Since then, he has appeared in projects including P.S. I Love You (2007), Nim's Island (2008), RocknRolla (2008), The Ugly Truth (2009), Gamer (2009), Law Abiding Citizen (2009), The Bounty Hunter (2010), and as a voice actor in How to Train Your Dragon (2010).

Early life[link]

Butler was born in Paisley, which is in Renfrewshire, Scotland,^[1] the youngest of three children of Margaret and Edward Butler, a bookmaker.^[2][3][4] Of Irish descent,^[5] he was brought up in a strict Roman Catholic family.^[6] Butler spent the first few years of his life in Montreal, Quebec,^[7] before the family returned to live in Scotland.^[8]

His mother Margret Butler returned from Quebec when her marriage broke down, when Gerard was aged 18 months.^[9] He attended High School in Paisley, achieved respectable grades - good enough to win a place at Glasgow University to study law - and rose to position of Head Boy at St Mirin's High School. He also attended Scottish Youth Theater whilst a teen. He did not see his father again until he was 16 years old, when Edward Butler called to meet him at a Glasgow restaurant. After this meeting, Butler cried for hours, and recalled of it later:

"That emotion showed me how much pain can sit in this body of yours; pain and sorrow that you don’t know you have until it is unleashed."^[9]

Butler came close to his father after this reunion, and accepted his offer to study law at Glasgow University. During his time as a student, he became the convener of the Law Society^[10] and sang in a rock band called Speed.^[11][12] He would ultimateley graduate with a 2-2 LLB degree in 1991.

Whilst a 22 year old student, his father was diagnosed with cancer, and died. This caused Butler's lifestyle to spiral out of control. He would say of this period in his life:

"I had gone from a 16-year-old who couldn’t wait to grasp life to a 22-year-old who didn’t care if he died in his sleep."^[13]

Upon graduation, he won a position as a trainee lawyer at an Edinburgh law firm. However, his lifestyle remained unrestrained and he frequently missed work due to his partying antics. One week before he qualified as a lawyer, he was fired.

Now, aged 25, and an unqualified lawyer, Butler moved to London to pursue his dream of becoming famous. He admitted,

"When I started out, I'm not sure I was actually in it for the right reasons. I wanted very much to be famous."^[9]

Unable to win any acting roles immediately, he was forced to accept blue collar jobs, which included being a waiter, a telemarketer and a demonstrator of how toys work at fairs. Whilst in London, he met an old friend from his teenage days in the Scottish Youth Theater, who was now a London casting agent, and was for a time her boyfriend and her assistant. She took him to an audition for Steven Berkoff's play of Coriolanus.^[10] The director said of Butler's audition:

"When he read, he had such vigour and enthusiasm – so much that it made the other actors seem limp – that I decided to cast him in the ensemble."^[13]

Now aged 27, Butler had his first professional acting job. Less than a year later, he won a part in a theater adaptation of Trainspotting, which he performed at the Edinburgh Festival. By age 30, Butler decided to move to Los Angeles to make it in the big league; where he won parts in Dracula 2000, Tomb Raider 2, Dear Frankie, and Phantom of the Opera. The director Vadim Jean said:

"I have never seen anybody work so hard to make their career happen."^[13]

Despite the early yearnings for fame, Butler would tell London's Daily Telegraph in a 2009 interview, when aged 39:

"I did expect to succeed and I did have faith that I would. In reality, though, it has turned out to be something very different to what I wanted. It’s the work and not the adulation that has proved to be the most fulfilling."^[13]

Career[link]

In London, Butler held a series of odd jobs until being cast by actor and director Steven Berkoff (who later appeared alongside him in Attila (2001)) in a stage production of Coriolanus. He was cast as Ewan McGregor's character Renton in the stage adaptation of Trainspotting, the same play that had inspired him to become an actor. His film debut was as Billy Connolly's character's younger brother in Mrs. Brown (1997).

His film career continued with small roles, first in the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) and then Russell Mulcahy's Tale of the Mummy (1998). In 2000, Butler was cast in two breakthrough roles, the first being Attila the Hun in USA film Attila (2001/I) (TV). The film's producers wanted a known actor to play the part but kept coming back to Butler's screen tests and decided he was their man. He was cast as Dracula in Dracula 2000 (2000).

He then appeared in Reign of Fire (2002) as Creedy and Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life (2003) as Terry Sheridan, alongside Angelina Jolie. In the role of Andre Marek in the big-screen adaptation of Michael Crichton's novel Timeline (2003), Butler played an archaeologist who was sent back in time with a team of students to rescue a colleague.

In 2003, director Joel Schumacher was deciding on the principal casting for the film The Phantom of the Opera, a film adaptation of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical of the same name, and thought of Butler, whom he had seen earlier in the film Dracula 2000, to play the title character. Butler, who had had no musical experience other than singing in a rock band while he was studying to be a lawyer, was surprised at the interest, but immediately began taking singing lessons with a vocal coach.^[14] He then did an acting audition with Schumacher, and a singing audition with Lloyd Webber, both of whom were impressed by his performance.^[15] Despite the film receiving mixed reviews, Butler was praised for his performance.

Other projects that followed include Dear Frankie (2005), The Game of Their Lives (2005) and Beowulf & Grendel (2005).

In 2007, he starred as Spartan King Leonidas in the Warner Bros. production 300, which is often described as his breakthrough role.^[16] Butler, who said he "wanted to look really strong" in the film, trained with a high-intensity workout for four months prior to the film's shooting.^[17]

Gerard Butler on the set of the film, The Bounty Hunter, 2010

In 2007, he also appeared in Butterfly on a Wheel co-starring Pierce Brosnan and Maria Bello, which aired on network TV under the title Shattered, and in the romantic comedy P.S. I Love You with Hilary Swank. In 2008, he appeared in Nim's Island and RocknRolla. In 2009, he starred in the Mark Neveldine/Brian Taylor film Gamer, The Ugly Truth and Law Abiding Citizen, which he also co-produced. In 2010 he starred in the action/comedy The Bounty Hunter with Jennifer Aniston, and did a voice-over in the 2010 animated film How to Train Your Dragon as Stoick the Vast.

On 15 and 16 October 2010, thanks to the popularity of his role as Spartan King Leonidas and the use of his lines during athletic events at Michigan State University, he was a guest at their Midnight Madness and homecoming football game, respectively.

On 18 December 2011, while filming Of Men and Mavericks, Butler was hospitalised after he was pulled under big waves. A safety patrolman spotted Butler and quickly rushed to his aid. He was taken to Stanford University Medical Center where he was observed and then later released.^[18]

Personal life[link]

Butler has been open in interviews about struggling with alcoholism. In February 2012, Butler's publicist announced that Butler had completed a course of treatment for substance abuse of pain killers, at a rehab-centre.^[19] This was after Butler was concerned he was too reliant on prescribed pain relief medication which escalated when he was involved in a surfing incident before Christmas 2011.^[19][20][21]

A fan of the Glasgow football club Celtic F.C. and played a charity match with them in 2011, Butler regularly attended Celtic Park as a supporter, but has found that moving to Hollywood can be a problem when trying to keep up with the results due to the time difference between Los Angeles and Glasgow.^[22]

Despite his sometimes turbulent personal life and the often violent characters he plays, Butler is well known to be a kind and very nice person in real life. He is known to be very friendly with fans and co-workers, and socializes with everyone on set.

Filmography[link]

Butler at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival