Interview: Gerard Butler On 300

By Kellvin Chavez on March 5, 2007

Scottish actor and singer Gerard Butler will soon be seen in the upcoming Warner Bros. feature 300, an adaptation of the Frank Miller graphic novel (also called 300) based on the heroism of 300 elite Spartan warriors at the ancient battle of Thermopylae in Greece where he portrays the Spartan King Leonidas.

I had the chance to sit down with Butler and talk about his character and his preperation for the role. 

Here is what he had to say:

So how do you approach a character that in the book he is between history and he is between men?  How do you prepare for a character that exists between those worlds?

Butler: Right, I mean I think I am between history and men myself.  I forget irony doesn't work in print does it?  That is a good question. There is always an element of balancing that has to go on.  It is really trying to strike a balance between many things without getting too caught up in the different technical elements.  I had never come across a character quite as powerful and intense and charismatic as this guy.  I am this bad ass, he is a fucker and yet you know that you have to rise to that element.  It goes past even epic and becomes comic book but at the same time to only do that and never give him a heart and soul then the whole thing means nothing.  So it involves choosing your moments, it involves for me I really focused a lot on becoming as big and as strong and as confident in those things as I could possibly be.  Even doing a lot of working out just before the takes and constantly doing that every time I trained it made me feel more like a Spartan, more like a king, more like I was impressing my men.  More like they would be willing to follow me.  Also that fire is burning inside of you and then you can completely go the opposite way and play it as a guy.  I literally walked around Montreal with my shoulders back and my chest up.  I always had that feeling of real inner confidence and yet then you can have fun with the other things. It is difficult to suck all that in and let out, he had a lot of things going on.  There is arrogance there, a confidence, a humor, there is dryness, compassion.  There is a certain amount of humanity and then the guy is a nut job.  He is crazy and there is a fearlessness that borders on insane and to try and get all those in with a man who really doesn't talk that much was a challenge.  And then to do it all in front of green screen.  There is a way of doing it and a way talking about it and as you can see I am really not good at talking about it.  I just do it.

So those were really your abs then, in the film?


Butler: Yeah. I tried to borrow someone else's but they wouldn't give them up.  That was 7 months of gym, there was always a part of me going 'Ok, am I going to stop doing this?' but I was really happy and surprised but I kept it up.  I kind of became a bit addicted to it or perhaps addicted to the advantages that it was giving me.  After a certain point I never once felt silly or strange standing in my cape.  That started to become, a couple of days after putting it on one of my biggest allies was wearing that costume and feeling so strong saying that your body was also an intimidating factor.  And inspiring factor for your army as they all were, being surrounded by probably a few tons of muscle so when you pull all that together and all that spirit together and have nothing but focus and belief and pure intention then the power of that you become a thousand times stronger.  It actually makes sense that you could hold off an invading army that don't have that belief, that are in disarray, that you could hold them off quite easily.

In terms of creating a character is it harder if you are behind a mask as you were in 'Phantom of the Opera'?

Butler: I have had to play characters where there was a difficulty of expression so maybe that is what I like to do though.  For me what I learned, I started acting in theatre.  My biggest thing when I started acting is that people were always saying 'Great, but bring it down.' The more I brought it down and the more I started to trust what I could genuinely feel inside and what I could say with the less that I did, the more that I could say then suddenly roles like Phantom became a beautiful thing to do. To try and say so many things while one singing and two wearing a mask means that you have very little way.  It's really in the eyes and it is the same with Leonidas in some ways because he can't be expressed in a modern way.  Throwing his hands around, winking, you lose all of that so to me if there was one moment in this film, if you were to see him suddenly be weak then the audience would lose faith in that.  So no matter what else you were trying to express it always is going to have to come from a foundation of absolute power and strength and solidity.

During what part of production did you realize that this movie was going to be this cool?


Butler:  When I saw it?  No, I almost want to say that I had a psychic feeling about it before I even knew what it was about.  When Greg Silverman at Warner Brothers said 'Have you heard about this movie '300'?' I don't know what it is but just the title '300' was so simple and strong.  Like a strong guy with a shaved head its' like this is it, here I am, I am not hiding behind anything.  That was the one advantage to the Phantom by the way, you could also hide behind that mask.  I kind of knew that there was something really cool about this and then of course he explained the story.  I was like wow, as you know it's my kind of story but also it felt like a story with a twist the way our heroes perform.  Their morality, their methods between each other and against the enemy and also then I took a look at the graphic novel and saw the 3 minute piece that they did.  I thought 'Oh my God, this is insane.' If this could be even 1/10th of what I saw in that test with the story that already exists here then we are on to something really cool.  They had a hard time green lighting it and sometimes that is a good thing because you know that what you are not making is something mainstream you are making a vision.  That vision often really has to be impressed upon people and they have to be turned in and clicked in to what that vision is.  That is another great thing about the film, I feel like Warner Brothers just kind of said 'Alright listen, Zack you obviously get this is a lot of stuff and we don't really get what you are trying to do but we trust that we have something here so just go off and do it.' and in that respect it often felt like an independent film.  We were just doing our own thing.  I was amazed at some of the changes, big changes, that we would come up with just as conversation on set where I would like to go and it was like 'Why don't we cut all that? Or why don't I just not say that it's probably going to be more powerful.' And I just went to the studio and that is what happened.

How much training did you have?

Butler: I trained for about 7 months pretty solidly.  I was doing like 6 hours a day, I took the film trainer but I also kept my own trainer.  It was a political decision, they didn't really want me having my own trainer but I knew I had to increase bulk as well, just for me.  So I did that and I also trained with the stunt guys 2 hours a day here in the valley, it was like 120 degrees outside it was so hot.  Then I did the same in Montreal.  I took my own trainer outside the film and this crazy Venezuelan body builder who had views on everything but it was great.  He just caved my little body and he was so passionate about my training and I also trained with my stunt, I mean it is boring I could go on.  I pumped all the shots as well just to feel that intensity so I did a lot.

How much of your film was you and how much was your stunt double?  Especially in that long sequence where you take out about 20 guys?

Butler: That is all me.  All me, he didn't film any of that.

And wasn't it one shot?

Butler: One shot.  Yeah and we took a whole day filming that.  No maybe there was a break half way through it but we would do it the whole way through.  Literally that is me, and my stunt guy did 'Matrix' and 'Bourne Identity' and I really clung on to this guy because they said that nobody in any of those films had to do a piece this long uncut with this many moves.  That took a lot of training and I almost didn't do it at the last second and Zack took half a day to set up this special rig.  He said 'I think we are going to have your stunt man do it.' and I died. I knew I was ready and he hadn't seen me do it but then he said we were going to rehearse it a little bit.  Then I ended up doing it and it was just such a blast.  Then there was a problem with the rig that it came out of focus.  There was some problem with the mirror and it was a new rig that had never been used before, 3 cameras.  So we ended up having to shoot the whole fucking thing again.  That was depressing but it actually came out even better.

How carefully was it choreographed?


Butler: Oh very carefully. I must have done that about 500 times training.  Still mistakes would happen every time and to be honest that is actually what makes it what it is.  At a point you go if this was too perfect then it takes away something from it. The first day I did it there was something amazing about that, it was full of mistakes but it was raw and heightened and the mistakes actually made it look even better.  Things that went wrong you went 'Oh but how cool does that look that I hit him in the balls instead of the stomach?!'  Honestly I hate to say it but when you pick up an injury that is the stuff that looks really good.

And it is all a long stretch of blue screen?

Butler: The whole studio was wrapped in blue screens.  So the blue screen doesn't become that much of an issue.  It is not like you are constantly waiting for stuff to be moved and lasers to be pointed, you are just filming on blue screen so you just film away like you would.

You spoke earlier about how your costume helped you get into character.  Did it provide any difficulties such as wielding that shield or just mobility issues?

Butler: A lot of chaffing in the groin area.  The weird thing is, I don't want to sound like a pussy because I trained really hard, but the cape.  If you were to say 'Hold up that tape recorder.' then that is fine but if you were to say 'Hold that up for 16 hours.' It gets pretty hard and the cape is actually very heavy.  When you first put it on you don't think about it but you naturally have to tense your shoulders to wear it and by the end of the day you are just trying to lift it off to just try and get some relief from your neck.  I had not seen my neck for months down my left side because this is where the heavy part was.  Doing the fight sequences the cape would twirl and you have 50 guys running towards and you are you going to stop and it's like this [sounds] and you know that it is 45 minutes to set up the shot again if that doesn't happen.  Yet there is a guy coming at you with a spear and if you don't do that and he fucks up then you have a spear in your belly.  A lot of the times the sword would stick on the cape because this cape will just fly all over the place.  We fought twice the speed in this film.  Normally in a film you do your kind of bang, defense, bang, defense, but this was bang, bang, bang, bang, it was 1, 2, 3 different guys.  It was kind of crazy.

What are you working on now?

Butler: Nothing at the moment.  There are a few things we are talking about but nothing I know.

Source:Latino Review

• 

  Comments

• No comments yet!

Submit Your Comments

Title

Comment

Your Name

Your Email