Gerard Butler, King Leonidas Interview - page 2

21-03-2007 11:44

QUESTION: Was this the most physically challenging role you have played?

GERARD BUTLER: Yeah, it was the most physically challenging. I actually found The Phantom very physically exhausting as well, but I think the emotionality of the Phantom made me so physically exhausted and a lot of the time constraints, the hours I had to work, with the makeup. Beowulf, filming in Iceland, out 16-17 hours a day in terrible conditions, that was tough. This was challenging, insomuch as it was intense and I have never trained so hard for a role. Any time I wasn’t working, I was at the gym with the trainer. I would also train with my stunt double at the gym. And then, I’d pump in between shots. And I’d be screaming a bit; I could feel my shoulders snapping. And I didn’t think this is going to hurt you in the long term, until afterwards, when everything just seized up. But to be honest, all of that, I wouldn’t take any of it back. It was all perfect for putting me not just physically in that shape, and that’s why I say, it was when I could therefore use the cape, and feel the king, because I knew also the other work that I’d done as a mental preparation.

QUESTION: Can you tell us about your next film, P.S. I Love You?

GERARD BUTLER: I’m playing opposite Hilary Swank, a kind of Irish boy who meets this wonderful American girl. We fall madly in love, and then tragic things happen. But it’s actually hilarious, and kind of sad, and beautiful. It has a real spiritual feel about it, that film. I’m really excited about that one. Richard LaGravenese is a god.

QUESTION: Did you shoot in Dublin?

GERARD BUTLER: We shot in Dublin, just outside Dublin. And Wicklow, and then, in New York.