Even though he had already worked in the film business for several years, Gerard Butler became a global star with the historical fantasy film 300. The following year he proved that with PS I love you In addition to hard action roles, he also has the makings of a heartbreaker has. However, the beginning of his acting career did not take place in front of the camera, but on stage.
Before his acting career, Gerard Butler wanted to be a lawyer
During the promotional tour for The Naked Truth in 2009, Gerard Butler gave many interviews. One of them was for the UK site The Telegraph. The article also highlighted Butler’s past, dating back to his childhood. The Scot initially grew up with his mother and studied law after graduating from school in Glasgow. After his father died of cancer, his debauchery caused him to lose his job as an aspiring lawyer.
He then went to London, where he met an old friend named Sue Jones. She was a casting director at a theater. Butler helped her and director Steven Berkoff by reading the applicants’ other roles during the castings. Berkoff was enthusiastic:
As he read, he had so much energy and enthusiasm – so much that the other actors seemed slack – that I decided to add him to the cast.
This laid the foundation for Butler’s acting career. Butler was 27 years old at the time and then got more roles, first at the theater and finally he went to Los Angeles and was cast as the lead in Attila the Hun and Wes Craven Presents Dracula.
Gerard Butler had to learn that his ideas differed from reality
Despite an ever-expanding career, it took Butler another 6 years to hit the big time with 300, in which he also immortalized his most iconic one-liner. Until then, Butler felt that his career was developing very slowly, but after that, the speed of it increased automatically. What he didn’t expect was how different his life was from what he had imagined:
When I started, I wasn’t sure if I was doing it for the right reasons. I really wanted to be famous. I expected to succeed and believed in it. In reality, however, it turned out to be something completely different than what I wanted. It was the work, not the admiration, that fulfilled me most.
The fact that his work fulfills him so much is certainly a blessing for the actor. At the same time, the success and admiration shouldn’t hurt either. Since 2009, Butler has starred in numerous romantic comedies and action films and it doesn’t look like he’s getting tired of it.