Digging through the layers of the ever changing and unpredictable world of showbiz on the quest to stardom we find Scottish actor Gerard Butler on the forefront. Butler the star of Zack Snyder’s 300 as King Leonidas, didn’t start out as an actor. In fact he earned a law degree fro the Glasgow University and just one week before being qualified as a lawyer he was fired from the law firm he was working at. Shortly after that while sitting in a coffee shop in Lon don he was approached by Steven Berkoff who offered him a role in the play “Coriolanus” he left law behind and his acting career was born.
The charisma filled and talented Mr. Butler landed acting jobs along the way, but it wasn’t until Joel Schumacher cast him in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera as the Phantom that his career began to take flight. Though Butler’s fan base doubled after the Phantom, critics couldn’t’ seem to give the 35 year old actor any breaks.
Continuing this up hill climb Gerard Butler garnished the lead role of Beowulf in Sturla Gunnarrsson’s epic feature Beowulf and Grendel, filmed in the mountains oh Iceland. Jon Gustafsson, an Icelandic director, had a small role in the film as one of Beowulf’s warriors and he also was filming his award winning documentary Wrath of Gods about the story behind the filming of Beowulf and Grendel. While on the set he engaged Butler in a rare and candid unedited hour long interview about his role as bewoulf and acting in general. Butler later joined Gustafsson as co-producer of Wrath of Gods.
Butler’s next role pushed him ahead and gave him Hollywood status, King Leonidas in 300. The film 300 made Butler a house hold name, and his career escalated with one new film after the other the latest being P.S. I Love You with Hillary swank and Nims Isalnd with Jodi Foster. From lawyer to actor form independent to Hollywood, from unknown to stardom Gerard Butler is on his way to making it big and his seed of fame has gone through a lot of dirt to bloom.
