Gerard Butler plays a conflicted cop
Gerard Butler plays a conflicted cop in new cr HARDING joins him on set to talk about his ca would ever return to the romantic comedies t
IT IS so cold that Gerard Butler’s bicep is turning blue.
He isn’t complaining but the icy air is starting to affect his breathing.
It might be something to do with the short-sleeved T-shirt he’s wearing while everyone around him is bundled up in parkas, furry hats, scarves and gloves.
The gun fight he is in the middle of filming is meant to take place in sunny Los Angeles but instead he is freezing on the outskirts of Atlanta, Georgia, where it is hammering with rain and threatening to snow.
“I’m from Scotland so my Scottish blood is helping me,” he grimaces. It’s not clear who this is convincing.
“I got here early before the movie started filming and we had an ice storm and the city shut down and I was like ‘I am so f***ed, I’m going to be in a T-shirt every day’.”
We are on the set of his new crime thriller Den Of Thieves, in which the Paisley-born star plays a hard-as-nails, heavily tattooed career detective and general alpha dog, known as Big Nick.
Thermal underwear and woolly hats wouldn’t really fit with the tough guy persona and he’s pretty deep into character.
“I started dressing like him, I started walking around like him.
“I remember I was out at dinner one night with Christian (Gudegast, the director) and I thought I was eating sushi.
“Whenever I would do something he would be like, ‘The way you put your hand over that glass, that’s Big Nick. The way you’re eating is Big Nick.’
“And then he says, ‘That’s raw chicken that you’re eating.’
“I thought it was fish! But I was just voracious; Nick has that animal-like tendency, like a T-Rex, so while I’m talking and eating and I’m just thinking ‘fish’, it turns out I had eaten about a pound of raw chicken.”
This is a startling revelation but 48year-old Butler laughs and brushes it off.
“I actually wasn’t sick, I was surprised.”
It’s a good thing too. A severe dose of food poisoning might really mess up his mojo.
“It was tough to get in this head space. I was super nervous about this movie because it’s a very intense character for me to climb into.
“I don’t think you fully get rid of it until the end of the movie.
“Ambien [the medication used to help insomnia] helps me a lot. But you also do get used to it and you learn to sleep. You switch off, you read, you watch a movie.
I like to meditate.”
Butler may be best known for action films Olympus Has Fallen and London Has Fallen, as well as fantasy epic 300, but he says thriller Den Of Thieves is more realistic.
“If you compare it to 300, it’s a little more real. It really tries to climb into that vibe of cop life and gang life and criminal life.
“In Olympus and London we always delve a little more into the ridiculous and that is part of fun of it. “If you stand back and loo you go, ‘Seriously? Is this happening?’ “But if you go scene scene, you can buy th was going on.” The new flick i inspired by some Butler’s favourite and robbers film including Heat The Town. “The grittine and the world th in reminds me of movie. “And Gene Hackman in The F Connection, that’s Nick. “He’s just off. H goes too far, he can’t really help himself he gets the job don It’s another har man role for Butler, first made a name fo himself in romantic comedies such as PS Love You, Dear Frank and The Ugly Truth, bu Butler says he is looking variety. “The last movie I did w called A Family Man, it’s a a father whose kid gets leukaemia. The next movie I doing is a psychological thrill “This is not an action mov don’t think it’s only action. I a trying to really break it up an what I think are more interes roles and interesting scripts b have deliberately steered awa from romantic comedies for a “Who is to say I won’t go b there? They are fun but you k feel you lose your edge a bit. I keeping some edge.” So what are the chances h make another romcom? “It’s not unlikely, you nev