This is a great interview, and you’ve got to hand it to Esquire magazine for doing it the way they did it.  They sent a reporter who did not know Gerard Butler at all.  Had no clue who this guy was, and in fact only gave him the address and a first name.  On top of that, the guy isn’t into movies much.

Gerry talks about the effect dreaming about acting had on him:

“The problem with my mind is it sways from side to side. The idea of me fantasizing about becoming an actor quickly led to depression. No, it was never going to happen to me. I was a sixteen-year-old kid on the other side of the world from where they made movies. Scottish actors never really got play. There was Sean Connery, and that was it.”

Before finishing University he took time off and came to America:

“I took some time off and went to America. This is when things started to go a little crazy. Something very compulsive and dark and lusty and pleasurable but damaging took over. It was suddenly knowing I could go out and have a life of traveling, craziness, adventure, partying, women, and all the other things that go with that — including a sense of abandonment. Being away from home and not having the same kind of discipline and structure in front of me meant I could do whatever the f*ck I wanted, and I did.”

That fun didn’t come without some cost:

More after the break

“For a while, I was living in an apartment in Venice Beach with three Irish guys who drank every day. It was perfect. We just got smashed. I started getting odd jobs. My buddies turned up one day and said they’d gotten a job working in a carnival that was going around the state fairs in California. In this year out of school, I did many things. I drove from L. A. to Miami, from L. A. to Chicago, from Miami to Chicago. And I kept getting arrested for stupid stuff — basically just being too drunk. I was out of control, and justifying it with this idea that I’m young, this is life. This is me just being boisterous. I remember getting arrested once and they actually put me in shackles. I was walking around chained to eight other guys. And technically, I was still president of the Law Society in Glasgow.

“I ended up in L. A. County Jail. I was in a cell with my 501s and my tight leather jacket and my long hair thinking I was Jim Morrison. I can’t believe I’m talking about this. I’d better not.”

He went back home to finish up University which involved working in a law firm and describes applying for the job:

“I was really out of it when I did the interview. I had done an exam the day before, and we were all a bit of a mess that night. I had to get up the next morning and travel to Edinburgh. I missed the interview, but the firm said, ‘No, no, we’ll wait for you.’ So I get on a train and — how should I put this? — I used a few aids to get up, and by the time I arrived, you couldn’t shut me up. I ended up having a great interview and getting the job. But when I put on a suit and a tie, I became desperately unhappy. There was something else at work, something I didn’t have control of. If I hadn’t fucked up that job, I wouldn’t be sitting here right now. I might be a very mediocre lawyer in some small town in the middle of Scotland”

His life did change and movies became that change when he was fired from a law firm:

“I became quite infamous in Scottish legal circles. It’s very difficult to be fired as a trainee lawyer — they just don’t qualify you at the end of two years. But they actually fired me one week before I was due to qualify. I should have seen it coming. The Edinburgh Festival was going. I knew I wasn’t going to make it through the festival because it’s crazy — comedy festivals, music festivals, dancing festivals, and more than anything, drinking festivals. The city is aglow. I went to see a production of Trainspotting. The lead character acts in the scene, steps back and narrates, and then jumps back into the scene. The guy playing the lead role was phenomenal. It was such an incredible atmosphere. And I’m dying inside. This is the life I wanted to live. I can do this. I know I can do this.But it’s past now. It’s gone. I’m twenty-five. I missed that opportunity. A week later, they fire me.”

Gerry talks about the rumours of his love life and how maybe ‘one’ of the rumours is true (but of course doesn’t divulge ‘which’ one is true):

“You know what’s funny? In the last year, there have probably been rumors of ten different women I’m supposed to be involved with. I think maybe one is true. You can walk around with a hundred of your buddies and it’s cool, but the second there’s a woman involved…”

He talks about the rumours that started swirling about him and Jennifer Aniston at TIFF:

“But the new one is Jennifer Aniston. I start filming with her in two weeks. I think it’s because she’s single and I’m single. The sum total of our conversation was about four minutes at the Toronto Film Festival. The next day, the story is: Gerry Butler and Jennifer Aniston get cozy at the Toronto Film Festival. Cozy? We were standing up and surrounded by forty people.”

For the complete interview (Gerry drops the ‘F’ bomb quite a bit) go here

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