Gerard Butler: Snapshot

Gerard Butler: Five Fun Facts

1. When he first read the script for Phantom of the Opera, Gerard Butler cried. "I was wiping the tears off," he told reporters in 2003. "It really touched me in an incredible way."
2. For 300, Gerard Butler was completely clean-shaven for his tiny loincloth. "I only did that because I was told to! Manscaping and all of that is not my thing. I'm more of the Clint Eastwood kind of guy," he told PEOPLE.
3. Gerard Butler's best move on women is the pickup line, "Have you seen 300?"
4. When Gerard Butler was featured in PEOPLE's 2004 Sexiest Man Alive issue, he said of the honor: "When I'm 80 and sagging all over, I can tell my grandkids, 'Look, when I was a lad, PEOPLE magazine thought I was sexy!'"
5. Gerard Butler regrets wearing "really wide-flared pants" and "trousers that zip up the side" in his youth. "I've made some gross misjudgments," he told In Style of his fashion don'ts.

Gerard Butler: Biography

1990s

Gerard Ditches Law

After graduating from Glasgow University, Butler works as a lawyer at a Edinburgh firm, where he's fired for being late and coming to work hung-over. Of his firing, Butler tells USA Today, "It was the worst day of my life, yet it was the best thing that ever happened to me." With a new passion for acting, the Scot moves to London, where he lands the lead in the 1996 stage adaptation of Trainspotting, followed by small roles in Mrs. Brown and the James Bond flick Tomorrow Never Dies.

2000

December 22

Playing Dracula

Butler lands his first lead film role in Wes Craven Presents: Dracula 2000. Although the flick is a huge flop, director Joel Schumacher is impressed by Butler's leading turn as the Count–and will later cast him in the legendary film adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical, The Phantom of the Opera.

2003

July 25

Lara Croft's Leading Man

Butler costars with Angelina Jolie in the Tomb Raider sequel, The Cradle of Life. Although director Jan de Bont says, "You'll feel a sexual tension; there is a chemistry" between Jolie's Croft and Butler's Terry Sheridan (Croft's sidekick ex), the film fails to deliver at the box office, taking in only $21.8 million over opening weekend.

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Gerard Butler: Special Feature