I don’t often write about straight reviews or behind the scenes promotional clips, but this one of Gerard Butler has two things. First it has Gerard Butler who seems such a cool, rounded bloke, and who I’m a bit biased towards for various reasons, but also because the interview reveals something very interesting that you don’t see in most of today’s stars. Passion.
The interview for Butler from the set of Gamer is very telling about who he is as an actor, and you can see it right here.
Gerard Butler plays the lead character in Gamer, a film from the Crank (Filmstalker review) terrible (in a good way) duo Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, and follows a soldier who is serving hard time in prison in a futuristic society that puts these prisoners into a massive, real world first person shooter and lets people from all round the world control them for fun. Oh, and it uses real ammunition and real deaths.
Kable, played by Butler, has something different about him though. He has something to live for, something to survive for, his wife and child, and he’s also innocent of the crime he’s imprisoned for.
So he decides to fight back and gains the trust of the player controlling him. Letting Kable go free allows him to win every match, and if he wins enough of them in a row, he becomes a free man. Yet no one has ever managed to do that, yet.
The film has heavy shades of a modern day Running Man and stars Michael C. Hall, Milo Ventimiglia, John Leguizamo, Keith David, Kyra Sedgwick, Zoe Bell, Alison Lohman, Amber Valletta and a few other recognisable faces.
The interview is a great marketing piece because Butler just seems so damned excited about the whole thing, and it’s clear he’s got a passion for making films. Nowadays you’ll sit there watching most stars talk about their film and they’re close to boredom, and it’s all very subdued, whereas here Butler is positively raving about the film, the directors, his character and even training to become Kable.
Of course he’s not doing the endless hours of press interviews, one after the other, each for fifteen minutes, in a hotel room for a day or two on end, here he’s on set and probably just come off a big scene, so it does make for a different atmosphere, but still, it’s exciting to hear a star talk like this.
It’s this passion and excitement for what he does that comes through his films and the moments outside of them that really captures the audience and gain him such a huge likeability.
It’s also this kind of interview that sells people on a film, it’s caught me already. Here’s the interview with Gerard Butler for Gamer.
[b Click on the site link to view video clip.[/b