GERRY BUTLER burst into a Soho club like a bat out of hell. To add to that impression, he was wearing a long black leather jacket with red silk lining.
As it happens, the dashing actor plays the prince of darkness in Dracula 2000, which Miramax Films plan to release at the end of the year.
Gerry, 30, who grew up in Montreal and Glasgow, was picked by Bob Weinstein, who runs Miramax with his brother Harvey, to be the legendary ladykiller.
‘I was in eastern Europe playing Attila the Hun for TV and kept sending audition tapes to America,’ Gerry told me.
‘There were some bigger names being considered Prince of darkness: Dracula 2000 star Gerry Butler but, after a long wait, Dracula was mine.’ He shot the film with Christopher Plummer, Jonny Lee Miller and Justine Waddell on locations in Canada.
Now the Weinstein boys want him to join the Miramax ‘family’. Gerry first caught the eye as Billy Connolly’s brother in the film Mrs Brown.
Acting wasn’t his first choice of career. ‘I studied law and was president of Glasgow University’s law society, but I had the acting bug from the age of 10 or Interviews.
‘But you don’t come from Paisley and take up acting.’ A dream changed his mind: ‘I was in the movie Krulls and I knew I had to become an actor so I could marry the princess in that film.’
Copyright 2000 Associated Newspapers Ltd.