The Butler Did It

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The Butler did it
Posted By KEVIN WILLIAMSON, QMI AGENCY
Posted 2 hours ago


With the animated How to Train Your Dragon,has Gerard Butler finally found a co-star he won't be romantically linked to?

"I wouldn't be surprised if I was linked to Jay Baruchel or Craig Ferguson," he tells QMI Agency, chuckling with the laugh of a man who has his own TMZ theme song.

"But maybe they'll come up with a way to say I had an affair with the dragon. Or that I had sex with all of them."

InHow to Train Your Dragon,which opens in March, the Scottish-born Butler supplies the voice of Stoick, one of the elder warriors in a village of Vikings at war with neighbouring dragons. Baruchel voices the film's unlikely hero, a would-be dragon slayer who discovers maybe the creatures aren't so terrible after all.

In addition to talk-show host Ferguson (the older Vikings all have Scottish accents while the younger ones speak with modern American ones), the cast includes America Ferrera, Jonah Hill, Kristen Wiig and Christopher Mintz-Plasse.

For Butler,Dragonmarks the latest in a seemingly nonstop string of projects. In 2009, he starred inThe Ugly Truth, GamerandLaw-Abiding Citizen.In the months ahead, in addition toDragon,he will also be seen inThe Bounty Hunteropposite -- cue those inevitable rumours -- Jennifer Aniston.

"The last nine years since I moved to Los Angeles have been a slog," he says on the phone from Hollywood. "It's been fun and exhilarating, but it's also been a lot of work. I break repeated promises to myself to work less."

But the offer to voice a Viking warrior in an animated movie was just too appealing to pass up, he says.

"There is validation when you're asked to do an animated voice because it's your voice they want, not how you look. It doesn't happen everyday -- hostingSaturday Night Livewas another time."

What animated movies does Butler remember growing up with?

"The Jungle Book-- that's the one that sticks in my memory, so much so it's blocking all the rest out. When it came out -- because we didn't have as many movie theatres in Scotland as we should have -- I went to the movies three times before I could get in because it was sold out every time. Then when I did get in, I watched it four times. It was a big thing for me.