Gerard Butler's Just Desserts

http://www.gq.com/blogs/the-q/2010/01/gerard-butlers-just-desserts.html

Gerard Butler's Just Desserts
On January 06, 2010 at 2:46 PM
In late 2007, I interviewed actor Gerard Butler—who memorably defended Sparta in 300, and who is now defending himself from a tabloid attack against the size of his waist. ("From Spartan to softie," says the New York Daily News. "Gerard Butler packs on the holiday pounds and shows off his new beach body.")

While I am on the record as being a fan of Butler and his work, I must admit that I'm taking some joy in the revelation that he's been skipping the gym. Because back in 2007, for research purposes, we spent a morning together lifting weights. It did not end well.

Flashback to that day in 2007 after the jump...

On the morning I am to meet Gerard Butler, my cell phone buzzes. A text message from the actor arrives. Brutal, concise, it reads: Tim and I have decided that if you don't vomit we're gonna take you out the back and personally beat the shit out of you just so you'll feel something.

By way of explanation, Tim is Tim Connolly, Gerard Butler's personal trainer and stunt double (also previously a world champion in Tae Kwon Do). Butler is the star of 300--a surprise hit of Grecian formula that made $72 million dollars in three days thanks to a marketing campaign built entirely around an image of Butler's cobble-stone abs. When Butler invited me to train at Manhattan's Chelsea Piers for the day, it was impossible to refuse. Essentially, it was an invitation to watch the actor hone his craft. Best case scenario: This guy was Russell Crowe with table manners. Worst case: He'd be signing autographs at Comic-Con for the next 50 years. This! Is! Sparta!

Tim, the trainer, arrives at the gym first--all sawed-off biceps and bronzed skin--and he is hard to miss, what with that sleeveless 300 T-shirt he's wearing. I tell him about the text message Gerry sent me. Don't worry, he laughs: "Gerry got fat."

By fat, of course, he means Hollywood fat, which isn't fat at all. Butler, 38, shows up in track pants and one of those shirts that wicks. He lifts up the form-fitting nylon body armor and surveys his stomach. "The abs are coming back," he says, pleased with himself. He has been lifting again for a mere two weeks. I look down at my own stomach: paunchy, white, Jewish.

"Gerry has good genetics," Tim says, by way of apology.

We make small talk about the importance of stretching. Gerry stops mid-sentence, again and again, logging the appearance of every woman walking by (even the elderly). Lately, he says, it's nice to talk to pretty girls, but anything more than that tends to get complicated. The travel. The work. He denies reports he was dating supermodel Naomi Campbell, but allows there may have been something with a 5' 11" former Miss Iceland, now a very good friend. "I'm not saying I'm some angel," he says. "I've abused many privileges in the past. But it starts to feel a little cheap."

Tim asks if we've eaten. I thought you weren't supposed to eat before a work out, I say. Tim corrects me, ushering us towards the juice bar. "You should have a bit of carbohydrates," he says.

Butler turns to me, smiles, and offers up his own suggested breakfast of champions: "Or a bit of pussy!"

I laugh. While the next two hours pass, they do not pass quickly.

Butler mounts the incline bench at Chelsea Piers, with 45 pounds of metal in his meaty hands. Tim stands above him, an encouraging tutor. The training, for Gerry anyway, has been a bit easier since he quit smoking last year, a two-pack-a-day Marlboro Reds habit dating back to the Iran Contra affair. (It was the tag team efforts of the Chopra Center in California and hypnosis that weaned him off the smokes—succeeding where laser-light therapy, acupuncture, and electrolysis all failed.) "There's nothing more mindless than lifting weights," Gerry says, invoking a program called Power of Intention. This morning is not about one training session, he says. It's about visualizing your taut body on screen after many mindless sessions.

Butler is training for a new movie, GAME, a futuristic action thriller he'll shoot in New Mexico. I am training, I realize, for no reason.

In the end, Gerry wouldn't need to take me "out the back" and "beat the shit out of me." I did it myself.

After bicycle sprints and a super set of bicep curls, I am light headed and excuse myself to the bathroom to dry heave. (When you're lifting weights with the Spartan king, you tend to push yourself beyond reason.) When I return, perhaps to lift my spirits, Gerry tells me a story about 300. Some of the actors, he says, though they trained like Spartans for months—lifting tractor tires and performing other G.I. Joe maneuvers—they dipped into some Hollywood black magic to get that now-famous eight-pack physique. No, Butler is not talking about steroids. He's talking about spray-on abs.

"I had spray-on abs as well," Butler says, "but I could also stick my finger up to almost the second knuckle—that's how deep in my hands could go. You use make-up on your face. That doesn't mean you're an ugly fucker."

I return to the circuit, temporarily emboldened by the news. Until I look inside my spiral notepad. While I was in the bathroom, Gerry wrote a note. It reads: "Help. I am a pussy. Get me out of here."

— Mickey Rapkin

Then he should loooooooovve our donnakat, right????

Oh dear...

But I'm not a svelte kitty.... I'm more of a Garfield type....

Yeah, I know better. It's okay for Gerry to have Krispy Kreme abs, but his women have to look like they live on a diet of celery stalks.

Are you sure? He seems to be able to keep his real women out of the news.

DonnaKat wrote:

Yeah, I know better. It's okay for Gerry to have Krispy Kreme abs, but his women have to look like they live on a diet of celery stalks.

EX-actly!! Double standard!

was looking at another site earlier with some of those "gerry is god and can do no wrong" fans on it. they even think the pink shorts pictures were taken with a camera with some kind of wonky lens..which made him look puffier than he actually is.....trying to cause trouble. :shakes head:

Of course, people walk around with "funhouse" lenses taking pictures of celebrities.

You know though, these are the same kind of people who don't want the razzi's to take all these pics, yet they go looking for them, right click, right click.