What the Butler saw - Gerard Butler reveals all about his latest film with Jennifer Aniston, The Bounty Hunter, and his thoughts on settling down

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What the Butler saw

Gerard Butler reveals all about his latest film with Jennifer Aniston, The Bounty Hunter, and his thoughts on settling down

IT’S IN CINEMAS now and if you haven’t gotten wind of the off-screen romance rumours surrounding the two leads then get out from under your rock and take note. While both insist there is nothing going on speculation has been rife about the pair’s extra-curricular activities. Making very sure he doesn’t fuel the fire, here Gerard Butler talks to us about The Bounty Hunter, escaping the media glare and his plans for fatherhood.

Gerard, give us a brief outline of The Bounty Hunter.
I play a former cop who has lost his job because his life has fallen apart a little bit and he gets work as a bounty hunter. I’m given the task of arresting a journalist who is on the run from the law and it turns out this journalist is my ex wife played by Jennifer Aniston. There’s nothing that my character would rather do than bring her a** back to jail.

So we’re assuming that it was an acrimonious break up?
Yeah, we’re not on good terms and we haven’t seen each other since we broke up. There was a lot of animosity and we drove each other nuts, both our careers got in the way of us having any kind of nourishing relationship and as a result I’ve kind of fallen apart, although I would hate to admit that it was as a result of the relationship breaking up. So this opportunity – me going to arrest my ex-wife - couldn’t come at a better time. However, the problem is moneylenders are chasing me and corrupt cops are chasing her because she has uncovered certain information that is very sensitive. All this is happening as I try to get her back to LA and she tries to get me involved in the case she’s working on. So there’s a whole bunch of stuff going on and it’s a real fun road trip. To me, the quickest way to describe it would be Midnight Run meets War of the Roses

Jennifer’s very good with this genre, isn’t she?
She is definitely a pro. I relished the chance to do this kind of film with somebody like Jennifer. And yet, it’s also a role where I think people will be surprised by her performance. She’s great and yet she is very edgy and sassy and strong and she’s not quite the sweet Jennifer that people are used to. I haven’t seen her like this before. On set we always saw eye to eye and we were very much on the same wavelength. I had a great time doing scenes with her. It felt like we were making some magic.

And you guys did the Golden Globes together. How was that?
You know the Golden Globes is the less serious, more fun, more social of the awards ceremonies and if you can’t enjoy that you may as well give up. I had a great time and Jen looked incredible.

You seem to be mixing up your career in a good way, you do films like 300 and Law Abiding Citizen and then you do a comedy like The Bounty Hunter. Is that part of a grand plan?

I wouldn’t say that I’ve got a specific ‘grand plan’ with my career but generally it’s to always move in new and fresh directions wherever possible.

How do you do that?
Well, it’s harder to do right now at a time when the staple diet for moviegoers are these mega budget movies. There are so many less dramas, medium budget movies being made and that’s quite sad. I’ve had to fight even harder therefore to try and do something at a more interesting level. But my next film is Shakespeare with Ralph Fiennes. It’s Coriolanus and I play Tullus Aufidius and then I’m off to do a movie with Marc Forster, Machine Gun Preacher, a really interesting movie about a drug dealer who becomes a humanitarian and goes out to Africa but ends up building an orphanage and fighting against rebels in war torn Sudan.

The wonderful Jeff Garlin is in The Bounty Hunter. Did you know him from Curb Your Enthusiasm?
Yes and I love Jeff. He has become my new best friend. We only worked together for a couple of days but by the end of the first day he was like ‘OK, I’m writing a book and I’m going to mention Gerard Butler for no particular reason at the beginning of every chapter.

You have stated that you love travelling. Is it harder to travel now without being recognised wherever you go?

No, I can still do it although without a doubt it has changed a bit. Last year I took a long trip through India and when you are going through places like Jaipur, nobody cares who you are. I was in the country for about five weeks but in the three weeks I was away from the big cities, I don’t think I was recognised once and that definitely makes life a lot easier. But travel is still a big thing for me and I’m just going to start taking some flying lessons. I like to kind of jump into the odd adventure here and there, whether it’s camping or like recently when I went up in a jet fighter plane.

Do you see yourself with a family one day?
Yes, I do. I think I’d make a good dad. I hope I would. My brother is a good dad and I always thought he would be a terrible one. I remember him saying to me one day ‘it just hurts when I have to go to work because I know I won’t be seeing them. I leave in the morning and all I can think about doing is getting back home to see them.’

So you’re cool Uncle Gerard?
I hope so. I think I am.



Location, location, location
I have a place in London but I just don’t get back there as often as I would like because when I do get back to the UK I use the time to go back and see my family who live up in the Highlands. I’d say I live in LA now.

Chemistry lesson
What the tight-lipped Butler revealed about the obvious spark between himself and Jennifer
You might get a hint of it (chemistry) from when you meet them, you know, do you bounce off each other well? Does it feel right? But having said that, sometimes you can be wrong. Sometimes it can feel great but the chemistry isn’t fantastic. Although I have to say I normally have good chemistry with my female co-stars but I think that I had the best chemistry with her (Aniston). And that’s what everybody was always talking about, just how great fun we were together. You know for scene after scene, when we were in the middle of it, I thought ‘this is a dream, this is so much fun.’ It was never an effort, never a struggle; we just worked really well together.

Did you ever notice that as each movie comes out, the female lead in his movie is "the best he's ever worked with"? Remember he said that about Hilary Swank, Jodie Foster, Katherine Heigel, etc.? The next female lead will be Vanessa Redgrave. Not his lead, mind you, but a lead, just the same. Now that's theatre royalty, to quote my friend. I hope he learns from her, not only the respectability of excellent acting, but the decorum that goes with it on and off the film set. I could only hope.

Oooooooo Vanessa Redgrave! I hope she slaps the heck out of him if he acts like a rutting bull.