USA Today article - Stars pull double duty at Toronto film fest

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http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/news/2011-09-06-toronto-film-festival-clooney-gosling_n.htm?loc=interstitialskip

Stars pull double duty at Toronto film fest

Quote :: Gerard Butler, the Scottish-born star of 300, has made the trek to Toronto twice before, for the 2004 romance Dear Frankie and the 2008 gangster romp RocknRolla. This year, he is a headliner in two powerhouse titles that both pack heat.

Butler, 41, takes the lead in Machine Gun Preacher (Sept. 23), directed by Marc Forster (Finding Neverland) and based on the true story of Sam Childers, an ex-con biker and former addict who finds God and heads to Sudan to rescue the country's abused child soldiers.

In Coriolanus (Dec. 2), a contemporary adaptation of Shakespeare's bloodiest tragedy, he is Tullus Aufidius, the military rival to the title's brilliant Roman general and reluctant politician played by Fiennes in his directing debut. It's already getting Oscar attention for Redgrave's riveting performance as Coriolanus' mother.

Keeping the films straight

After a recent string of disappointments, including 2009's Law Abiding Citizen and 2010's The Bounty Hunter, Butler is ready to get back in the game — and Toronto is a great proving ground.

"Last year, I took a couple of gambles so I could approach something interesting," he says. "Not that I had planned to do two back-to-back independent scripts. But they both excited me."

He realizes the subjects of each might be hard sells, considering their graphic re-enactments of bloodshed. "Machine Gun Preacher doesn't shy away from the horrors happening over there," he says. "You have to have some of that but not get bogged down in it."

Butler's first acting job was in a stage production of Coriolanus; he realizes it might not be the most popular of the Bard's works. But it might be the most movie-ready. "There are so many battles going on, more than any other Shakespeare play. It actually lends itself to cinema more than most of his dramas."

He might be confident about the quality of what he is representing, but he does get nervous about keeping track of which title he is chatting about. "I publicized two movies at once before. I started answering one of the woman's questions and she said, 'Wait. Which one do you mean?' Sure enough, I was talking about the wrong film."

So he IS at TIFF?

Gambles? scratch

They would be TUT and TBH??

I wouldn't call them gambles, more like tasteless grabs for money.

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