GERARD BUTLER WEEPS OVER FILM ROLE

http://www.express.co.uk/features/view/274744



GERARD BUTLER WEEPS OVER FILM ROLE


Gerard Butler wept as he described his experience filming scenes
Saturday October 1,2011

BURLY actor Gerard Butler broke down in tears at a London screening of his new film Machine Gun Preacher, revealing that his time working on the bloody Sudan civil war film has left him with post-traumatic stress disorder.


The Hollywood star, 41, shocked the audience watching a screening of the film at London’s Mayfair hotel by crying afterwards and explaining that the biopic, based on the real life of Sam Childers, a former drug addict and thug who became a born-again Christian and built an orphanage in Sudan, was so tough he went into a “dark space” after completing it.

Glaswegian Butler, who is rumoured to have dated Jennifer Aniston and Cameron Diaz, wept as he described his experience filming scenes depicting villages being torched and children blown up. He said: “It makes me cry every time I watch it. I was in such a strange space after this. I get nervous about being overcome by emotion, which happens when I start talking about the movie. It’s happened a couple of times and I think it is post-traumatic stress because I’d be talking about it and suddenly I would start crying.

“As time went on I went into a darker and darker space. When we were in Africa I was spending time filming scenes holding an [actor] child blown in half.” He also revealed he had met several real refugees during his time there.


It makes me cry every time I watch it. I was in such a strange space after this.
Gerard Butler


“I can joke and go home at night but I did feel towards the end of the movie just getting heavier and heavier. I don’t know what that is but I have a lot of pain and grief and sadness in my life so it’s a mixture of this touching me and seeing those kids and what they went through and some pain inside me and mixing them both together it just comes and grabs me by the b***