Everyone laughed when I said I wanted to be an actor’
by Kenneth Speirs, Paisley Daily Express
HOLLYWOOD hunk Gerard Butler yesterday revealed how his fellow Buddies LAUGHED at him and thought he was ‘weird’ when he revealed his dream of becoming an actor.
Gerard, who grew up in the posh Ralston area of Paisley, has moulded a tough-guy image through appearances in movies like 300, in which he played a Spartan warrior.
But now he has revealed how kids who grew up beside him in Paisley weren’t exactly impressed with his acting inspirations.
Gerard said: “You were seen as weird if you wanted to be an actor but I didn’t mind. It was just what I wanted to do.
“Every day, I was out playing with the other kids. We were always running over the railway lines.”
Gerard opens his heart on the less-than-enthusiastic response from his childhood Paisley pals to his dream of making it big in Hollywood during an interview with Men’s Health magazine.
And the talented Buddie has the last laugh now as he is riding high in the film industry and has been linked with Hollywood hotties such as Jennifer Aniston and Jessica Simpson.
Earlier this month, the 40-year-old actor sparked outrage after claiming that growing up in Paisley was like living in a ‘war zone.’
Comments Gerard made about his home town in an interview for American style magazine Angeleno left Paisley’s civic leaders raging.
He claimed that, as a youngster, he regularly crossed through an ‘insane’ part of Paisley to buy shopping for his mum.
Gerard added: “It was like going into the land of the movie The Warriors. I’d go down there and play SAS, trying to get in and get out without being wounded or killed.
“There were so many people on that street that ended up in prison. It was truly an insane area.”
Now Gerard has once again taken a pop at his fellow Scots – this time, with tongue firmly in cheek.
Humour
He tells Men’s Health: “I love everything about the Scots – their warmth, their humour, their potential for violence.”
The star, whose new film Law Abiding Citizen opens in cinemas on Wednesday, November 25, has also told how he was happy to fail as a lawyer because it helped his acting dream come true.
Gerard added: “You have to understand that I was completely out of control. If I hadn’t been so lost and insane, I’d still be a lawyer. I was drinking constantly. I hated my life.
“I said to myself ‘I’m aiming for the stars. I’ll worry about the details later.’”
It was Irvine Welsh’s controversial heroin and crime movie Trainspotting that gave Gerard the nudge he needed to chase his acting dreams.
He explained that, a week after seeing the film, he packed his bags and moved to London to become an actor.
Gerard added: “I had no connections, no experience, no training and no prospects. Everyone was laughing at me.
“They were all thinking I’d messed up my whole career.”
l The latest edition of Men’s Health magazine will be on shop shelves from Monday
