Meet the Spartan King of Fitness

Meet the Spartan King of Fitness


Red Orbit.com


Posted on: Thursday, 22 March 2007, 09:00 CDT



By STEVE PRATT


Gerard Butler trained even harder than a Trojan to become the fearsome King Leonidas in 300. He tells STEVE PRATT about the incredible fitness regime required and why he ended up dreaming of deep fried Mars barsSCOTTISH actor Gerard Butler never does things by halves as he proved again on the US hit movie 300, taken from Frank Miller's graphic novel about a handful of Spartan soldiers facing the massive Persian army.When he was cast in the title role of the film of The Phantom Of The Opera a few years back, without ever having had a singing lesson in his life, he threw himself into vocal training."I made it my job over a year to become the best singer I could, so I was singing everywhere I went. I was driving people crazy, " he says.So when cast as Spartan King Leonidas in 300, he embarked on an intense exercise regime that began with training at a ranch in Arizona. Then he got himself a trainer in LA as well as working with the movie's trainer, former world record- holding professional mountain climber Mark Twight."He was more about a general wiliness and cardio-fitness. I also wanted to sculpt my body so I was training with my other trainer and the stunt guys for another two hours a day, so I was doing six hours a day."Then, when I went to the movie boot camp in Montreal I also got a body builder, a crazy Venezuelan guy. I pumped weights all the time on set. I had to bring heavy weights wherever I went and they'd give me warning so I had time to pump up."This might seem excessive - not to mention knackering - to some people but Butler used it not just to shape his body but to get into the head of a king noted for his strength and fearlessness.It sounds like he would have made a splendid Spartan, who were the first professionally trained soldiers of their time."Only after 20 years of training were they allowed to be one of the Spartans, and a lot died on the way. That's why I went the extra yard, " he says.He wanted to be thought worthy of the role when surrounded by "very talented and incredibly fit people". As he explains: "I'm very paranoid and didn't want to be standing in front of them and they're going, 'you're a dick, you didn't train'."Butler really did suffer for his art, not least with a special diet planned by nutritionists employed to help get actors into six-pack shape. "I've never drunk so many protein shakes in my life. They made them with berries, so we had black seeds in our teeth all the time, it was a nightmare, " he says."It's not like we ate a lot, but regularly. Sometimes after twoand-a-half hours of training you were starving, especially me, being a Scotsman. I need my potatoes and my bread."They'd say, 'here's a handful of pistachios or walnuts and some chicken. I'm like, I don't want to do this any more, I want to go home and have a big cup of Scotch broth and a fried Mars bar."Feeling the benefit of the exercise and diet regime not only improved his physique and prepared him mentally for his regal role but also working in a big warehouse against green screen background, instead of proper sets. "I thought, 'I can sit here and say it's a nightmare, which it was, or turn it into a positive thing - that a film has never been done like this before and what a cool way to act, so enjoy the weirdness of it, " he says."Whatever the performance looks like, it was harder than it looks because I didn't always have the benefit of speaking to the people I was acting with. They weren't there. When I'm screaming to the other side of the warehouse where there's supposed to be an army of one million Persians, all I could see were seven French-Canadian make-up artists hiding behind a rock."Butler hasn't kept up the training since the end of filming, but looks fit enough, although he turned down a request from a female journalist to inspect his six-pack.Eight cans of Coke and two packets of Marlborough Lite are on the menu these days. He stopped smoking for five months during the making of 300, starting again a month before shooting finished. He wants to stop. "That's always my next thing. I really plan to do it this time, " he adds, although I last see him leaving the room, clutching a packet of cigarettes.Butler admits he pushed his fitness thing to the brink. "By the end, when I thought about going to the gym, it was the most unappealing thing. I thought I might actually prefer to have my balls squeezed by a nutcracker, " he says. 300 (15) opens in cinemas today and is reviewed on Page 10

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