Gerard Butler

Gerard James Butler (born 13 November 1969) is a Scottish actor and film producer. After studying law, he turned to acting in the mid-1990s with small roles in productions such as Mrs Brown (1997), the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), and Tale of the Mummy (1998). In 2000, he starred as Count Dracula in the gothic horror film Dracula 2000. He played Attila the Hun in the miniseries Attila (2001), then appeared in the films Reign of Fire (2002) and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider – The Cradle of Life (2003) before starring in the science fiction film Timeline (2003). He played Erik, The Phantom in Joel Schumacher's 2004 musical The Phantom of the Opera.

Butler gained wider recognition for his portrayal of King Leonidas in Zack Snyder's fantasy war film 300 (2006). In 2010, he began lending his voice to the How to Train Your Dragon franchise. Also in the 2010s, he portrayed a Secret Service agent in the action thriller Has Fallen film series, played military leader Tullus Aufidius in the 2011 film Coriolanus, and Sam Childers in the 2011 action biopic Machine Gun Preacher. Butler had further action film roles in Geostorm (2017), Den of Thieves (2018), Greenland (2020), and Plane (2023).

Early life

Gerard James Butler was born in Paisley, Scotland, on 13 November 1969, the youngest of three children of Margaret and Edward Butler, a bookmaker. His family, which is Catholic, is of Irish descent. His family moved to Montreal, Quebec, Canada, when he was six months old. A year later, when his parents' marriage broke down, his mother left Montreal and returned to Scotland with Butler.