12/31/2023 0 Comments Gerard butler 300 keep calm my ass"I haven't had a drink in more than 12 years," he continues. Misery is a sign that something is wrong, that your life is in need of some big changes. If I hadn't been so lost and insane, I'd still be a lawyer. "You have to understand that I was completely out of control. If there's a lesson to be drawn from Butler's great gamble, it's not that enormous risks should be taken impetuously, but that they must be taken when appropriate-that is, when you're motivated to do the work required for the risk to pay off.ĭigging a bit deeper into Butler's decision reveals another important force at work: the misery. And if you're successful, people compliment you on your talent. You can work very hard to become better at something, to learn all the ins and outs, to acquire all the necessary skills. Over time, contends Butler, talent and hard work become indistinguishable. In other words, the universe conspires only when you really mean it. "There are a lot of people I think are really talented, and I can see that they're not going to make it because they don't work hard enough." And although Butler clearly does, he believes talent alone is rather meaningless. After a year of studying, he landed a role in the exact same production of Trainspotting he'd seen the summer before. "Once you make a decision to do something, the universe starts to help you." He's paraphrasing a famous idea attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson.Īnd in Butler's case, it worked. "What happens is that the universe conspires," he says. What drives a man to take such an enormous risk? How do you know it's a good idea? And how do you pull it off?īutler stops and puts his hands in his pockets. Everybody was thinking I'd just messed up my whole career." Having starred in such megaprojects as 300, The Phantom of the Opera, and Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life, his acting career is the envy of all but a handful of megastars.īut imagine his situation in 1995. The old adage "nothing ventured, nothing gained" is always spoken retrospectively, after some great gamble has paid off. I had no connections, no experience, no training, and no prospects." He laughs. "A week later, I packed my bags and moved to London to become an actor. Then one night, in 1995, Butler saw a stage production of Trainspotting at the Edinburgh International Festival and suddenly felt alive. I hated my life." He stares down at his feet as his loud, deep Scottish brogue echoes off the nearby buildings. He was one of a lucky few to escape the working-class Scottish city of Glasgow and make something of himself. After college, he landed a job at a prestigious law firm. He was president of the University of Glasgow Law Society. But at the same time, what the hell was I thinking?" His voice trails off.īutler was a very smart kid. "I know it was exactly what I needed to do. Butler looks momentarily like a character from one of his epic movies-heroic and tragic, statuesque and pensive-as raindrops envelop him. He's staring at the building in which he used to work as a lawyer, a lifetime ago, before acting took over his life. The star of the 2008 Guy Ritchie romp RocknRolla is standing in the middle of a stone-cut medieval courtyard in Edinburgh, Scotland. "What was I thinking?" says Gerard Butler.
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