Gerard Butler is indeed a movie producer as well as an actor from Scotland. Butler began acting within the mid-1990s after studying law, with modest appearances in films such as Mrs Brown (1997), Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), and Tale of the Mummy (1997). In the gothic horror movie Dracula 2000, he co-starred alongside Christopher Plummer and Jonny Lee Miller as Count Dracula.
After playing Attila the Hun inside the miniseries Attila (2001), he went on to star in Christian Bale’s Reign of Fire (2002) and Angelina Jolie’s Lara Croft: Tomb Raider – The Cradle of Life (2003), before playing André Marek in Michael Crichton’s science fiction thriller Timeline (2003). He was then cast with Emmy Rossum in Joel Schumacher’s 2004 film adaption of the musical The Phantom of the Opera as Erik, The Phantom.
He was nominated for a Satellite Award for Best Actor for his performance in that film.
Butler rose to prominence after portraying King Leonidas in Zack Snyder’s epic battle picture 300. He was nominated for an Empire Award for Best Actor and a Saturn Award for Best Actor for that portrayal, as well as winning the MTV Movie Award for Best Fight. In the critically and economically successful How to Train Your Dragon franchise (2010–2019), he portrayed Stoick the Vast. He also starred as Secret Service agent Mike Banning in the action thriller series Olympus Has Fallen, London Has Fallen, Angel Has Fallen, and Night Has Fallen in the 2010s. In the 2011 film Coriolanus, a modern interpretation of Shakespeare’s tragedy of the same name, he played military leader Tullus Aufidius, and in the 2011 action biography Machine Gun Preacher, he played Sam Childers.
Butler has split his time between Los Angeles and Glasgow since October 2011. Butler was transported to Stanford University Medical Center in 2011 after having a surfing accident while filming the movie Of Men and Mavericks in Mavericks, California. Butler’s condition improved and he has been released from the hospital later that week. Butler has indicated in interviews that he does not use alcohol any longer. In February 2012, it was stated that he had finished a period of treatment at a rehabilitation clinic for substance addiction to opioids. He was afraid that he had grown overly dependant on prescribed pain medication, which had worsened following his surfing injury.
Butler played in a charity match for Celtic F.C. in 2011, a team he has loved since he was a boy. A year later, he portrayed a “has-been” Celtic player in the Hollywood film Playing for Keeps.