I ran into my old mate Gerard Butler and had a good catch-up at the premiere of his new movie. It’s called Olympus Has Fallen and is tipped to do really well.
It’s directed by Antoine Fuqua, who did Training Day along with Denzel Washington.
Morgan Freeman’s in it, along with Aaron Eckhart as the US President.
It’s a great action flick with Gerry as a former secret service agent who comes back to help the President when the White House is taken over.
It looks amazing you really believe this iconic building has been attacked.
Obviously they actually couldn’t do that so they built a replica White House in North Carolina.
That’s the great thing about movie magic.
Gerry’s really excited about it. He does all these stunts in fact I was joking with him that he had a stand-in for the acting parts!
It’s a bit like Die Hard, where the audience whoops and cheers. We decided between ourselves that, while the Americans call it a “kick ass” movie, we should have our own Scots take and call it a “kick bahookie” movie.
The funny thing is that only in this wonderful land can you have this all-American hero played by someone Scottish.
In this daft land of dreams you’ve got a Paisley boy killing all these terrorists and have American audiences shouting: “Go USA!”
His movies haven’t always done well but the thing about Gerry is that everyone loves him.
I’ve spoken to the likes of Jay Leno and he’s liked in media circles because he’s good fun.
He doesn’t take himself too seriously and he’s willing to have a laugh and take the mickey.
He’ll always have a good story.
The girls love him, obviously, but guys like him as well.
Although he’s had some flops as an actor, director Antoine was reminding me that Gerry’s actually also a producer now.
He produced Olympus Has Fallen and he’s really taken to that despite all the pressure.
As an actor you can just go back to the hotel and chill at the end of the working day.
As a producer, though, you spend the night on the phone, worrying about the weather or how some actor has to be dropped, or a million and one other things.
So while you’d normally be able to catch up on your beauty sleep, you’re up until the wee small hours.
As usual when there’s a big premiere, Gerry makes sure his family are with him.
So his mum and his stepdad were there, too, and I had a nice wee chat with them.
It’s a lovely thing to see they’re so proud of their boy.
In fact, I was laughing with them that it was a brilliant time for Paisley there was Gerry’s new movie opening and St Mirren winning the Cup.
It really was a dream double!
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