Gerard Butler

I've had broken bones and cuts and dashes and tears from movies, but when I was five, my mom put the biscuits up high so we wouldn't be helping ourselves. So, one day I asked to stand up on a chair to get a biscuit, and it fell, and the corner of the chair went right into the side of my eye, and it made a big hole in there.

I have literally run into 20 people all around the world with my face tattooed on them.

To me, it's always good to retain a sense of wonder and never good too big for life, like you've seen it all before.

My overwhelming memory of being a child is the huge amount of love I felt for my mum. She was my everything, because she was both my mum and my dad.

Ever since I was a child, I have loved being the centre of attention, but similarly, I can't remember a time in my life that I haven't battled with all sorts of quandaries, fears and weaknesses.

I go to Scotland maybe three times a year, and I love it. When I'm at home, I feel at home, I feel myself, I feel connected.

I wasn't going to be an actor. I was going to be a lawyer. I came from a family just above working class, just below middle class, a great family of wonderful values. The idea of me having a chance for a law degree was enticing. Enticing to me but also very enticing to my family.

I was born in Glasgow. But my family is pretty much from a little town called Paisley, famous for its cotton mills and paisley pattern.

When I'm 80 and sagging all over, I can tell my grandkids, 'Look, when I was a lad, 'People' magazine thought I was sexy!'

Manscaping and all of that is not my thing. I'm more of the Clint Eastwood kind of guy.

I see a lot of actors for whom life becomes one big schedule. I guess I try to be more sensitive to my private life - to take a breath of fresh air and be in the countryside or on a golf course.

I love to spend a lot of time on my own. I can seriously go into my own head and often love to let myself travel where I don't know where I'm going.

As long as you do the best work that you can and not make it bland... because you're going down a lane that is trying to make everybody happy. You have to take an angle on these things.

The chance to be both artistically appreciated and commercially appreciated... That's what you hope for.

I always find stuff in my characters to relate to.

Generally I don't like doing remakes, but I think that's more in the cynical world of Hollywood where normally remakes are purely for commercial reasons.

I had to prove myself to a lot of different people.

I had to go and sing with the musical director of the film, Simon Lee, who is just incredible, and it went great. I sang with him about five things, things we'd worked on. And then I went to sing for Andrew Lloyd Weber.

Angelina came up, and as soon as we said hello, I thought, This is going to be great. I'm really going to love doing this with her. And I did. And then I was very excited to do the movie after that.

I was getting to bed about 10 P.M. so wound up and not getting to sleep by 11, and because I was putting the prosthetics on for five hours, I had to be up at 3 in the morning.