How Gerard Butler Made Sure Olympus Has Fallen Felt Real
Given the fact that Gerard Butler really got ripped to play Leonidas in "300," it shouldn't come as a big surprise that the actor is fully committed to his roles. So, in preparation for his 2013 action thriller "Olympus Has Fallen," Butler intensely researched the people charged with protecting the President of the United States and other high-ranking government officials.
In a 2013 interview with Den of Geek, Butler recalled working with an unnamed Secret Service agent who was so committed that he had the agency's motto tattooed on his gums, as well as another agent named Ricky Jones, who was available to the actor "every second of the day."
"I constantly was going to him and just checking — are my moves, right? Am I looking the right way? And by the way, he was shot in the stomach and almost bled out, and that was engaging terrorists," Butler said.
Butler added for the publication that he spent a lot of time researching the Secret Service and members of the military up close and personal. "One because it's fascinating, and two because the more time you do spend talking to them and the Navy SEALs and all the people around you, the more you get into that headspace and the more you start to understand who they are, what they do, how they operate."
Butler loves how 'Olympus Has Fallen' combines action and drama
In "Olympus Has Fallen," Gerard Butler plays Mike Banning, whose Secret Service instincts kick into high gear when terrorists seize the White House and take President Benjamin Asher (Aaron Eckhart) hostage.
"The big struggle in this movie was, how do you send me through the White House?" Butler recalled for Den of Geek. "How am I always having a purpose and tying it in terms of the story with what else is going on down in the bunker, because in actual fact in some ways it's an action thriller, but in other ways sometimes putting those movies together is way more complex than a drama, which is just about human emotions and things happening."
Noting he wasn't trying to diminish any dramatic impacts, Butler admitted that combining the genre and action sensibilities for "Olympus Has Fallen" provided him with unique challenges. Not only was the actor trying to get into the mindset of Secret Service agents, but he explained to the publication that his character was also charged with "assessing the enemy's capabilities."
That, Butler told Den of Geek, posed a whole new set of questions, such as, "What do they want? Who's in charge of them? Who's in charge of us? What do I think they've already done? What do I know they've done? What are my first steps? How do I establish outside lines of communication? All of that stuff. It's great to do that work, and then how do you start your psychological games and try and mess with their plan and what point do you break protocol?"
A Secret Service agent needs to think quick on their feet, Butler says
Another major thing Gerard Butler learned while researching his role for "Olympus Has Fallen" was the ability of Secret Service agents to improvise when danger arises. "You can train and train and train, but you don't know where you're going to be when [a dangerous situation] happens, and that's why you talk to them [the Secret Service]," Butler told Den of Geek. "So, the second you walk in a room you're like, 'Okay, where are the exits, where would they come from and if they did what would I have to use?' because you don't always want to fire a gun, because you're in a building where the second you do that you've got 40 terrorists on you."
While Butler wanted to make his role as a Secret Service agent in "Olympus Has Fallen" as authentic as possible, he ultimately knew that every situation a real agent faces is inevitably different from what can be presented in a narrative film. However, Butler seems to think that "Olympus Has Fallen" captured the essence of Secret Service work, even though it's fictionalized. "Sometimes you had to say, 'Yeah, [that scenario] would happen, but it doesn't work for our movie,' so it's what's plausible, but in the context of slightly heightened entertainment, and I think that's why it really worked well," Butler said.
The movie certainly worked for one high-profile fan, as Robert Downey Jr. once wrote Butler an email praising him for "Olympus Has Fallen."
A hit at the international box office, "Olympus Has Fallen" spawned two sequels: 2016's "London Has Fallen" and "Angel Has Fallen" in 2019.