Gerard Butler

There’s a new movie coming out that will appeal to action fans, history buffs and homos who enjoy a different kind of buff. It’s called 300, and is based on Frank Miller's graphic novel about a 300-strong army of Spartans, pitted against a huge army of Persians in the Battle of Thermopylae 2,500 years ago.

Actor Gerard Butler, who plays King Leonidas, got into amazing shape for the epic film after he was told he was too fat for the role.

"We would do a lot of circuit training using a lot of primitive tools like kettle bells, medicine balls, rings and huge elastic things which attached to the wall,” says Butler. “You would have to run and then stop and hold. I also worked with the stunt people in a non-air conditioned warehouse and that was like an oven inside. That was the stuff that really made you sweat. I was pretty much naked and the floor would be soaking wet with our sweat."

Naked and sweating just in the pre-film training? Ticket please!

DNA Magazine

Gerard Butler is probably best known for his appearance as the Phantom in the film version of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera (2004).

300 is released in the states on 9 March 2007.

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