LOS ANGELES -- Scotsman Gerard Butler, a rough-and-tumble lad from near Glasgow, bore down in training to earn the stunning physique he displays in 300 as Spartan King Leonidas.

Butler also brushed up on his academics, looking at films about Spartan culture and reading books that trace the exploits of these legendary Greeks, including at the Battle of Thermoplyae in 480 B.C., the focus of the film.

In the end, physical trumped historical, Butler admits. "You know what happened -- and this is what (director) Zack (Snyder) says as well -- the graphic novel is where it's at. This is what it's about: The drawings, the tone, the dialogue. That's the world that we are dealing with, you know."

Butler is talking about artist Frank Miller's graphic novel 300 that mythologizes the heroic events of Thermoplyae, when 300 Spartans aligned in the narrow confines of the Gates of Hell fought to the death to stall a million Persians under Xerxes.

"And I find that you can go back," Butler says of mining the past, "and you can use a lot of that history, but it only complicates the story of the graphic novel that you are trying to tell.

"It just muddies the water."

So 300, with its surrealistic tableaux created by digital effects, is not meant as a literal historical record of the events, Butler says. Instead, it conjures a powerful dreamlike version of the bittersweet and bloody Spartan triumph.

Hence the focus on physique. For months, Butler spent two hours with "nutjob" trainer Mark Twight, two hours with one of his personal trainers (either Brian Abercrombie in L.A., where the film was prepared, or Franco LiCastro in Montreal, where it was shot) and two hours "with the sword and spears guys" to hone his warrior skills.

"You can never be a Spartan," Butler says of playing one. "So the best way you can do it is with the elements around you.

"So, for me, I made it my training regime and I made it a training regime that was so f---ing tough that I actual felt like I was really in the Battle of Thermoplyae.

"I felt like I was ready to take on a million. I may not have been able to kick one person's ass but I felt like I could kick everybody's ass and I felt like I wanted to kick everybody's ass! I was so up for it and I also understood that every bit of training I did made me more up for it."

If he had slacked off and been lazy and skinny or fat, that would have made him a poor leader for other actors also forced to train, Butler says. "We wouldn't follow him to a strip club," Butler says, laughing, about what they would have said (adding that he did do just that in Montreal).

Butler's movie credits do have a soft side. He was the star of Phantom of the Opera and will be seen soon in a romance, P.S. I Love You, with Hilary Swank. But he is also using his physical presence to advantage, with roles in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life, Timeline, Attila the Hun and the Canadian-made Beowulf & Grendel.

That persona suits Butler's Glaswegian swagger and a youth that, according to the Sunday Times of London, was once out of control: "The erstwhile rogue ... had youthful brushes with the law and spent his 20s in a fug of binge-boozing and reckless behaviour: He had a thing about jumping in front of cars and smashing wine glasses on his forehead."

Now, sword in hand, Butler's manic energy is being channeled into the right place -- on the silver screen as a Spartan warrior.


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