Source : PERTHNOW NEWS
Gerard Butler relished the gritty stunts in ‘Den of Thieves 2: Pantera’.
The 55-year-old actor returns as Nicholas ‘Big Nick’ O’Brien in the heist sequel and detailed the tough conditions for the movie’s high-stakes action sequences and car chases.
Speaking to Collider, Gerard said: “That’s actually what’s also great about these movies; when you are in a heist, you can tell that we are in a heist.
“We were moving fast. It was hot. We were wearing costumes that were very difficult to breathe in. We were overheating, and we were climbing, and we were jumping, and we were pulling, and you were going and going and going.
“Sometimes, as we started a scene, my heart was still racing from finishing the last scene. I’m like, ‘This is getting bloody dangerous.'”
The ‘Olympus Has Fallen’ actor continued: “Then in the car stuff, trying to reload, there’s s*** flying everywhere, and then jump out the window and shoot back with the cars swerving, and you’re missing walls by a couple of feet.
“Then those hairpin bends. Every time we went on those hairpin bends – a 2,000-foot drop – I’m like, ‘I don’t have a good feeling about this. There’s a point where we are not going to stick to that road.’ And we did!
“It was incredible, but it didn’t feel like that. It felt very on the edge of control, which is actually perfect. If you make it, and then it’s in the movie, it’s perfect.”
Butler believes that outsiders underestimate the lengths actors push themselves to ensure that quality content reaches the big screen.
He said: “People have no idea. Anytime I have a friend coming to visit a movie set that I’m on, even just a regular day, but if it’s a hard day, and they come to set, by the end, there’s almost nobody that comes up and doesn’t go, ‘I had no idea how exhausting or just how much stamina…’
“And by the way, it’s fun, but it’s a lot harder than people think. And as an actor, you’re like, ‘Shut up. Oh, it must be really –’
“But in actual fact, don’t get me wrong, it’s one of the most fun professions in the world, but also, I’ve done a few other things, and this is the toughest but the most rewarding in a way. But yeah, it beats you up.”
Gerard’s co-star O’Shea Jackson Jr. admits that the constant performances of intense scenes are both physically and mentally draining.
The 33-year-old actor said: “It’s not only the physicality, but just the mental exhaustion that goes into it, too, to call on an emotion that you’re probably not even feeling that day.
“Then, once you think you got it, we’re probably going to do it 11 more times.”
