We can add Gerard Butler to the list of big Zack Snyder fans. The Scottish actor starred as Leonidas in 2007's 300, and recently he took the opportunity to gush about the movie's director in a video interview, saying:
I'll tell you what he gave me, and it was more about my humanity as an actor on set rather than necessarily performance. A lot of what we did together in that movie was learning on the fly. None of us had ever worked with that amount of green screen. I don't think many people had worked with that amount of green screen, and it was a quick learning process of coming up with these massive ideas and having to minimize it, internalize it, and make it all truthful. But what I loved about Zack is that I'd never met a guy with such passion from the second I met him.
Gerard Butler spent most of his Fox 5 DC interview promoting his new action movie Hunter Killer, but he bookended his talk with praise for Zack Snyder, as a director and just as a kind human being who would take the time to make a crew member feel better when they messed something up on set.
Butler had been asked specifically about working with Snyder in relation to all the 300 green screen, and what that taught him. The actor also tied Snyder's passion to the origin of King Leonidas' famous 300 line.
"This Is Sparta" was such "a bizarre line to say," Butler said, and he tried repeating it a bunch of different ways for different takes. He asked for one last time, the final version it seems, and it was so over-the-top it made the stunt guys guffaw. Butler thought it might be too much, but Zack Snyder thought it was awesome. And it was.
300 was only the second feature film directed by Zack Snyder, after his 2004 Dawn of the Dead remake. To call 300 a hit would be hiding it in the shade. The production budget was around $65 million and it made more than $450 million around the world. (If only Gerard Butler's struggling Hunter Killer could boast the same box office numbers.)
After making 300 for Warner Bros., Zack Snyder became a go-to director of comic book adaptations, from Watchmen to the DC Extended Universe's Man of Steel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and Justice League.
Snyder famously had to step away from directing Justice League, which was subsequently taken over by Joss Whedon. Justice League co-star Ray Fisher recently said he'd still like to make a Cyborg standalone movie with Snyder. So it's clear Gerard Butler isn't the only major fan, not to mention all the fans still pushing for the Snyder cut of Justice League.
Hunter Killer is now playing in theaters. Zack Snyder still has producer credits on the upcoming DCEU movies, including Aquaman, which opens in theaters December 21.
