Gerard Butler Is the Coolest Actor, as Proven by This Interview

Den of Thieves may not have made an immediate splash upon its January 2018 release, but over the past six years, it’s become a crime-film cult classic.

While there’s credit to spread around for that delayed success, the bulk of it goes to Gerard Butler, whose “Big Nick” O’Brien is a crooked cop for the ages. With an outsized personality and a complete disregard for the law, morality, or other people’s feelings—which he stomps on with gleeful hostility—Butler’s protagonist is the dissolute heart of Christian Gudegast’s thriller, a loud-and-proud “bad guy” whose desire to take down a gang of soldiers-turned-bank robbers is only matched by his insatiable appetite for destruction.

Big Nick is one of Butler’s finest roles, and thus it’s a welcome sight to see him stepping back into the LA sheriff’s shoes in the long-awaited Den of Thieves 2: Pantera.

Now out of a job and desperate to apprehend his criminal-mastermind adversary Donnie Wilson (O’Shea Jackson Jr.), who got away with millions in cash, Big Nick travels to Europe to thwart a robbery of the World Diamond Exchange—a crime based on the real-life 2003 Antwerp diamond heist. Rather than simply taking matters into his own hands, however, Big Nick opts to switch sides and join Donnie’s illicit operation, thereby creating a perilous partnership that puts multiple bullseyes on his back.

Even in a career full of larger-than-life action roles (including 300, Olympus Has Fallen, Geostorm, and Plane), Big Nick may be Butler’s pièce de résistance, granting him a prime opportunity to wield his megawatt charm for over-the-line bada-- posturing, bluster, and violence.

His good humor laced with menace, and his malevolence infused with at least faint flickers of integrity, Big Nick is a reprobate with a badge, a gun, and a lack of boundaries. Nonetheless, in Den of Thieves 2: Pantera, he’s also a conflicted beast, and Butler’s ability to infuse the rogue with measures of sorrow, regret, and uncertainty winds up deepening both the character and the film.

An accomplished and versatile actor whose macho swagger is second to none, Butler is one of the last of a dying breed of old-school headliners whose sheer presence makes a project worth seeing. Whether in do-gooder or do-eviler mode, he’s the definition of a movie star. As such, it was an honor to speak with him about Den of Thieves 2: Pantera, the challenges posed by sequels, and whether future Big Nick adventures are on the horizon.

Den of Thieves didn’t open to much fanfare in 2018, and yet it’s developed a rabid fanbase. Were you surprised by its path?

I don’t know how that happens. I always felt that it could have done better when it first came out, because I was really proud of the movie. Sometimes you get a movie that a lot of people like, and then sometimes you get a movie that isn’t for everybody but the people who like it, love it. I think that’s what’s starting to shine through. There’s an energy about that movie. There’s an intelligence and a wildness to it, and an attention and violence and humor. It had so much going on, and I think over time, the people that discovered it—and perhaps didn’t discover it in the cinema—went, that’s a bloody good movie.

That’s definitely been the reaction.

That gave us a chance to make a second one, and this time, we wanted to make it more cinematic. Everything’s gone up a notch. The scope is bigger, the landscapes, the locations, the ideas, the stunts, the action. It suits the cinema beautifully, and hopefully the fans will be happy.

Den of Thieves 2: Pantera has been eagerly anticipated for some time—six years, in fact. I know you’re a busy guy, but what took so long?

[Laughs] I think it was a bit of this and a sprinkle of that and maybe a little too much of that. A few different things happened, and it would be boring to go into them all, but it actually took a while to get this project to the level that it needed to be. There was always a script, but that script genuinely needed a lot of work to get it to where we wanted to get it to, with those twists and turns.

To get the relationship between Nick and Donnie right. To capture Europe and to keep up with the level of surprises, and to do even more with the humor and the central relationship. There was so much stuff we wanted to capture, and if we had just dived in and gone back-to-back with another one, I don’t think we would have gotten that.

Big Nick’s outsized macho energy is felt in everything from the way he puts a cigarette in his mouth to how he chews his food and swigs his beers. What’s the most appealing thing about playing him?

I loved the first movie. There are so many parts when I was watching it that I was so proud of. But I think with the second one, I could have a lot more fun as Big Nick. I knew who he was, and he’s kind of taken a holiday even from himself. There’s so much going on with him in the beginning! He’s washed out, he’s been sidelined, he’s very unhappy with Donnie. But at the same time, Donnie’s what makes him tick. Donnie’s the kind of person that keeps him alive, and he operates almost better from a messed-up place. When everything’s gone, he’s like, okay, now I’m alive.

That’s Big Nick, and that’s why it’s fun to play him. Because he’s big and he’s macho, but he gets it wrong all the time. He’s brilliant and he’s meticulous and then he’ll blow it all up in his own face, and I think there’s a lot of things that he does that people would say, Nick, why’d you do that? And he’d probably be like, I have no idea why I did that—that was stupid [laughs]. That’s what I love about this. You’re dealing with genius and you’re also dealing, at times, with idiocy and ego.

In the new film, Big Nick is more of a beaten-down guy, thanks to losing his job, his divorce, and his prior failure to catch Donnie. Was that a welcome opportunity to expand the scope of the character beyond just being the same grungy, cocky, rule-breaking badass?

[Laughs] Yeah, that’s very well said. That’s very shrewd, because that is it exactly. It gave him somewhere to go rather than that cocky Big Nick who we met in the first one. He’s not as cocky now, but there’s definitely something like, you can drown him, you can burn him, but he’s still coming back. He’s definitely bruised and hurt, and that was interesting. To let the ego go. He doesn’t have to win. He didn’t win! He actually did his best work and he was humiliated, and Donnie really outwitted everybody. So now we know who Donnie is, and Big Nick knows who Donnie is.

It’s a new side to the dynamic.

It’s like two silverback gorillas—it’s game on. But of course, Big Nick’s feeling a little bit pissed off and bored, and he wants some adventure. He’s like, how come these guys have all the fun? I love that twist, because then you get this buddy cop movie, but one’s a cop and one’s a criminal. They’re still buddies, it’s very subversive, and the way you could take that which just led to so much fun and drama and tension and bonding and craziness and hilarity. There’s a lot of humor in this movie; way more than the first. But it never belies the truth and the seriousness and the danger that they’re in. In fact, sometimes it heightens it.

You have experience with sequels—most notably the Olympus Has Fallen series, the upcoming Greenland follow-up, and the How to Train Your Dragon movies. Is revisiting a character an easier task, since they’re already established? Or is it more challenging, in that you have to bring something new to the table?

God, you ask good questions, man. No, for real, because I like that thought. If I’m being honest, I felt a bit of pressure. Because, yes, I know Big Nick, but like I said, it took a long time to get this script right. I was also like, what can I bring to the table as Big Nick that is not, as you say, just that cocky Big Nick that we met in the first movie?

How did you get there?

An actual fact, not to name drop, but I had a great conversation with Robert Downey, Jr. I was not in a great place before we started, and I was overthinking everything and going, God, Big Nick, I’ve got to get back into that. Because in the first movie, I did the very thing you’re saying—I made a lot of those decisions. How does he open a door? How does he drink? How does he smoke? How does he express everything? Weirdly, what Robert said was, let it go. Who cares? Just turn up! I thought, that’s cool. So I just turn up. Just be there.

That sounds liberating.

It’s much more tempting to say, oh, I did all this and I worked on the script a lot with Christian. But once we got out there, I just turned up and took a bit of the gas off of a lot of those physical assumptions, and just went in going, I don’t know what’s going to happen. I’m just going to trust. I think that leads to more color, more realness, more levels. I felt like I went on an even bigger trip with Big Nick in this movie than I did in the first. So yeah, that’s a great question, because that was an interesting challenge that took me by surprise.

I’ve read that some of the criminals and law enforcement agents involved in the 2003 Antwerp diamond heist were on set for Den of Thieves 2. How helpful was that in terms of lending the heist, and the action, a larger-than-life authenticity?

I mean, I’m waiting for the FBI to walk in any second [laughs]. I’m going to get taken out in handcuffs.

No, for sure, there were people who were quite involved in that. We had their security; the guy who was overseeing everything, and had to study the case afterwards as well, was very involved. Then, we had some knowledge from the other side, and that made it so interesting and so funny. Because when you have people there that are like, no, it was kind of like this, and actually, this wouldn’t happen—oh my god, it grounds it.

That sounds really cool.

Christian had already studied these panthers [i.e., the real-life Antwerp thieves]; he’d written a script about the panthers and was fascinated by them, and you’re going deeply into that psychology. Then you have the guys around who know both sides, and it just means you feel so involved and it’s so truthful. I think you see that in the movie.

Does having those guys on set put pressure on you to get it right? Because we’re talking, in some cases, about serious people.

[laughs] Listen, I’ve been through so many different pressures when you take on certain things. Playing the Phantom [in 2004’s The Phantom of the Opera], you get the pressure from, oh, he’s not wearing that! So I think I’ve learned to deal with it in a healthy way. It’s good pressure, but I’m not going to get too caught up in the perfectionism of that. Christian and I differ a little bit, in that his attention to detail— which is actually to the strength of the movie—sometimes makes me a little bit crazy. I’m like, okay, let’s have a bit of personality there instead.

It took six years for Den of Thieves 2: Pantera to happen, and the film leaves the door open for future chapters. Do you hope to continue the series—and perhaps faster than this one took to reach theaters?

I want to take credit for that ending, by the way. There are two different endings that were mine, okay? Just to get that out there [laughs].

Let’s get it out there!

For sure, the ending I love, because we had a different version that I thought was a little too neat and tied up. This left a beautiful space for something else. But that’s where Christian is amazing. He called me the other day and goes, okay, I got an idea—what about this? He starts pitching me an idea, which I have to say—I only heard what was literally about a two-minute-and-30 -second pitch, but it sounded pretty cool. But let’s see how this movie goes.

And yet, I say, “Let’s see how it goes,” but nowadays, honestly, I just want to make a great movie, and I want the people that like it to love it. I’m so proud of this movie. Again, no movie’s for everybody. But I think we’re going to have a great audience for this, and people are going to have so much fun with this movie, especially up there on the big screen.