Age: 56
male
Gerard James Butler (born 13 November 1969) is a Scottish actor and film producer. After studying law, he turned to acting in the mid-1990s with minor roles in productions such as Mrs Brown (1997), the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), and Tale of the Mummy (1998). In 2000, he starred as Count Dracula in the gothic horror film Dracula 2000. He played Attila the Hun in the miniseries Attila (2001), then appeared in the films Reign of Fire (2002) and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider – The Cradle of Life (2003) before starring in the science fiction film Timeline (2003). He played Erik, The Phantom in Joel Schumacher's 2004 musical The Phantom of the Opera. Butler gained wider recognition for portraying King Leonidas in Zack Snyder's fantasy war film 300 (2007). In 2010, he began lending his voice to the How to Train Your Dragon franchise. Also in the 2010s, he portrayed a Secret Service agent in the action thriller Has Fallen film series, played military leader Tullus Aufidius in the 2011 film Coriolanus, and Sam Childers in the 2011 action biopic Machine Gun Preacher. Butler had further action film roles in Geostorm (2017), Den of Thieves (2018), Greenland (2020), and Plane (2023).
Potential castings for the HBO Max show of JK Rowling's Harry Potter series, estimating 1 season per book/10 years for the complete series. Tried to take ages into account in a sense that groups of characters that would be in similar school years - the Marauders, the Hogwarts founders, the older parents - have similar ages or appear to. An attempt has been made to retain the 'Best of British', and there are still actors I want to use and characters I need to fill but it needs some more thought. I've haven't reused any cast from the films, apart from a couple of exceptions (Miriam Margolyes as the Fat Lady Portrait). Generally speaking all children will be unknowns, the exceptions being the older 2 Weasley boys which I've cast. I've also cast previously unseen characters intending that a TV show will allow greater depth into showing stories about the Marauders, the Peverell Brothers, The Founders, Death Eaters, Gaunts, Muggle Ministry etc.
