From People: Five Fun Facts

[Dianne]

1. When he first read the script for Phantom of the Opera, Gerard Butler cried. "I was wiping the tears off," he told reporters in 2003. "It really touched me in an incredible way."
2. For 300, Gerard Butler was completely clean-shaven for his tiny loincloth. "I only did that because I was told to! Manscaping and all of that is not my thing. I'm more of the Clint Eastwood kind of guy," he told PEOPLE.
3. Gerard Butler's best move on women is the pickup line, "Have you seen 300?"
4. When Gerard Butler was featured in PEOPLE's 2004 Sexiest Man Alive issue, he said of the honor: "When I'm 80 and sagging all over, I can tell my grandkids, 'Look, when I was a lad, PEOPLE magazine thought I was sexy!'"
5. Gerard Butler regrets wearing "really wide-flared pants" and "trousers that zip up the side" in his youth. "I've made some gross misjudgments," he told In Style of his fashion don'ts.

[torisweettooth]

More fun facts:

6. Has done 5 films in which his character's name is in the title: Dracula 2000 (2000), Attila (2001/I) (TV), The Phantom of the Opera (2004), Beowulf & Grendel (2005), and soon to be Burns (2006).
7. When he auditioned for the role of Aslan the Lion in the Walden Media/Disney production of The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, he asked, "this is going to be like the BBC puppet Aslan, right? Because if so I'm leaving right now."
8. His favorite actor is Christian Bale.
9. Considers Paisley as his hometown.
10. He is Scottish, but is of partial Irish ancestry. He has also mentioned that, because of this, his family does not have a tartan.

**I love the Aslan one...and what is a tartan??

[Joy]

Tartan is a pattern consisting of criss-crossed horizontal and vertical bands in multiple colours. Tartans originated in woven cloth, but are now used in many other materials. Tartan is particularly associated with Scotland. Scottish kilts almost always have tartan patterns. (Tartan is also known as plaid in North America, but in Scotland, a plaid is a tartan cloth slung over the shoulder or a blanket.)

A Tartan is made with alternating bands of coloured (pre-dyed) threads woven as both warp and weft at right angles to each other. The weft is woven in a simple twill, two over - two under the warp, advancing one thread each pass. This forms visible diagonal lines where different colours cross, which give the appearance of new colours blended from the original ones. The resulting blocks of colour repeat vertically and horizontally in a distinctive pattern of squares and lines known as a sett.

Until the middle of the nineteenth century, the highland tartans were associated with regions or districts, rather than by any specific clan. This was due to the fact that tartan designs were produced by local weavers for local tastes and would tend to make use of the natural dyes available in that area. The patterns were simply different regional checked-cloth patterns, whereof one chose the tartans most to one's liking - in the same way as people nowadays choose what colours and patterns they prefer in their clothing. Thus, it was not until the mid 1800s that specific tartans became associated with Scottish clans or Scottish families, or simply institutions who are (or wish to be seen as) associated in some way with a Scottish heritage. [1]

It is generally stated that the most popular tartans today are the Black Watch (also known as Campbell, Universal, Government) and Royal Stewart.[2] Today tartan is no longer limited to textiles but is used on non-woven mediums, such as paper, plastics, packaging, wall coverings

[Dianne]

I found this web site if you are interested in certain tartans. Go down to the box and type a name and it will show you what there tartan looked like. I am also going to put this in our Jamie Fraser thread because I already looked up Fraser.

www.electricscotland.com/tartans/index.htm

[steph]

1. When he first read the script for Phantom of the Opera, Gerard Butler cried. "I was wiping the tears off," he told reporters in 2003. "It really touched me in an incredible way."

It touched me in an incredible way, too... ;D

[torisweettooth]

LMAO nice steph...real subtle. ;D ;D

Thanx for the info Joy.

[steph]

Hey at least I didn't use the screen capture where he's snatching the ring from her cleavage...

[torisweettooth]

Aww that would have gotten another goofy comment.

[Dianne]

Oh gosh I thought and thought, but I have nothing to say to that! HA!

Although it is said to cause blindness.....