Gerard Butler Interview with Craig Ferguson

Gerard Butler made his second TV chat show appearance this month on National American TV.

Last night, Gerard Butler appeared on The Late Late Show again with Craig Ferguson.

The interview by Craig Ferguson was very different to Conan O’Brien’s. The main difference being, is that the rapport is much more fluid between Gerard Butler and Craig Ferguson due to their shared Scottish identity, previous interview history, shared professional projects (eg: co starring in How to train your Dragon the film and The Ugly Truth the movie) and close friendship outside of work.

Although Conan O’Brien did a good job interviewing Gerard Butler, it is very difficult for Conan to compete on the grounds of rapport with Gerard Butler given the long work and social history that Gerard has had with Craig Ferguson.

Gerard Butler seemed relaxed, comfortable and at ease in the presence of his friend Craig Ferguson. The two Scottish chaps embraced with a “man-hug” as Gerard Butler walked on stage.

Craig Ferguson started the interview by ripping his interview notes to pieces and throwing them onto a side. He did so without giving it much thought. This subtle choice of action, signifies the comfort level in which Craig has with Gerard Butler. Hence this is why the interview did not take on a formal structure. The interview was pretty much like two friends chatting intimately away about random subjects.

Craig started the conversation by rolling his chair closer towards Gerard Butler and teasing him about the way Americans tend to mis-pronounce his name. Craig was quite happy to mis-pronounce his name, now that he is an American Citizen and is therefore allowed to say it incorrectly! The correct way of pronouncing the name is to place the emphasis on the first part of the name, instead of pro-longing the last part of the name.

This isn’t the first time that TV hosts have chosen to talk about the correct pronunciation of his first name on TV.

What was interesting, was that Craig Ferguson chose not to mention Gerard Butler’s preferred nick name “Gerry” as a subject. This suggests the purpose of re-addressing the pronunciation of his first name is not purely to (1) correct people’s pronunciation (2) provide entertainment, but to also (3) to perhaps encourage the media and press and fans to know him as ‘Gerard Butler’ instead of ‘Gerry Butler’.

Whether to diffuse knowledge of his preferred nick name in the public eye is quite important now that Gerard Butler is becoming a house hold name in America.

The Americans already have two very famous ‘Jerry Butler’s’. The first Jerry Butler – is happy-go-lucky porn star, and the second Jerry Butler is a famous Soul Singer.

Therefore it is quite understandable why Gerard Butler’s publicist are perhaps keen to avoid confusion by marketing him as Gerard Butler and not ‘Gerry’/’Jerry’ Butler in the USA.

Differentiation is important.

Anyway, one of the first things that Gerard Butler spoke about, was a personalized greeting card that he received from Craig Ferguson. Gerard Butler showed the card to the audience which read “Welcome back Numpty. Love Craig”. Numpty is a common Scottish term which means “Sweet idiot” explained Gerard Butler.

The audience found that rather entertaining partly because of the banter, the unusual use of this Scottish terminology, and also because of the terrible child-like scrawl that Craig has, as a fully grown adult (See Picture below).

Above: Screen cap picture of Craig Ferguson holding the card bearing the child-like scrawl he wrote for Gerard Butler. It reads: ‘Welcome back Numpty.Love Craig’

The conversation then moved onto the last time the two met – which was when they were both working on the film ‘How to Train your dragon’. The film is based on a famous book by Cressida Cowell, about a young viking who befriends a dragon instead of hunting him. Anyway, the two Scotsmen play best friends in the film, Craig plays the a character called Gobber, and Gerard Butler plays the role of Stoick the Vast . It is clear that their working relationship has had a positive influence on their social relationship outside of work.

Craig mentioned the last time they saw each other, was when Gerard Butler went out for some chicken nuggets and never came back. Gerard Butler then realized he promised to call Craig that evening but completely forgot due to his heavy work schedule. Gerard Butler then said, Craig didn’t return one of his phone calls – so that kind of made everything even.

Gerard Butler and Craig Ferguson revealed the amusing voices they used for How to Train your dragon movie. The audience was in hysterics as the two scottish men bantered away on who had the better role in How to train your Dragon.

Craig then moved onto the subject of Gerard Butler’s love life, and wanted to learn more about Gerard Butler’s Bachelors pad. Craig made a joke about having to baby-proof his bachelors pad shortly after Craig’s divorce. He then gradually moved onto the subject of Gerard Butler and his plans to raise a family.

Gerard Butler admitted it was about time that he should be thinking about raising children, but first he has to find the right woman. He then joked about randomly choosing a woman from the audience by singing the popular children’s rhyme “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe”.

Craig responded by saying Gerard Butler couldn’t just randomly choose a woman, because it is a big responsibility. Gerard then laughed his head off and said “Looks who’s talking?!”.

As the interview came to an end, Craig tried to make plans with Gerard Butler to go flying together without a license. The conversation quickly turned into another joke, when Gerard said there were police waiting outside to arrest him.

We have captured a picture of Craig Ferguson masterminding his great escape, which involved climbing out of the window behind him, down the fire escape and landing on the paper below:

Above: Screen cap picture of Gerard Butler on Craig Fergusons The Late Late Show 2009: Craig Ferguson Plans his Great Escape.

We have uploaded the Gerard Butler interview footage with Craig Ferguson 21st July 2009 for your viewing.

We have also uploaded a short video trailer from the Ugly Truth the movie, starring Gerard Butler as Mike Chadway and Craig Ferguson as him self.

Above: Real Gerard Butler interview with Craig Ferguson on the Late Late Show July 2009. Hit the play button to start the video footage.

Below: An Act from The Ugly Truth the movie: Gerard Butler interview with Craig Ferguson. Gerard Butler starring as Mike Chadway, and Craig Ferguson as himself.

Gerard Butler is scheduled to appear on Good Morning Americaand Regis and Kelly soon.

It would be interesting to see what topics the Chat Show hosts will select for discussion and see the resulting discovery of insights that will come from their choice of questions.

So the fight for Gerard Butler in the media and press continues.
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