Esquire magazine really gives an excellent offbeat tone with their feature interviews, and these chats tend to uncover more than the basic biographical information on any given subject and go beyond the rehashed plot details of said subject’s upcoming project (i.e., Bill Murray & the Cinnabons). In fact, it would have been interesting to see if Esquire could coax anything more interesting from Christian Bale than his recent “If I’m ever modeling, you’ll know I really fucking need the money. Okay?” GQ rant. Still, we’ll take what we can get, and the magazine took their typically atypical approach to covering Gerard Butler (to promote The Ugly Truth, also starring the insufferable Katherine Heigl) for their August issue. Esquire sent an interviewer, who had never heard of Butler nor seen his movies, to the actor’s home to talk with “[S]ome guy named Gerry.” Naturally, Butler thinks the guy is just fucking with him and plays along before realizing that the writer, honestly, doesn’t know who the hell he is. Then comes the obligatory interrogation:

“I did 300. You must know about 300.”

“No.”

“Fuckin’ A?”

“Hold on! Hold on! Was that the movie about all those warriors that was sort of animated? I didn’t see it, but my son loved it.”

“I played Leonidas, the lead. You must know that. You’re putting me on. It doesn’t bother me. I’m just like — wow.”

“Never saw it. But I remember it being a big deal. I remember the poster — all these hulking warriors. You know what stands out to me from that image? I remember a beard.”

“I was the one with the beard!”

“Okay . . . . 300. What else?”

“P. S. I Love You. That’s a romantic comedy with Hilary Swank. It’s kind of beautiful and funny. Richard LaGravenese wrote and directed it. He wrote Bridges of Madison County. Don’t know why I’m telling you, because you won’t know it.”

“That one I do! Because I interviewed Clint Eastwood. He was in that one, right?”

“Yes. You’re probably the world’s biggest movie buff, and I’m going to be humiliated when this comes out.”

“No, I moved to L. A. six months ago. I’ve been watching a movie almost every night, trying to catch up. Did you see Esquire’s list of the seventy-five movies every man should see? It’s in the Megan Fox issue.”

“I haven’t looked at it. I was gonna look at it, but I couldn’t get past Megan Fox.”

Gerry picks up the issue.

“It plays out over several pages,” I say.

Gerry studies.

“300 will definitely be on this list. It’s not gonna be a real list without 300. If there’s ever a movie that a man should see, it’s 300.”

He looks at the first page. Evidently, 300 is not on that page, but Gerry nods his approval. He flips.

“There are some great movies in here.”

Apparently 300 is not on the following page, either.

“Fuckers!”

Few people on the planet can say “Fuckers!” as hilariously as Gerry. He turns the page.

“Fuck!”

“Fuck!”

“Fuckers!”

“You fuckers!”

He’s running out of pages.

“Cool Hand Luke — that’s one of my favorites. You know, this is a great list. But how could they not put 300 in here? Fuckers.”

Okay, now I’m starting to see the appeal of this Gerard Butler. Nothing impresses quite like a fellow who can put a new twist on such familiar dirty words.