Oh, this just made my day. My immortal beloved, Gerard Butler, is August’s Esquire cover boy. The photographs of Gerry are just lovely – they have some of the photos online, if you’d like to see him looking sexy, smiling and driving a convertible. Sigh. I love me some Gerard. His cover interview is all to promote The Ugly Truth, the romantic comedy he has coming out later this month, costarring Katherine Heigl. Unfortunately, Esquire Magazine is crazy and weird, and they sent a reporter who had never heard of Gerard Butler to interview Gerard Butler. I’d imagine that would be incredibly insulting for nearly every celebrity, to be interviewed by someone who hadn’t done any research, but Gerry is a good sport. It’s a long interview, so I’m going to try to break down the highlights.

At the beginning of the interview, the Esquire guy doesn’t really have any feel for Gerry, and he notes several interesting things – first, Gerard owns a house in LA, which I didn’t know. Apparently, the exterior of the house is very nice, spacious and European. I’m making a note in my fangirl notebook. Gerry has a pinball machine and a pool table in his living room – such a bachelor, right? Gerard offers the Esquire guy a drink, asking “You can have whatever you want — vodka, gin?” The guy says he’ll have whatever Gerry’s having, and Gerry responds, “I don’t drink. But I don’t give a sh-t.” Yes, I’ve heard that before, but if he doesn’t drink, why does he always look half in the bag coming out of bars? No matter.

Okay, for all die-hard Gerry fans, just go to the Esquire site and read the whole interview, it is interesting, if a bit annoying. I’m just going to cull the highlights here:

On Megan Fox: Gerard picks up the June issue of Esquire with Megan Fox and says “Look at this. After Megan Fox, who’s ever going to want to look at me on the cover of Esquire?” Later when the guy asks Gerard if he’s read the article about the 75 best films in that copy of Esquire, Gerard admits, “I haven’t looked at it. I was gonna look at it, but I couldn’t get past Megan Fox.”

Favorite Movies, his own and others: “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? F-ckers.” Gerard loves 300, and considers it a “classic”. He also says “Dear Frankie’s a gem.”

On Marriage: Gerard has never been married, and he admits, “People would go, ‘That’s great. You’re still young.’ Over the last couple years, though, it’s become, ‘Wow. Really? Why?’”

On relationship rumors and Jennifer Aniston: “You know what’s funny? In the last year, there have probably been rumors of ten different women I’m supposed to be involved with. I think maybe one is true. You can walk around with a hundred of your buddies and it’s cool, but the second there’s a woman involved…the new one is Jennifer Aniston. I start filming with her in two weeks. I think it’s because she’s single and I’m single. The sum total of our conversation was about four minutes at the Toronto Film Festival. The next day, the story is: Gerry Butler and Jennifer Aniston get cozy at the Toronto Film Festival. Cozy? We were standing up and surrounded by forty people.”

On his early studies to become a lawyer: “I wasn’t going to be an actor. I was going to be a lawyer. I came from a family just above working class, just below middle class, a great family of wonderful values. The idea of me having a chance for a law degree was enticing. Enticing to me but also very enticing to my family. Wow, one of our own is studying law at university!”

On his childhood dreams of being an actor: “I did spend a lot of my childhood playing out movie scenarios in my head. I’d walk along the road, pretending like I was in the army, talking on the radio, and doing maneuvers. I dreamt a lot about performing in movies and living in fantasies. I had a lot of powerful dreams — some of them terrifying. One was about being in an underground tunnel, and this train was coming behind me. I smashed up my room trying to get away and then climbed out the window. My mom had to pull me back in by my legs. When I woke up, I thought my heart was going to explode. These were the kind of dreams I had. Some were fantastical, like skateboarding through planets and space. I’d wake up and wish I could manipulate these dreams and control them. The problem with my mind is it sways from side to side. The idea of me fantasizing about becoming an actor quickly led to depression. No, it was never going to happen to me. I was a sixteen-year-old kid on the other side of the world from where they made movies. Scottish actors never really got play. There was Sean Connery, and that was it.”

[From Esquire]

The biggest chunk of the interview is Gerard talking about his wayward youth. It goes on forever, and it seemed really convoluted and epic. Apparently, Gerry took some time off in the middle of law school, and he came to Los Angeles and just spent some serious time getting wasted with “three Irishmen roommates”. Gerry says, “Something very compulsive and dark and lusty and pleasurable but damaging took over.” I think I just had a hot flash. That sounds like a really fun apartment, doesn’t it? Gerard and his Irish friends can be damaged all over me.

Anyway, eventually Gerry realized he needed to stop getting sh-tfaced every damn day (“I ended up in L. A. County Jail. I was in a cell with my 501s and my tight leather jacket and my long hair thinking I was Jim Morrison”), and he stopped drinking and returned to law school. When he graduated “with honors” (that’s so hot), he got a position at a law firm. He then got fired – and went on to become a hot actor, so it’s all good. Now excuse me, I need to stare at this cover for several hours.

Gerard Butler is shown on the NY set of The Bounty on 7/13/09. Credit: REVOLUTION PIX/bauergriffinonline.com