Gerard Butler Once Warned Hilary Swank That He Lost His ‘300’ Body in ‘P.S. I Love You’

Actor Hilary Swank and 300 star Gerard Butler once teamed up for a romantic movie as love interests. But Butler let Swank know beforehand that he wasn’t in 300 shape so he wouldn’t disappoint his onscreen partner.

How Hilary Swank reacted to Gerard Butler’s ‘300’ body

Prior to doing P.S. I Love You with Swank, Butler starred in Zack Snyder’s 300. The actor famously portrayed the king of Spartans in the 2007 blockbuster hit. The role required all of its actors, including Butler, to get into peak physical shape to properly portray these ancient warriors. This meant Butler had to dedicate himself to an intense training regimen hours for hours on end for more than half a year.

Butler’s efforts paid off not only physically but mentally. The actor had much of his body exposed while doing the film, and his new body helped Butler feel secure about the exposure.

He didn’t keep his 300 physique after the movie, however. So when it was time to shoot P.S. I Love You, he might not have wanted to get Swank’s hopes up.

“He even said, ‘I was in really good shape y’know. I looked really [good] in this movie I just did. It was just so hard I had to let go,’” Swank once said in a Collider interview. “And I was like, ‘OK. You still look great, what are you talking about?’”

But after actually seeing 300, Swank understood the star’s concerns.

“And then you see that movie and you’re like, ‘Oh, that’s what you meant,’” she said.

Gerard Butler thought he almost killed Hilary Swank on the set of ‘P.S. I Love You’

At one point during filming, it seemed that his physique was the least of Butler’s concerns. The Tomb Raider star stopped by The Drew Barrymore Show in 2023 and gave a bit of trivia about his experience with Swank. During the interview, he revealed how an accident came about from a simple scene.

“You know the scene where I’m dancing and I have the, what do you call them, suspenders? I shot that scene for a day and a half, and I had to dance like an idiot in the suspenders,” Butler once said. “It was like that first moment in 300 — I can’t believe I’m doing this dance in the boxer shorts. At one point, the clip, which was a crocodile clip, got stuck in the television as I’m crawling towards her, and she’s right in front of me and she’s laughing hysterically.”

But that was when his mistake caused the entire mood on set to change for the worse.

“The camera people had these plastic fronts to protect themselves from this crocodile [clip] — it was so dangerous, because I had to ping it, and it would go past my face. And this time, I’m crawling towards the bed, it gets stuck, it releases, flies over my head, hits her in the head, slashes her head,” Butler said.

He felt that he almost “killed” Swank at that moment.

“I mean, I cut her open. You could even see the teeth of the [crocodile clip]. She had to get taken to the hospital,” he added. “Imagine the studio — in three seconds, everyone’s gone. I’m just sitting there in my boxer shorts and my boots and a pair of socks, and I just started crying. I just scarred Hilary Swank, I almost took her eye out. I just made a fool of myself for two days and this is all I have to show for it.”

What Gerard Butler found annoying about his ‘300’ training

Butler has had to physically prepare himself for several other movies after 300. But the actor still considered his 300 training regimen his most grueling years after the film’s release. Speaking with CN Traveler, he reflected on his Spartan workout routine again, and what he found the most annoying about it.

“I trained for eight months – four months before we started shooting and four months when filming, for six hours, every day,” Butler said. “It was my life and took up all my focus. I used that training to work on my character, King Leonidas – his energy, strength, invincibility and obsession. It was really annoying because there were two tables on set, one for the 300 boys and one for the crew. Of course, they got cakes and potatoes; we were stuck with carrots, hummus and protein shakes.”