First Look: Gerard Butler in Machine Gun Preacher

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

Gerard Butler has moved on from Jennifer Aniston and stepped into serious drama territory.

When was the last time that we got anything from the MACHINE GUN PREACHER front? When I first heard the title for this film, without knowing anything about the plot, I thought it was literal. I thought it was another comic adaptation on the horizon. Nope. Not the case at all.

Butler plays Sam Childress in a true story about, “a man whose ongoing 13-year quest to end atrocities committed against the children of Sudan sometimes places him on the moral divide between right and wrong.”

In an interview with USA Today, Butler talked about how Childress compared to other heroic roles he has taken in the past, “Those other roles were based on historic characters who became the stuff of legend, but Sam is a guy of our times. There is more complexity in a modern-day character who’s a drug addict and a biker turned businessman, missionary and soldier. You don’t get roles like this very often.”

Then he actually met with Childress at his home to get a feel of whose shoes he’d be stepping in, “When I walked into Sam’s house, he had been so built up by everyone, I didn’t know what to expect. I met this absolutely dominant alpha male who on one hand loves the attention but on the other hand loves the company of his family and friends. This is his story and this is his moment to tell it to the world. I had to bow down to that. But there is a darkness in him as well. He could not go through all the things that are in the movie by being Mr. Nice Guy.”

The film was directed by Marc Forster (MONSTER’S BALL). Check out Butler in the first still from the film below.