The James Bond movies have been going for sixty years at this point. As such, some of the biggest stars in the world have appeared in the spy movie franchise, including Sean Connery, Christopher Lee, Judi Dench, Lea Seydoux, Mads Mikkelsen, and Lashana Lynch. Basically, you can’t shake a martini in the world of 007 without bumping into a celebrity, but we bet you never noticed Gerard Butler’s cameo.
That’s right; Butler is in James Bond. Specifically, he’s in Tomorrow Never Dies and plays a sailor aboard the Royal Navy’s HMS Devonshire. He even gets a line, telling his stressed-out commanding officer, “we’re now down 14 degrees by the stern.” What does that mean? No idea, but the ship sinks sank about 5 minutes after this scene, so we’re going to guess it wasn’t good news.
Butler’s far from the only celebrity to make a little cameo in Bond. In the same action movie, Hugh Bonneville appears as a crewman aboard the Bedford, while Madonna shows up in Die Another Day.
Fun fact, Butler claims he was actually considered for the role of Bond at one point.‘No. I had a meeting for [Bond] like 20 years ago,’ he told Capital Radio’s Roman Kemp. “Now I think I’m at a nice ripe old age where they won’t be coming back my way, which is fine.”
Butler’s association with Bond doesn’t end there, though. He also appeared in the thriller movie Butterfly on a Wheel with Pierce Brosnan and was injured when a stunt went wrong.
“Brosnan was driving the car, and we smashed straight into a wall,” Butler told The Scottish Herald. “It was 3ft high, the cable was supposed to hold us, and it didn’t. We were in a car park in a Range Rover, driving at full speed towards the edge of this roof, and the cable didn’t hold us. We smashed into the wall, my neck went out, my ribs came out, I had bruised ribs for months.”
If you love James Bond, check out our guide to the best adventure movies.