Butler wore a pale blue button-up the identical coloration as his putting eyes and a classic baseball cap touting the Sturgis Bike Rally, a refined reminder of the movie he was selling. As we discovered a spot to sit down and made small speak, he listened like a faithful scene companion, holding eye contact and affirming issues I mentioned with a murmured “wow,” “yeah” or “attention-grabbing.”
He defined that this linked gaze, which he realized in an appearing class, helped him conquer a once-crippling shyness. “If each time I really feel consideration on me, I begin to really feel like I’m imploding, then I simply have to put my curiosity onto the opposite particular person,” he mentioned. The individuals who’ve labored with Butler have a tendency to say that curiosity. Additionally they describe him as “considerate” and “sort” as if they’ll hardly imagine {that a} well-known younger actor can be both of these issues. I discussed that to him.
“Wow. Wow. Attention-grabbing,” he mentioned.
Butler offers good brood however just isn’t inherently brooding. He doesn’t stumble out of nightclubs or refuse to depart his trailer within the morning. Although he lacks the whiff of hazard that used to make bad-boy film stars so alluring, that could possibly be thought-about a great factor in our present, extra cautious period. Finally, hazard curdles.
“I’ve seen each completely different means of being on a set,” mentioned Butler, who grew up in Southern California and began appearing as a youngster in exhibits for Nickelodeon and the Disney Channel. Nonetheless, his steadiness just isn’t merely a response to unhealthy conduct he’s witnessed; as an alternative, it’s one thing extra innate. “I owe loads of it to my mother and father and the issues that they instilled in me from being a baby: Deal with everyone the way you need to be handled, no matter if they’ll do one thing for you,” he mentioned.
Butler’s father and grandfather have been each motorcyclists, and he remembers sitting on the again of his dad’s bike as they went on lengthy rides collectively. When he was 7, his mother and father divorced, and at 15, his father instructed him he was sufficiently old to journey on his personal. Nonetheless, it must be their secret: Butler’s mom forbade him from driving after his older sister obtained into a motorbike accident that dislocated her shoulder.
Butler drew on all that and extra to play Benny, whose loyalties to Kathy and to his motorbike gang are sometimes at odds. He additionally noticed the a part of himself that at all times has one foot out of the covers. As an actor, Butler is compelled to be peripatetic, creating momentary however tight-knit circles in far-off locations. “Then you definately end the job and the household breaks up, and also you go to a different one,” he mentioned. “In remedy someday, I spotted that sample jogs my memory a lot of my mother and father’ divorce.”