While actors and actresses are the ones that get the most amount of limelight and attention from the public and press, the popularity and importance of filmmakers are not something to be taken lightly. Among many of the most celebrated directors in the industry, Zack Snyder is one of the top picks when it comes to the best of the best in the business.

Zack Snyder

The status that he maintains in the industry today is all thanks to his exemplary works of filmmaking and execution of these projects.

And one of the best films that the director has made in his career has to be the blockbuster 300: Rise Of An Empire, where to make the end product absolutely breathtaking, he had Gerard Butler go through rigorous training in order to get into the shape of a warrior.

Zack Snyder Had Gerard Butler Be Trained By A Recording-Holding Mountain Climber

Gerard Butler as Leonidas 1 in a still from 300: Rise Of An Empire

Popularly known to be the father of the DCEU with his Man Of Steel and subsequent films in the franchise, Zack Snyder needs no introduction about his talents and accolades when it comes to the art of filmmaking.

And to make sure he brings the best of the best performances from all the stars involved in his projects, he leaves no stone unturned. Therefore, to make sure everyone in his blockbuster film 300: Rise Of An Empire looked like a spartan war machine, he made them go through hellish training.

During the process of prepping for the film, the director wanted all the actors who would be depicting the Spartan warriors alongside Gerard Butler, who played the lead character, Leonidas in the film, to look like the epitome of soldiers ready to slay anyone and anything in their path.

Therefore, to ensure that he gets them into the best shapes of their lives, he turned to professional mountain climber and World Record holder Marc Twight.

Within the 8-week training regime proposed by the athlete, all the members of the cast were required to bring themselves to their utmost limits.

In this regime, no one exercise was ever repeated more than necessary so that the body wouldn’t adapt to the conditioning, which in turn would strengthen the muscles and enable hypertrophy. Butler revealed that this was the hardest he had pushed himself in all his life.

A still from 300: Rise Of An Empire

The film was loosely based on the graphic novel titled 300: Rise Of An Empire, which depicted the heroic stand of King Leonidas the first with his army of mere 300 soldiers from his city-state of Sparta in ancient Greece.

The film details the events that transpired at the Battle of Thermopylae and the advent of the war with the kingdom of Persia against King Xerxes and tells the heroic sacrifice that united all of Greece against the enemy.