How to Train Your Dragonfans are buzzing with excitement for the upcoming live-action adaptation, but according to one of its stars,Gerard Butler, who reprises his role as the rugged Stoick the Vast, the on-set experience in Northern Ireland was anything but warm and cozy. In an interview with Collider’sMaggie LovittforThe Night Before Christmas in Wonderland, Butler shared some amusing details about shooting in frigid conditions — and how his costume became both his armor and his personal furnace. Butler stars in the movie alongsideMason Thames, Nico Parker, Nick Frost, Julian Dennison,andRuth Codd, among others, and it is directed byDean DeBlois.
When Lovitt asked about the filming climate in Northern Ireland, Butler admitted, “Yes, it was very cold and kind of miserable because we went at the worst time. It was December, or really starting in January.” The cast endured the coldest months of the year, filming from January to May in Northern Ireland’s often chilly and damp environment. Butler, however, took his commitment to Stoick’s Viking lifestyle up a notch by kicking off each day with a 5 AM ice bath. “I had a hotel room that had glass right down by my bath, and for some reason, I had decided I was going to take ice baths every morning,” he revealed. He enlisted his physical therapist to fill his tub with ice, embracing a brutal routine that left him shivering in the dark with Northern Ireland’s fierce winds gusting outside.
“So, at five in the morning, my [physical therapist] — because I’m like, ‘I’m not going to put the ice in the bath,’ — would come in and fill my bath with ice, and I would get in this ice bath, but outside it would be dark with wind blowing, soaking wet. You know how freezing it was. At least if you’re doing an ice bath and you’re in LA it’s a blue sky. This was like, ‘I am going out into that.'”
Still, Gerard Butler Was “Rarely Cold” While Filming ‘How to Train Your Dragon’
Butler explained that his costume added a unique challenge, weighing in at a hefty 90 pounds when fully geared up. “I had seven layers, thick layers, and a thick beard, and then I had a kind of bearskin or wolfskin over it. It was heavy as shit,” he said. The ensemble, which included his signature sword, shield, and helmet, was so bulky that it turned into a personal sauna despite the bitter cold. “When I had my sword and my shieldandthe helmet, which was heavy, and all those layers with the clasps that went around, it was90 pounds, my costume. I was,in the middle of the coldest day, soaking wet from sweat insidebecause it was like a furnace in there,” he laughed.
While Butler may have escaped the chill thanks to his elaborate costume, the constant sweating led to some funny on-set struggles. “So, I guess I had the benefit of— I was rarely cold while everybody else was,” Butler laughed. “My beard’s coming off because of the sweat,” he smiled. “You gotta stick it back down. My eyebrows were coming off. I had to stick it down because I was sweating so much.” So, while the rest of the cast was wrapped up to ward off the cold, Butler was practically meltingunder layers of Viking gear.
How To Train Your Dragonwill fly into theaters on June 07, 2025. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.
How to Train Your Dragon
A hapless young Viking who aspires to hunt dragons becomes the unlikely friend of a young dragon himself, and learns there may be more to the creatures than he assumed.
Watch on Prime Video
