RIYADH: Scottish actor Gerard Butler is returning to the Viking Isle of Berk, but this time he is trading his animated voice for full costume and presence in the live-action adaptation of “How to Train Your Dragon” — a remake of the beloved DreamWorks franchise, helmed by three-time Oscar nominee Dean DeBlois.
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In this new retelling, which releases on June 12, Mason Thames plays the inventive Hiccup, a young Viking who defies tradition to befriend Toothless, a Night Fury dragon. Butler reprises his role as Stoick the Vast, Hiccup’s formidable father, stepping from the recording booth into full-bodied performance.
“It’s a big change,” Butler told Arab News. “When I’m doing the recording, the animation, I could pretty much turn up in my pajamas if I wanted to. But there’s no getting away with that here. It was all of me. There’s no excuses.”
He described the live-action shift as “a chance to bring Stoick’s bigness and smallness” to life in a whole new way.
