When the White House is invaded in the action/thriller Olympus Has Fallen, one man puts his life in danger to save the president and the free world as we know it: Mike Banning, portrayed by Gerard Butler. Directed by Antoine Fuqua, Olympus Has Fallen follows Banning, a disgraced Secret Service agent looking to get back on the better side of the sitting president, played by Aaron Eckhart. Taking the unbelievable siege of the White House as his ticket back to glory, Banning carves a path through his enemies to save to world.

We took some time to talk with Mr. Butler about his work on the film as a producer, his highly praised cast members, and how to avoid getting a ticket for speeding.

You’ve wanted to work with Antoine [Fuqua] for a bit now, right?

Oh my God, yes, big time. I got a hold of this script and I thought it had huge potential to be a great action movie, [as well as] a believable movie as a thriller, and a character-driven piece. In the one hand, it is thrilling and exciting, and in the other, sophisticated and meaningful. The guy who can handle that grittiness and masculinity and at the same time deal with the more sensitive, emotional parts of it was Antoine. Also, he and I had been talking about three different projects. We knew each other, and I really dug the guy. Working with him in any way is a real blast; he’s such a good man. So I took it to him and said, “Can we do something with this? What do you think?” Immediately, the thing we were both on about it is [that] it’s such an audacious, ballsy idea, but it had to be made believable.

At that point, there were some more unbelievable elements. We wanted to make it fresh, make it heart-pounding, and as intense as possible…and yet, let’s make it look like Bond. When the audience is sitting there, they will say, “Shit, I really believe this is happening — or at least, I believe this really could happen.” Then we’re set up with this fantastic stand-off between a besieged White House with one man in there who’s now in a position to do the job he’s trained his whole life to do, a crisis room with officials who have their hands tied, trying to make decisions that you can only ever imagine having to be a part of, and a hostage situation in an impenetrable bunker, where people are being executed, where terrorists are making demands that could change the world.

Do you envision a Mike Banning series?

Hey, you never know. Oh wait, I heard “series” and I immediately went to thinking about television.

I mean like a Die Hard series of films.

You know what, let’s wait and see how it all goes. If it did happen, I’ll love it. This definitely feels like 300. Though it was a studio movie, you felt like you were creating an idea — though 300 was based on a graphic novel, it wasn’t a franchise; we didn’t have much to build on. This is an original idea so, if it were to take off, who knows? But that’s not something that has been discussed or that I have thought about for literally more than five seconds. Right now, it is all about this movie and making it the best movie possible, then getting people to go see it. People love it — I don’t know if you’ve been to a screening yet, but audiences dig it. They are shouting, they are gasping, they are laughing, and it really gets your blood going.

When it comes to playing a Secret Service agent compared to other action roles, you have to be borderline robotic, and very controlled [and] disciplined. How did you and everyone on the film get into that mindset?

By the time I went to start filming this movie, it had been a two- or three-month process. Especially when it came to producing it, because for me I had done a lot of work on the script, so the more you’re working on it, the more you’re thinking about where you are, what you will be doing, and, more importantly, taking the advice of Navy Seals and Secret Service agents, including one who had been on presidential detail. I’m always asking them, “Okay, what the fuck do I do here? What is my position as I turn a corner with three rooms over there? What am I looking for?” Those are things we were putting into the script, because we had added that my character had been a Navy Seal before, because Navy Seals are all about attack, whereas the Secret Service are much more about avoidance — it’s about reconnaissance and finding information.

Since you worked so closely with the script, how much of Mike is you?

I think we have a lot of the same ideals; I think we are probably both screwed up to the same extent. We’re always haunted by the past, always having people pushing our buttons. It was very much the same thing with Law Abiding Citizen — it bought up a lot of the same emotions in me. One of the strongest themes for me is payback. [The character I’m playing and] the audience have both witnessed the same thing: good people dying, heroes dying, and innocent [bystanders] just dying for no reason. You’re left [feeling] ripped apart. It’s time not just to go in there and take care of business, but to do it with a bit of menace, wanting people to suffer. That’s something I think is an interesting concept to grab onto.

There’s a lot of humor in Mike as well, and I really pushed for the humor. When you can have humor in tight situations, you can’t beat that. I just think you need that in a movie like this.

How do you approach the emotional aspects? You are playing a hero, and there is a little boy involved — was there something special you did to relate to him?

Yeah, I love working with kids, and this kid — I have to tell you, I never met such a smart kid in my life. The guy could have been a stand-up comedian, but he can go straight to Harvard if he doesn’t go straight to the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

He loved being around everyone, but sometimes when it got to the heavier stuff, Antoine and I would take him aside and give him a talking to, and then I would try to scare him and try to put him in [a tense] situation, which in turn would put me into that situation. Then, when I would walk around and see this genuinely scared kid, because we just psychologically beaten the crap out of him, then you’re in it. That would be one of the ways to really get into those emotions.

Now that you’ve had the chance to help helm the ship, is it going to be hard to go back to being the actor for hire?

Well, it will be a weight off my shoulders, actually. But when you have to pull all these things off, you have to train, and you have to get the fight sequences down, you have to look good, and then you have to work with all the specialists, and then you’re working on the script, you’re working with the producers, and then you have to go out and do the fucking role — and sometimes that can kind of be [overwhelming]. Though, it works in this situation, because it’s not a normal situation — this is turmoil, to say the least.

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Matthew Schuchman is the founder and film critic of Movie Reviews From Gene Shalit’s Moustache and a contributor to Den of Geek.