Scottish actor Gerard Butler said in a interview posted on Newsweek online this week that his favorite mistake was when he accidently asked an Icelandic minister for a ham-and-cheese sandwich while shooting Beowulf & Grendel in Höfn, South Iceland, in the autumn of 2005.

“The tiny 10-bedroom hotel that we were staying at was on the outskirts of town. They had a restaurant that, as far as I was concerned, never seemed to be open. We were out filming from six in the morning till at least eight in the evening. And when I came home at the end of every shoot I was famished,” he recollects.

“I saw a lady standing outside the restaurant and asked, ‘Is there any way we can get some food? Anything?!’ She said it was closed…

“Then out of the door comes this man in a suit and a tie. I run over to him thinking that he’s the manager of the hotel and say, ‘Please, listen, is there any way you can open this restaurant or just give me something? Can I just have a ham-and-cheese sandwich?’

“He looks at me deadpan. Perturbed. He said he didn’t work there and left.

“When I turned around, the producer of the movie was shocked, her head in her hands. In my desperation I had begged Iceland’s minister of agriculture for a ham-and-cheese sandwich.”

However, as it turns out, Butler confused the then Minister of Agriculture Guðni Ágústsson with Minister of Fisheries Árni Mathiesen. He was later introduced to Árni, who thought the incident was rather funny, ruv.is reports.

Guðni, however, had also visited the location of Beowulf & Grendel. He stated he would have reacted differently to Butler’s request and invited him to a roast of lamb, gravy and potatoes.

ESA

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