Gerard Butler answers more questions about new film at Pentagon than spokesperson has in last 5 months

'Hunter-Killer' is set to premiere 26 October

Actor Gerard Butler has collaborated with the US Navy for his new film Hunter-Killer and some members of press corps have commented he answered more questions than the Defence Department spokesperson has in the last six months.

The movie is about a submarine crew, and Butler, who addressed journalists from the Pentagon briefing room, plays the captain of the fictional USS Arkansas attack submarine.

Many news outlets have complained at the lack of briefings from defence secretary James Mattis, whose last appearance at the podium was on 28 August.

He has only given one other briefing this year, after the 13 April strikes in Syria, preferring informal huddles with journalists.

There have been even fewer appearances from his spokesperson Dana White, who last briefed the press on camera in April 2018.

As Mr Mattis and Ms White were on their way to Vietnam, Butler took the podium emblazoned with the agency seal.

The Scottish actor leads a group of “Navy SEALs tasked with saving a kidnapped Russian president in an effort to stop World War III” in the film, Politico reported.

Butler said he spent days in a US navy submarine docked at Pearl Harbour in Hawaii and it was like “entering another country, another world — it’s like an alien planet”.

“What I really took out of it was the brilliance and the humility of the sailors I worked with,” he said of the experience preparing for and working on the film.

“I’d like to thank the navy for all their help because we couldn’t have done it without them – or we could, but it would not have been a good movie,” he noted.

Task & Purpose, a military and veterans news site, described Hunter-Killer as “the most adoring love letter to the navy since The Hunt For Red October more than a generation ago – though it lacks the brooding pace of Tom Clancy-inspired military thrillers”.

Many Washington insiders were not opposed to Butler’s press conference but mused whether it would lead to a more open Pentagon in an administration both calling the media “fake news” and laser-focused on specific, ‘friendly’ coverage.

The film is set to premiere on 26 October and also stars Common and Gary Oldman.