He was as dubious as you are at first, but yes.

It was a big expression of faith on the part of director Joel Schumacher to let Butler do his own singing in the big-budget 2004 film adaptation, since Butler didn't have any musical training at all.

"I always just sang for me, for fun," Butler said in a 2018 interview with Washington's WTOP News. "I was a shower singer, then suddenly I had to sing 'Music of the Night' for Andrew Lloyd Webber. At that point, I had two singing lessons. I took my first singing lesson for 'Phantom of the Opera.'"

In fact, all but one of the main cast members did their own singing in "Phantom."

The odd one out is actually one of those who had prior singing experience, Minnie Driver ("Good Will Hunting," 1997). The problem was that her character, Carlotta, was a very particular type of singer -- an operatic soprano -- that Driver just couldn't mimic. So she was dubbed over by English opera singer Margaret Preece.

"I try to do all sorts of movies," Butler commented. "I'm definitely best known for the action realm, but if I was only to do that, I would get incredibly bored."

He may be the only one eager to see himself in another musical, though. The reviews of the film were less than kind, with Nick Rogers of the Midwest Film Journal calling Butler's performance "vocally and emotionally flat" (and that's one of the kinder takes).

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