Gladiator 2 Cast Interview

Excaladiator Macrinus who wants to control Rome, whose desire is to be emperor and control the Roman Empire. The character to me, what excited me about it was all there on the page in the sense that like it was very clear to me what the character was thinking throughout the script and then there's there were certain junctions that like you always want a certain amount of scenes in the script that you feel are high pressure. So the scenes with Connie were always going to be very important to me and kind of integral not just to me but to the film working and also the the scenes towards the end with Denzel. The rest was about kind of filling out a character that you fundamentally believed could win the fights that he was in and that's not physical it's about a psychology that you have to develop that you're just the toughest guy in the room not because you're the strongest and that's that's a fun thing to get to play as an actor. It's it's truly one of a kind there there is no one like Sir Ridley Scott. The way that he makes a movie is is so uh full-on it's it's so immersive um it's it's just it won't no no one has done it like that and and I don't think anyone else can it he operates usually eight to twelve cameras all at once filming at the same time he watches them all he's orchestrating the scene like it's this event so every single day you're part of this enormous event. There is no set like a Ridley Scott set it's uh it's laced with this urgency and a vitality and a sense of it feels important because it is but it feels like you're capturing moments that really matter and in that case it is um it's unlike any other filmmaking experience I've experienced and I I prepared for this role uh by um training mainly and um and instead of studying Roman history I used it as an excuse to re-watch all of my favorite Ridley Scott movies and to just let my imagination fill itself with his um uh visual authorship of cinema and um and to to to just kind of unconsciously deliver myself into his vision um uh be a set piece and to to honor the the the movement of his visuals as best as I could it's not very actorly but um uh more kind of like uh know what instrument I am and and uh and make myself the best instrument uh for him to play I just think about Ridley making myself a clarinet and Ridley just being like this is Pedro my clarinet brilliant he's he's a great director he's a master at the top of his form talking about Ridley he's a master at the top of his form and it's a privilege for me to get the opportunity again to work with him well it's a very simple question with a very complex answer but um I'll prefix that with a lot of hard thought a lot of hard work but when it boils down to what will the sequel be it really starts off with what happened to from that moment you're that you're on a blank sheet page one you're trying to write the next 120 pages and create that that's hard work driving a car and my phone was connected to the radio of the car and I saw the phone call come in my agent picked it up and she told me that the news that they got this uh this this role they're asking me if I wanted to play this person um and I was so flabbergasted and moved and just rocked that I had to pull the car to the side of the road park it and like properly have a conversation and then I sat in silence for maybe 20 minutes alone in the car after just being like am I in a dream right now yeah that that that was that was my experience of it all I similarly had a phone call I had a missed phone call when I was on the tube for my agents and I was at Westminster station I don't live in Westminster but um my curiosity got the better of me and I got off the tube and I called them and they told me the news and I walked home from Westminster thinking what a gift being on the set of a Ridley Scott film is unlike any movie experience I've ever had and I mean that with complete sincerity I have been on incredible sets I have been on the set of Game of Thrones I've been on um Star Wars sets uh uh in in incredible um incredibly large productions and I've not been on anything like uh like Gladiator 2 and I'm not likely to be on anything like Gladiator 2 again it's just really not not not done anymore um and Ridley is the kind of director that insists that all the pieces be in place has has multiple cameras going at once so all of the things are are there in front of you watching Paul get beat up was it was a lot of fun yeah god bless him he's a hard-working young man and he has a bright future ahead of him and like like Fred and and all these young actors you know it really just put a team of of great young actors I I look forward to seeing what the next 20 years looks like uh for Paul and and for Fred I think you take everything from every job that you've done before to the thing that's that's out in front of you I think the thing that I couldn't take was kind of the focus that would be on the physical preparation that was a brand new learning experience but you it to boil it down I think you take the care that you feel for all of the previous characters that you've played and you put them into the character that you're playing now that's the job that's the fundamental job I think that you have as an actor and what I learned from Ridley is kind of endless but the focus of that would be that the job that we do is precious the time that we have when we're making the job is precious and that uh I don't know I I it it shouldn't surprise me but it surprises me that that with the with the legacy that this man has and the career that he has built and sculpted for himself that it's still the day that he's living in presently when he's working is the most important not anything to do with the past or the future it's very much present tense I think there was nothing but reverence and respect for it uh what he did in that film uh especially as an actor so young kind of being able to uh embody that role and that responsibility was a pretty extraordinary I think that we had our own task uh to achieve uh our own kind of direction that we had to kind of take take this role uh these roles they're very they serve a different purpose than uh Commodus so whilst it was um an amazing piece of work we didn't want to kind of be too bogged down about something that's happened but that was something amazing that happened we had to focus um ways that I'm similar to my character is that he's very loyal and um I believe myself to be a very very loyal person uh loyal to my friends and family and then um the difference being uh I don't know I think we're we're exactly alike the difference being is that he would never get into I would never get into an arena with uh with with with any actor more than 20 years younger than myself blood violence laughter rhinoceros sharks uh beheadings you know it's experience enables me to make it easy for myself and because I'm able unusually to draw very very accurate storyboards to the level of very complex comic strips I draw the whole film as a as a storyboard so it's this thick before I begin so I'm fully shooting the thing on paper before I get anywhere near the set so when I get there I can position 11 cameras in 11 minutes I play a character called Gator uh he's the emperor and I play a character named Caracalla also an emperor there's at the same time in unison in uh theory yeah they're practicing emperors and trying to uh rule uh the empire concurrently at the same time at the time of uh I don't think they know it when the film begins but at the time uh that it starts Rome isn't so hot on these guys you know they're they're not they're not not nailing being an emperor no currently it's not going well um but in their delusion they think there are then they are rock stars yeah audiences can expect to be incredibly entertained by gladiator 2 like they were with the first movie um it is a a powerful ensemble cast um led incredibly by Paul Mesco and Denzel Washington and um and and Ridley Scott and it is that kind of old-school entertainment that that that does things that can only be done now in cinema uh some songs some great songs we sing some great yeah yeah really good tap dancing number yeah uh it's epic in every sense of the word um this is the kind of movie that is meant to be seen on the biggest screen possible with the loudest sound and the most people Joe was talking about this earlier how it's it's it's about this is something that's meant to be felt in communion and um the act of going to a theater and seeing it with a community of people who are screaming and cheering and and and and experiencing the full sensorial um insanity that is this movie i i just think it's it's an event uh i think bad experiences of having been the author of alien and blade runner and allowing them to get away from me that ain't gonna happen in the future one of my favorite things about the character is his uh context uh in terms of one of the original beloved characters of the first movie uh lucilla played by Connie Nielsen i love that that that he's part of um the opening battle and then the reveal is that he uh is um part of the connective tissue of the first and second movie by being married to lucilla and um and working with paul it was like uh you know was was working with paul was making a friend and um that i knew would be my friend and i was just sort of like waiting as soon as i as soon as i got to morocco i was like where's paul and um and and and and and that was that it couldn't have felt more safe and and strangely dangerous to to to have an immediate connection with an actor so that we could beat the shit out of each other and as best as possible