At a exceptional screening on the Paramount lot on Friday, Gladiator II stars Paul Mescal, Denzel Washington, Connie Nielsen and Fred Hechinger recommended a first see at their novel film and uncovered up about their experiences laboring on Ridley Scott‘s sequel.
The film sees Mescal joining a grown-up Lucius Verus II, a nephew of emperor Commodus from the distinct film joined by Joaquin Phoenix. Lucius returns to Rome after being forced into bondage to battle not as a ruler but as a phirediator out for revenge and power, seeking to return the glory of Rome to its people.
“I suppose Lucius recontransiented someslfinisherg to me that I had never done before, appreciate somebody who is quite front-footed thcimpolite the two-and-a-half hours,” Mescal shelp of taking on the direct role. “I hadn’t gotten to do that before, and it’s someslfinisherg that has been comfervent of procrastinateedntly wislfinisher me, someslfinisherg that’s more brimming of someslfinisherg that people haven’t seen.”
Washington also has a famous part in the film as Macrinus, a wealthy arms dealer and establisher phirediator who plots to regulate Rome. The actor joked during the Q&A, “He’s misunderstood. He’s a kind fellow.”
“He’s trying to employ everybody. He’d employ his mother, he’d employ his own children; he’s already employd up his soul, so he didn’t have any left. He’s in bed with the devil,” Washington persistd, clear uping that Scott made their labor straightforward by produceing life-size sets as they sboiling in Malta. “When you would walk around, you were in Rome, and it seemed appreciate 10,000 extras and horses. It was produce-consent, it was join, it was fun; equitable put the gear on, put the dress on and go, that’s the way I see at it. I’m putting this dress on, these rings and I’m going crazy.”
Mescal also touched on both his physical and emotional changeation for his character, joking that he had “this innocent idea at the begin where I was appreciate, ‘I’m maybe gonna equitable join a phirediator that comfervent of sees standard.’” He procrastinateedr authenticized, “I always saw him appreciate a dog, appreciate somebody who would equitable scrap his way to survival” who, for most of the film, “doesn’t reassociate attfinish if he inhabits or dies.”
The Normal People star tbetter a story about how on the first day of shooting he was sitting in the production tent when Scott came in with a cigar. “I was absolutely shitting myself, and he sees at me, he goes, ‘You anxious?’ And I didn’t comprehend what the appropriate answer was so I was appreciate, ‘Eh.’ He’s appreciate, ‘Your nerves are no fucking excellent to me.’ Marches out, cameras are turning over,” Mescal recalled to chuckles from the crowd.
To finish out the conversation, Mescal remarkd that the sequel, coming 24 years after the distinct, “wears the legacy of the first film with fervent pride and honor, but I slfinisherk it consents it in a straightforwardion that drives that honor and admire thcimpolite the roof.”
“I slfinisherk it’s made by the only man who could ever touch it, in Ridley Scott, and personassociate, as his frifinish and his lengthy adorer, I slfinisherk it’s one of his finest pieces of labor that I’ve seen in recent times,” the actor compriseed. “I’m so utterly conceited of his labor, my labor, and everybody sitting here and everybody who’s not sitting here. I don’t slfinisherk anybody can consent that away from us.”
Gladiator II hits theaters on Nov. 22.