3 hours Ago By Katie Ellis
Right now, I’m just glad that it’s here. It’s taken a long time to get to this point. I’m really proud to be a part of this film, and of how it has turned out.
It’s a great film. I don’t think anyone is going to be disappointed. Like everybody, I was a huge fan.
It’s an incredible piece of work, and Russell Crowe is brilliant. Going into this, we all wanted to pay homage to the first film, but also treat this as something entirely new. I didn’t go back and watch the first film again, for example.
There was no point. I think everyone was honoured to be part of this process, and while you have to acknowledge the legacy of the first film, we all just set about making the best film we possibly could. I never envisaged playing a role like this, and I had no idea that there even was going to be a Gladiator sequel until the script came to me.
I have jokingly said that that may be one of the reasons Ridley chose me for this film. I’m just so grateful that he saw whatever he saw in me, and I got to work with him. It took a lot of training over a period of five or six months; lots of weight lifting and trying to eat the right things.
But the preparation for this was the same as for any role; that’s how I came at it anyway. The physical aspect is as much a part of playing any character as learning the script. It was physically tough,and technically difficult, at times.
The training really helped, but the one thing I wasn’t really prepared for was the heat, and working on a project of such a huge scale. Filming fight scenes in Malta with such intense heat was tough. We’re talking temperatures of up to 110 °C.
That was pretty difficult for someone from Ireland like me (laughs). But the hardest scenes to shoot were not the action scenes. The scene with Lucius and his mother in the cell at the beginning of the film was something I knew we had to get right to make the rest of the film work, and also the scene with Denzel (Washington) at the end.
They were both emotionally challenging. The baboons are pretty scary. People keep calling them mutant monkeys, but they were actually these amazing stuntmen with kind of mini crutches on their arms simulating the movement of these savage baboons that you see in the film.
We had some ex UFC fighters for some of those fight scenes. But, I have to say Pedro Pascal was pretty formidable too. Everyone knows him as the nice guy that he is, but when he turns it on, he’s scary (laughs).
Pretty much all of it. Of course, I had an incredible stunt team to help me, but because of the way Ridley shoots, it’s kind of hard to use a double when you are being filmed at such close-quarters. Amazing.
I was in awe. Ridley is a master at what he does. He is the most incredible visionary director.
To be on set with him, and to see what he does, was insane. Politically, I think it’s very relevant to a lot of what is going on in the Middle East, in the US and all around the world right now. It’s a case of history repeating itself over and over, and how important it is that people stand up for what they believe in, and to be brave.
I have a couple of the costumes I wore—one as Lucius and one Maximus. But the best thing was that Ridley gave me three pages of his hand-drawn story boards for the film as a gift, which I was blown away by. I had them framed, and they now have pride-of-place on my wall.
Pretty simple really. If I like the script, I want to do it. I’m not sure it’s something you can be prepared for.
I’m still trying to figure it all out at this point. I feel grateful that I get to do a job that I love, even though there are some things I don’t like about it. There are negatives that come with the positives, but I have good people around me.
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