Nabbing the lead role in Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator II” required Paul Mescal to act on the biggest film sets he’s ever seen. The director recently told GQ that his actor “nearly died” on his “first day walking in the Colosseum” that the production built to scale in Malta. “He didn’t realize it was going to be so big.”
But perhaps even more intimidating for Mescal than acting within the “Gladiator II” sets were the scenes in which he had to go head to head with Denzel Washington, who stars in the sequel as a wealthy powerbroker in Rome who keeps a stable of gladiators for sport among which Mescal’s Lucius falls into.
“I built it up in my head,” Mescal told GQ magazine about the anxiety-inducing prospect of acting opposite a legend like Washington. “I was like, ‘Okay, today’s the day that Denzel’s going to be on set.’ And I was so incapacitated by it that I suddenly was like, ‘This is so fucking stupid. I have a job to do.’ ”
Washington told the publication that Mescal was a pro on set and that his co-star “knows what he’s doing, he knows how to do it. It’s easy to work off of him because he’s giving you something. There’s a quiet dignity and a strength and intelligence that he has, even just when he’s standing there.”
“Gladiator 2” stars Mescal as a grown-up Lucius, the son of Lucilla (Connie Nielsen) and the late Maximus (Russell Crowe). The story picks up with Lucius living in the northern African region of Numidia, where he was sent by his mother as a child as it was just outside the reach of the Roman Empire. Events bring Lucius back to Rome as a gladiator, where he makes new enemies and reunites with his mother.
In an interview with Empire magazine in August, Washington said it was his “American Gangster” director Scott that lured him to star in the “Gladiator” sequel.
“There are very few films left for me to make that I’m interested in, and I have to be inspired by the filmmaker, and I was tremendously inspired by Ridley,” Washington said. “We had a great go-round the first go-round and here we are. He’s engaged. He’s excited about life and his next film. He’s an inspiration. We should all want to feel like that at 86.”
“Gladiator 2” opens in theaters Nov. 22 from Paramount. Head over to GQ’s website to read Mescal’s cover story in its entirety.
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