MOVIE NEWS – Gladiator star Russell Crowe candidly recalls his initial hesitations about the Oscar-winning role. He described the original script as “absolute rubbish”.

Russell Crowe has spoken candidly about his initial hesitation about his role in Ridley Scott’s Gladiator. Gladiator, which won a total of five Academy Awards, including Best Actor in a Leading Role for Crowe’s portrayal of Roman general-turned-gladiator Maximus Decimus Meridius, is widely regarded as one of Crowe’s best films. He has also been instrumental in the revival of interest in historical epics in Hollywood. Despite its success, the original filming of the film had problems. These were due to the unfinished script. It seems that it had to be rewritten several times during the filming.

Crowe has now spoken to Vanity Fair about the behind-the-scenes mishaps and his concerns about the film’s well-known problems.

The Gladiator star called the original script “rubbish”. He admitted that he sometimes felt the best thing to do would be to “get on a plane” and abandon the filming altogether. However, her conversations with Scott convinced her to remain committed to the role. Read his comments below:

“At the core of what we were doing was a great concept, but the script was rubbish, absolute rubbish. It had all these sort of strange sequences. One of them was about chariots and how famous gladiators — and this is all true — used certain types of chariots and how famous gladiators had endorsement deals for olive oil and things like that, and it’s all true, but it’s just not going to ring right to a modern audience, they’re going to, “What the f—k is all this?” [Chuckles]”

“The energy around what we were doing was very fractured. I did think a couple times maybe my best option was just to get on a plane and get out of there. It was my continued conversations with Ridley that gave me faith, he said to me at one point in time, “Mate, we’re not committing anything to camera you don’t believe in 100 percent.” So, when we actually started that film, we had 21 pages of script that we agreed on. A script is usually between 103-110 pages or something like that, so we had a long way to go, and we basically used up those pages in the first section of the movie. [Laughs] So, by the time we got to our second location, which was Morocco, we were sort of catching up.”

After more than 20 years since the original film, filming has now officially begun on Gladiator 2.

The sequel, in which Scott returns to the director’s chair, will star Paul Mescal as Lucius Verus, the now grown-up son of the Roman Empress Lucilla. Two-time Oscar winner Denzel Washington has also been confirmed for an undisclosed role. Batman’s Barry Keoghan is rumoured to play the Roman Emperor Geta. Chris Hemsworth is also rumoured to have a role in the film.

Gladiator 2 is scheduled for release in November 2024.

Source: YouTube