MOVIE NEWS – Paul Mescal follows in Russell Crowe’s footsteps in the new Gladiator movie. The young boy we met in the Oscar-winning first film, Lucius, nephew of the villainous Emperor Commodus (played brilliantly by Joaquin Phoenix), is now a mature man, but it’s not yet known what complications he’ll get into as the film is still in production and no details of the story have been released.

In Variety magazine’s Actors on Actors series, actors ask their colleagues about workshop secrets. Most recently, Natalie Portman got on the phone with Mescal and asked him about shooting under the direction of the notoriously perfectionist, four-time Oscar-nominated director Ridley Scott. The actor replied that it was as hard a job as you can imagine from hearsay.

“It’s unlike anything I’ve ever done before,” explains Mescal, “Lots of protein shakes, brutal training regimes and stress, while developing a whole new set of skills.”

The actor says that it’s not just the physical demands that are a huge challenge, but also the fact that he’s taking over from Russell Crowe, so everyone will be comparing his performance to that of 20 years ago – much of the stress comes from that. “It’s my biggest role ever, which is a huge gift, but it’s very hard to get rid of the legacy of the last film. The new script is extremely well written, it pays homage to the previous story, but my character has become so complex that I can identify with it completely because it can create a whole new perspective.”

(Untitled Gladiator Sequel – domestic release: 21 November 2024)