Director Ridley Scott has revealed that Joaquin Phoenix was challenging to work with on the first Gladiator film.
The hit 2000 action movie saw Phoenix playing tyrannical Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, who is threatened by the popular young general, Maximus, played by Russell Crowe.
Speaking to The New York Times this week, the director echoed the sentiments of other filmmakers who have found Phoenix to be difficult on set. According to Scott, the actor even threatened to walk off the project at one point.
“He was in his prince’s outfit saying, ‘I can’t do it.’” Scott recalled. “I said, ‘What?’ And Russell said, ‘This is terribly unprofessional.’”
The director said that it didn’t harm his relationship with Phoenix. If anything, it helped them bond. “I’m quite a friend of Joaquin’s,” he said. “Gladiator was a baptism of fire for both of us in the beginning.”
It clearly didn’t stop them from working together again. Phoenix starred in Scott’s 2023 historical epic, Napoleon.
More recently, however, the actor received negative headlines when he dropped out of a Todd Haynes movie just five days before it was set to begin shooting. Other stories of his unprofessional behaviour on set are not hard to find. As a Method actor, he immerses himself in roles and can sometimes take acting to its limits.
What we know about ‘Gladiator II’ so far
Scott’s comments about working with Phoenix arose during an interview about his latest project, a sequel to the 2000 film starring Paul Mescal. The screenwriter this time is David Scarpa, who previously worked with Scott on All the Money in the World and Napoleon.
The director has been teasing the sequel since 2001, when he planned to reteam with the screenwriters of the first film. In 2006, DreamWorks sold the rights of the property to Paramount, setting the production back more than a decade. In 2023, it was announced that Mescal would star as the adult version of Lucius, the nephew of Phoenix’s Marcus Aurelius who idolised Crowe’s character in the first movie.
In an echo of the 2000 film, Lucius lives with his wife and child until a Roman general played by Pedro Pascal kills his family and forces Lucius into slavery. Like Crowe’s character, he is forced to fight as a gladiator and uses it as an opportunity to exact revenge.
Over the 24 years since the first film was released, the sequel has gone through many iterations. In that time, musician Nick Cave was commissioned to write a script centred around Maximus being brought back to life by the Gods to become a warrior, but it was ultimately decided that the story would focus on a new character.
Austin Butler, Richard Madden, and Miles Teller were considered for the role of Lucius, while Barry Keoghan had been set to co-star as the evil emperor Caracalla. He later had to drop out due to his commitments on Saltburn.
In the interview with the Times, Scott compared Keoghan to Phoenix and revealed that Saltburn was possibly the best film he’d seen all year. “Barry is one of the good ones, the same level as Joaquin Phoenix and Paul,” he said. “Barry is so complex and actually has it under control. I know he’s a bit of a challenge, but it’s worth it. Like deciding on Joaquin, it’s worth it.”
As for Mescal, Scott said he knew he wanted to cast him in the lead role right away. “I noticed Paul when I was watching Normal People,” he said. “I thought, ‘My God, he looks like Richard Harris,’ so immediately, ding! It’s the nose, the profile. At this point, I think I’ve spotted so many first-timers right back to Sigourney [Weaver], Brad [Pitt]. Part of my job is I’m a good caster, and I’m also helped by very good casting directors, so I choose them carefully. To me, a casting director is as important as a good camera.”
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