New leading man Paul Mescal feels the pressure as Gladiator II arrives 24 years after first film

NEW YORK – Gladiator II is a film more than two decades in the making, a follow-up to Gladiator (2000), which starred New Zealand-born actor Russell Crowe as a Roman general who is betrayed, enslaved and forced to fight as a gladiator before dying heroically.

The sweeping historical epic won five Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Actor for Crowe, and was the second highest-grossing movie that year, with more than US$465 million in global box-office receipts.

Then the sequel got stuck in development hell, with numerous delays and false starts.

But it finally opens in Singapore cinemas on Nov 14, with Irish actor Paul Mescal in the lead role of Lucius – son of Crowe’s character Maximus – and Pedro Pascal, Connie Nielsen and Denzel Washington rounding out the cast. English film-maker Ridley Scott has returned to direct.

Like his father, Lucius is captured by the Roman army and forced to take part in violent fights in the arena, where he must battle it out with other gladiators for public entertainment.

Mescal, 28, has been a screen actor for only a few years, yet has earned an Emmy nomination for his breakout role in the coming-of-age miniseries Normal People (2020) and a Best Actor Oscar nod for playing a troubled father in the dramatic film Aftersun (2022).

Like the rest of the cast, he felt the heat of following in the footsteps of the iconic original from 24 years ago.

“When I saw (Gladiator II) for the first time, in a studio by myself, the pressure was incredibly intense,” Mescal says at a screening in New York City in October.

“But when you look at what director Ridley Scott does with the opening sequence, I was, like, ‘Okay, we’re in the hands of a master’, and that was maybe the first mini exhale (of relief).”

American actor Washington, 69, who won Oscars for his roles in war drama Glory (1989) and crime thriller Training Day (2001), has worked with Scott before, on the crime drama American Gangster (2007).

And it was an instant yes when the 86-year-old – who helmed science-fiction classics such as Alien (1979) and Blade Runner (1982) – approached him about collaborating again.

Asked what sets Scott apart from other great directors he has worked with, Washington says: “He’s just no-nonsense – it’s just ‘get on with it’.

“He’s a grandmaster, so you know you’re in good hands and you feel free to fly.”

Scott is known for working quickly and efficiently on set, often using multiple cameras simultaneously – up to eight for a single scene on this movie – to capture different angles.

Washington – whose character Macrinus manages a stable of gladiators, including Lucius – says he does not even know where some of the cameras are.

“And I could care less,” the veteran adds. “If you’re telling the truth, you’re telling the truth. If you’re lying, they’ll catch you.”

The gigantic and detailed sets Scott built for the production also help evoke great performances, Washington says.

“It definitely helps you because it appears real. He built Rome – he got 10,000 people walking around with 4,000 horses and everything.”

Danish actress Nielsen, 59, reprises her role as Lucius’ mother Lucilla – one of two members of the original Gladiator cast to return, along with English performer Derek Jacobi, 86, who plays Roman senator Gracchus.

Asked if she had doubted if a sequel would get made, Nielsen – who appeared as Diana’s mother Queen Hippolyta in the superhero film Wonder Woman (2017) – says: “I was just worried whether they were going to get the story right, and I wasn’t sure how they were going to do that. So, it was a relief when I read the script.”

She was also excited that Lucilla gets a bigger arc this time – estranged from her son and also in love with another general-turned-gladiator, Marcus Acacius (Pascal).

“She’s living in a state of both heartbreak and love,” says Nielsen.

If the film does as well as the original, it could turn Mescal into a megastar, which happened with Crowe. But Mescal has mixed feelings about this.

When he got the call saying he had nabbed the role, “there were only five or six people in the world who knew about it at that point, and I remember it felt like I was in this bubble of privacy that then was going to, hopefully, explode somewhat”.

“But then you hold on for dear life.”