The opening scene is incredible. How long did it take to shoot? I think we shot that opening sequence over nine shooting days, which I don’t know any other director that could do that. We travelled to Malta, like, a week early, basically.
What was your first day on set like? The first day on set, it was me and Pedro, and we were consciously kept in the tents kind of outside of the city walls. We were sitting in the tent, and I was smoking a cigarette. And we were kind of marching around the place, and Ridley comes in with a cigar. And we’re all just sitting there. I was absolutely sh-tting myself [laughs]. He looks at me and he goes, ‘Are you nervous?’ And I didn’t know what the appropriate answer was. So I was like, ‘Arggh’. And he was like, bang [mimes slapping him on the back], ‘Your nerves are no f-cking good to me.’ [laughs] So he marches us out, cameras are turning over. And my game on set was, like, try and spot the cameras. And just the cameras are turning over. That scene, the blessing of the troops, was the first scene that we shot and that was what we walked into. And I think that’s part of Ridley’s genius where he’s like, ‘We’re on this ride together. Let’s not waste any time because time is precious.’ And Ridley uses time like a genius. So that was that was a real blessing from him, I think.
Congratulations on an Incredible film, are you ready for people wherever you go coming up to say ‘Strength and Honour? I cannot wait [laughs].
16
The first Gladiator got 12 Oscar nominations, won five and launched Russell Crowe into the stratosphere, at what point do you get to exhale in this production, if ever? I’m getting to the exhaling moment [laughs]. I think when I saw it for the first time, I was in a studio in Twickenham watching it by myself. Honestly, like, the pressure of watching it for the first time is incredibly intense. But when you look at what Ridley does with the opening sequence in Numidia, I was like, ‘Okay.’ I knew this the whole time we were filming it but it’s a different act in watching it. And when I was watching the opening sequence, I was like, ‘Okay. We’re in the hands of a master.’ Yeah. So that was maybe the first mini exhale. [laughs]
Do you remeber the moment you got the call saying you had got the lead in this film? Where do you even begin with this? I was walking to the theatre and my agents called and I’ll remember it for as long as I live because I had my headphones in and there’s probably five, six people in the world who had known at that point. I remember I felt in this total bubble of privacy that then was going to just explode somewhat. But then you hang up and you go and you do the play and you go to bed and you wake up the next morning and you’re like, ‘Oh, f--k. We’ve got to get going.’ [laughs] So I think that’s when the breath began being held and you hold on for dear life.
You only made your film debut three years ago, had you ever done a stunt on screen before? I had done one fight scene before. This was a bit of a step up [laughs]. And, to be totally fair, independent budgets don’t really accommodate the safety of actors, generally speaking. So we’d kind of just wing it and hope that the other actor doesn’t punch you in the face. But we had a great stunt team on this.
LIVE24-SEVEN.COM
You look incredible in this. You know you are going to get a lot of questions about how many chicken breasts you had to eat and stairs you had to climb to get those thighs. But apart from the phsical regime, what were the more challenging aspects of Lucious’ emotional journey? Well, I don’t think the two things are separated, actually. It’s like when you read the script, you go, ‘In reality, how would this person survive?’ And I had this, like, naive idea at the start where I was like, ‘I’m maybe going to just play a gladiator that kind of looks normal.’ [laughs] But that’s not going to cut it because I think Lucius, I always saw him like a dog, like somebody who would just scrap his way to survival. And I think psychologically the thing that I wanted to focus on is why that is the case.
INTERVI EW PAUL ME SCAL
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116
