“I’m having too good a time.
Is that what you’re telling me?”
The only side he’s on is his own.
Denzel Washington as Macrinus in ‘Gladiator II’.Aidan Monaghan/Paramount
“Everybody keeps saying that.
Is that what you’re telling me?'
Aidan Monaghan/Paramount
“The filmmaker,” he says without skipping a beat.
Paul Mescal and director Ridley Scott on the set of ‘Gladiator II’.Aidan Monaghan/Paramount
“He’s just one of the best.
It’s the kind of work I want to do.
It’s as simple as that.”
Gladiator IIpicks up nearly 20 years after the events of the first film.
In the sequel, he returns to Rome as a gladiator after being captured by a plundering Roman army.
But there was one aspect of becoming the nobleman that did surprise him: wearing a dress.
I had to learn to walk around with a dress on.
I had to learn how to walk with sandals on,” he notes.
Did it give him a new appreciation for life in Ancient Rome?
“It gives me an appreciation for wearing a dress,period,” he says with a laugh.
“I tripped a couple of times in the beginning, but I became one with my peers.”
He wants to be king.
He wants to be the most powerful.
He wants everyone under his foot.
He wants to rule the world, and he doesn’t care what it takes to get it.
He’ll use anyone or anybody."
And that’s what makes the character so much fun to play.
“He really didn’t have to do any heavy lifting.
The boys are down there fighting, being chased by hippos.
I’m just sitting up in this tent, twirling my goblet.Thatsfun.
Washington doesn’t want to take all of the fun credit, though.
“I was having fun, but [Scott] shaped it that way as well.
And he knows exactly what he wants to hear walking out of the theater.
“I hope they’re just yelling, ‘Oh my goodness, did you see that, man?’
I hope their conversations are like, ‘You know what?
We need to turn around and go back in there.’
It is a good day at the movies.”
Want more movie news?
