The Irish actor Paul Mescal revealed details about his physical preparation for Gladiator II during an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
On the show, he described his first meeting with the personal trainer assigned for the film, an experience that marked the beginning of his physical transformation for the paper.
“He arrives at the hotel and tells me: ‘Can we go up to your room?‘” he said. “I tell him yes, and he tells me: ‘In underwear please‘. And I’m like, ‘So that’s how this works.'”
The 28-year-old artist went on to describe how the coach silently examined him: “He’s looking at me with his head tilted and says, ‘There’s a canvas to work with here.'”
After this initial evaluation, the professional provided you with specific numbers about how much weight you should gain on each part of your body.
Mescal explained that The training lasted for “two or three months”a period during which his diet consisted of “every chicken imaginable.”
The actor, who plays Lucius in the film, he admitted that he currently no longer maintains the same physical condition he achieved during filming. “Oh, how the mighty have fallen,” he joked. “This is not what there is at the moment, unfortunately”.
The role’s challenges included intense combat scenes that Paul Mescal described as the most physically demanding of his career.
“I love how different the fights are from each other, and I’m really proud of how you can feel the buildup of violence in your body as the movie progresses,” he noted.
He added: “The fights are not like an elegant sword game. Towards the end, it’s about survival. It’s like your body is going to accumulate all this punishment. And it’s about maintaining that as the movie progresses.”
The director Ridley Scott finally managed to finalize the sequel to Gladiator after multiple attempts over 25 years. The main obstacle was that the protagonists of the first film, Russell Crowe and Joaquin Phoenix die at the end of itwhich complicated the development of a coherent sequel.
“You always think: ‘Should we kill them or not?’” the 86-year-old filmmaker reflected for The Hollywood Reporter about his decision in 1999. “But seemed to be the most dramatic, what becomes memorable because it really is about immortality.”
The new film takes place two decades after the original and follows Lucius, the son of Maximusrole he plays Paul Mescal. The cast includes Pedro Pascal like General Marcus Acacius and Denzel Washington like Macrinus, a former slave turned gladiator mentor.
Washington immediately accepted when Scott contacted him: “Ridley is one of the best, so he called and I said, ‘When?’” the Oscar-winning actor revealed to the aforementioned media.
Scott revealed that he chose Mescal after seeing him in the series Normal People. Before him, actors like Timothée Chalamet and Miles Teller were considered for the role.
“No other actor came close,” said the producer. Doug Wick. Filming took place in Morocco and Malta during the summer of 2023, with extreme temperatures leading to Mescal to experience “a little borderline sunstroke from time to time.”
“You can’t get enough water into your body in that heat. But I was lucky, nothing serious,” commented the actor.
Gladiator II was released on November 22, coinciding with the premiere of the film adaptation of Wicked. Besides, Ridley Scott already anticipates plans for a third installment of the saga.
“There is a soft footprint” was all he commented on the development of the potential trilogy, while Mescal expressed his interest in working with the director again: “It’s an idea that would excite me.”
