“The character of Denzel Washington In Gladiator II is very close to Trump. “He who expresses himself thus is none other than Ridley Scott himselfthe director of the Hollywood peplum which is currently a hit at the box office.
In Gladiator IIDenzel Washington plays a handsome arms dealer, former gladiator, who plots to control Rome. His character, Macrinus, is based on a real historical figure. But director Ridley Scott says Macrinus looks a bit like a certain modern-day politician. And you wouldn’t have to look far to find his double in real life.
In explaining the character’s history (I promise, no spoilers in what follows), Ridley Scott told the Hollywood Reporter : “Macrinus was a prisoner of war, probably in a North African state, and was taken to Rome, probably as a gladiator. He survived. He was released. He started making wine and bread. He became a very wealthy merchant who sold everything to the Roman armies, food, oil, wine, fabrics, weapons, everything. He had perhaps a million men spread across Europe. So he was a billionaire at the time, so why wouldn’t he have had ambitions for the throne? He’s also a gangster, a smart gangster. It creates chaos and it is from chaos that it can evolve.”
Denzel Washington himself said of the character: “He tries to use everyone. He uses his mother, he uses his own children; he has already used his soul, he has none left. He’s in bed with the devil.” The 70-year-old actor, whose stunning performance is the subject of huge buzz at the upcoming Oscars, also made headlines for saying he shared a kiss with a man for a scene, kiss that was cut from the film (the original cut of the film was nearly four hours long, Scott said). Later, Ridley Scott clarified that the kiss was performed during a rehearsal but was ultimately not filmed, while Washington clarified that it was more of a “kiss” and that the commotion around this moment was just “much ado about nothing”.
Gladiator II has now been showing in France for more than ten days and stars Paul Mescal and Pedro Pascal, alongside Denzel Washington, in this highly anticipated sequel to Ridley Scott’s peplum, twenty-four years after the first film awarded by an Oscar in 2000, with Russell Crowe.
