A quartet of stars, headed by Paul Mescal and Denzel Washington, were on hand Monday in Tokyo to celebrate “Gladiator II” and its master filmmaker Ridley Scott.
Mescal, who plays the gladiator Lucius, said that what separates “Gladiator II” from “Gladiator” is that Scott, who also directed the original 2000 film, “had more resources at his disposal and put them to great use.”
“There’s no better director for focusing on an audience’s sense of entertainment than Ridley Scott,” he said.
That sense of crowd-pleasing occasion has clearly been on the minds of the Tokyo festival programmers and Japanese distributors. The Tokyo International Film Festival labeled “Gladiator II” as a centerpiece screening and explained that this is the first time that a major Hollywood film has ever played in this fashion mid-way through the event.
Similarly, movies often release in Japan months later than other territories, but with “Gladiator II” local distributor Towa Pictures is not wasting any time. It will play in Japanese cinemas from Nov. 15.
The cast in Tokyo, which also included Connie Nielsen and Fred Hechinger, were keen to talk about craft.
Washington, who plays Lucius’ mentor as well as an arms dealer with designs on the Imperial throne, said: “Obviously, we were in the hand of a master filmmaker so there was a complete trust in what he what he is doing.”
Washington, who had worked with Scott previously on the 2007 “American Gangster,” added that Scott “allowed us to be responsible for what we were doing,” while handling the technical side of a complex shoot. “There were so many angles, so many cameras, I had no idea where the view was going to be, but it didn’t matter.” With Scott in charge, he said, “It freed you to have fun.”
Nielsen, who plays the aristocratic mother of Mescal’s gladiator — the son she had with Russell Crowe’s general-turned-gladiator in the first film — said “it was incredible to watch a master like Ridley Scott use subtle, but unmistakable ways of showing the change that has happened to Rome and the Empire [in the 20 years since the events of ‘Gladiator’].”
She added, “He finally had the technology to actualize his vision, and I could see that he was enjoying every moment of making the visuals come alive for the audience.”
Hechinger, who plays the corrupt Emperor Caracalla, added that working with eight to 12 cameras on the Scott set “was a completely unique experience as an actor.” “What’s unusual and amazing about how Ridley makes a film is he doesn’t break all the action up into these discrete points,” Hechinger said. “Instead, he looks at every sequence as a continuous event — all on the same day in the same moment.”
When a fan asked Mescal how he could sustain the energy needed for the intense action sequences, he said: “It’s the dream of dreams to be standing there. You don’t need a second invitation to feel the adrenaline. It wasn’t lost on me that I was standing in the middle of the Coliseum being directed by Ridley Scott and working with so many people that I utterly adore. So, if that’s not going to give you adrenaline, you should probably think about another profession.”
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