Denzel Washington teases “fun” ‘Gladiator II’ character: “He’s in bed with the devil”

Denzel Washington has been discussing his character in Gladiator II – a former gladiator turned rich arms dealer.

Washington was in attendance at an exclusive early screening of the Ridley Scott sequel on Friday night (October 18) alongside co-stars including Paul Mescal, Connie Nielsen and Fred Hechinger, and spoke about his character Macrinus in the Q&A.

“He’s misunderstood. He’s a nice fellow,” he began, per The Hollywood Reporter. “He’s trying to use everybody. He’d use his mother, he’d use his own children; he’s already used up his soul, so he didn’t have any left. He’s in bed with the devil.”

The two-time Oscar winner also explained that Scott made working on the movie easy by building lifesize sets when they shot in Malta, saying: “When you would walk around, you were in Rome, and it seemed like 10,000 extras and horses. It was make-believe, it was play, it was fun; just put the gear on, put the dress on and go, that’s the way I look at it. I’m putting this dress on, these rings and I’m going crazy.”

Gladiator II is set over two decades after the events of the first movie, which came out in 2000, and Mescal plays Lucius Verus, the son of Maximus – the main character of the first film. He said in the Q&A, “I suppose Lucius represented something to me that I had never done before, like somebody who is quite front-footed through the two-and-a-half hours. I hadn’t gotten to do that before, and it’s something that has been kind of latently within me, something that’s more full of something that people haven’t seen.”

Discussing how the sequel is coming 24 years after the first Gladiator movie, Mescal said it “wears the legacy of the first film with intense pride and honour, but I think it takes it in a direction that drives that honour and respect through the roof,” and continued: “I think it’s made by the only man who could ever touch it, in Ridley Scott, and personally, as his friend and his long admirer, I think it’s one of his finest pieces of work that I’ve seen in recent times. I’m so utterly proud of his work, my work, and everybody sitting here and everybody who’s not sitting here. I don’t think anybody can take that away from us.”

The reaction to the screening was overwhelmingly positive, with critics and fans alike praising the sequel for living up to expectations – and the performances of Washington, Mescal and Pedro Pascal were particularly popular.

The movie will be released on November 15 in the UK and November 22 in the US – the same day as Wicked, leading some fans to call the doubleheader ‘Glicked’ as a homage to last summer’s ‘Barbenheimer’.

Meanwhile, Scott recently hinted at a third Gladiator film, saying, “I’ve lit the fuse. The ending of Gladiator II is reminiscent of The Godfather, with Michael Corleone finding himself with a job he didn’t want, and wondering, ‘Now, Father, what do I do?’ So the next [film] will be about a man who doesn’t want to be where he is.”

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