A hidden noble forced into slavery fights for honor and vengeance in Director Ridley Scott’s epic action drama, Gladiator II.
In the follow-up to his 2000 epic, Gladiator, Scott’s film finds an older Lucius becoming a gladiator himself after his home is conquered and his wife is killed by the corrupt and tyrannical emperors who now lead Rome. With rage in his heart and the future of the empire at stake, he looks to the past to find the strength and honor needed to return the glory of Rome to its people.
On November 17, after the DGA membership screening in Los Angeles, Scott discussed the making of Gladiator II during a Q&A moderated by Director Fede Alvarez (Alien: Romulus).
Although the film is filled with action, during the conversation Scott spoke broke it down to the basics and spoke about how he would shoot a simple scene of two people at a table.
“I take my hat off to cameramen who have to put up with me and eleven cameras because I know exactly where I’m going to put them because I’ve preconceived the scene. If an actor says, ‘Why can’t I do this?’ I say, ‘Listen, let’s see your way first, then you can see mine.’ And frequently I’ve sat there they act it out, and it’s usually two guys standing in the middle of the room talking. And they said, ‘That’s really boring.’ And I said, ‘That’s really boring.’ So, there is a geometry to every scene even if the scene is simply two people sitting at a table or a lot of movement in the scene or a punch up. You have to have that in your head so I always go in knowing exactly what I want. By knowing exactly what I want, there is a freedom to that. So, I can then encourage people to put in ideas as well.”
Scott’s other directorial credits include the feature films All the Money in the World, Alien: Covenant, Exodus: Gods and Kings, The Counselor, Prometheus, Robin Hood, Body of Lies, American Gangster, A Good Year, Kingdom of Heaven, Matchstick Men, Hannibal, G.I. Jane, White Squall, 1492: Conquest of Paradise, Black Rain, Someone to Watch Over Me, Legend, Blade Runner, Alien and The Duellists; the movie for television The Vatican; and episodes of the television series Mogul, The Informer, Half Hour Story, Adam Adamant Lives! and Thirty-Minute Theatre. He was nominated the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film for his 2015 feature The Martian and for DGA and Academy Awards for his features Black Hawk Down, Gladiator and Thelma & Louise. A member of the Guild since 1971, in 2017 Mr. Scott was honored with the DGA Lifetime Achievement Award in Motion Picture Direction.