Paul Mescal wants Russell Crowe to pick up the phone.
The Normal People star, 28, plays Crowe’s on screen son Lucius in the forthcoming sequel to Ridley Scott’s 2000 historical epic Gladiator, which won Crowe an Oscar for Best Actor upon release.
Mescal admitted he didn’t speak with Crowe, 60, while working on Scott’s sequel Gladiator II, which has been blasted by historians as “total Hollywood bulls***”.
When asked by Pedestrian.TV whether Crowe had any advice for him ahead of his Roman role, Mescal said: “We haven’t spoken to each other.”
However, the All of Us Strangers actor’s co-star Fred Hechinger, who plays the villain Emperor Caracalla in Gladiator II revealed he had chatted to Crowe.
“I spoke with him for my role though,” Hechinger jokingly gloated, to which Mescal added: “Yeah, Russell and Fred are fast friends.”
When told he should give Crowe some Gladiator tips instead, Mescal quickly replied: “Absolutely not. He needs no tips on this.”
It comes shortly after one leading historian shared their verdict on the forthcoming Gladiator sequel.
The trailer features a number of dramatic sequences, including one scene in which the Colosseum in Rome is flooded and filled with sharks.
Dr Shadi Bartsch, a classics professor at the University of Chicago with degrees from Princeton, Harvard and UC Berkeley told The Hollywood Reporter the idea is “total Hollywood bulls***.”
“I don’t think Romans knew what a shark was,” added Dr Bartsch, although she did acknowledge that the Romans really did fill the Colosseum with water in order to hold naval battles in the arena.
A more blatant anachronism is the scene in which a Roman noble is depicted reading a morning newspaper while sipping tea in a cafe. The printing press would not be invented for another 1,200 years.
“They did have daily news – Acta Diuma – but it was carved and placed at certain locations,” explained Dr Bartsch. “You had to go to it, you couldn’t hold it at a cafe. Also, they didn’t have cafes!”
Scott has generally given such criticisms of his movies short shrift. When his biopic Napoleon was released last year, historian Dan Snow went viral with a TikTok video pointing out historical inaccuracies.
One of the issues Snow included was the idea that Napoleon “came from nothing,” as is quoted on the poster. “His dad was, in fact, an aristocrat,” Snow remarked.In a profile of Scott for The New Yorker, the matter of Snow’s criticisms was discussed. According to the publication, when Scott was asked for his view on Snow’s qualms with the trailer, his response was succinct and simple: “Get a life.”
Gladiator II will be released in cinemas on 15 November 2024.
