Ridley Scott has reflected on the painstaking process of how he and Joaquin Phoenix prepared for their forthcoming film, Napoleon.
The filmmaker and actor have collaborated on a film about the French emperor, played by Phoenix. Also starring Vanessa Kirby as Napoleon’s wife, Joséphine de Beauharnais, the movie will explore the leader’s ambitions of world domination and the darkness surrounding his volatile marriage.
In a new joint interview, Scott shared some insight into the intense preparation that took place ahead of filming, including talking Phoenix through the specifics of each scene.
“He’ll come in, and you’re f***ing two weeks’ out, and he’ll say, ‘I don’t know what to do,’” Scott told Empire of Phoenix.
“I’ll say, ‘What?!’ ‘I don’t know what to do.’ Oh God. I said, ‘Come in, sit down.’ We sat for 10 days, all day, talking scene by scene. In a sense, we rehearsed. Absolutely detail by detail.”
Phoenix is known for portraying dark and psychologically challenging characters. His portrayal of the title role in the 2019 DC Comics thriller Joker was highly acclaimed and won the actor his first Academy Award.
Scott and Phoenix previously worked together on the 2000 blockbuster epic Gladiator. Phoenix played Commodus in the film, the adversary of Russell Crowe’s Maximus Decimus Meridius.
Ridley Scott and Joaquin Phoenix— (Getty)
“I had such an incredible experience working with Ridley on Gladiator, and I was so young. It was my first big production,” Phoenix told the magazine. “I really yearned for that experience again, or something similar.”
For the Walk the Line star, the mental requirements of playing Napoleon provided enough of a challenge for him to combine with Scott again, as well as a sense of “nostalgia” from their previous collaboration.
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“He’s approached me about other things in the past,” Phoenix explained, “but nothing that felt like it would be as demanding for both of us. And so I really liked the idea of jumping into something with Ridley that was going to be that.”
Looking back at Phoenix’s work in Gladiator, Scott praised the actor’s emotional performance. “My heart went out to him,” the director said. “He is the best player of damaged goods.”
The full interview will be in the Thursday 3 August issue of Empire.
Napoleon is slated for release in cinemas on 22 November.
