Like father, like son.
The new Gladiator II trailer simply dropped on-line, and with it comes a significant reveal: Lucius (Paul Mescal) is, the truth is, the son of Maximus (played by Russell Crowe in the first movie), and never Lucius Verus I, as he was made to imagine his complete life. The revelation has main implications for each movies, giving heightened that means to all of the Maximus lore proven in promos for the sequel to date.
In the trailer under, his mom, Lucilla (played in each movies by Connie Nielsen), reveals the information as he readies for a battle in the Colosseum. But Mescal knew of his character's paternity from his first talks with director Ridley Scott. “He mentioned it in the talk, but then it's an affronting thing to see it written on the page, and [to have] that responsibility fall on your shoulders is interesting,” he tells Entertainment Weekly.
Aidan Monaghan/Paramount; DreamWorks/Courtesy Everett
While his parentage is rarely explicitly revealed in 2000's Gladiator, the seeds of the concept that he may be Maximus's son are actually there. After all, Lucilla and Maximus had been identified lovers in the previous, and Maximus and Lucius share a particular second in the movie the place it is clear the little boy (played by Spencer Treat Clark) appears to be like as much as the acclaimed warrior. Even nonetheless, Mescal says he was shocked when he realized the information: “Oh, absolutely. I was like, ‘Holy s—.'”
While he admits that the legacy inherent in the reveal is “inescapable,” he did not really feel prefer it modified a lot about his strategy to the character himself. “The screenplay does a lot of that work for you in terms of the rubbing the dirt between the hands, the kind of DNA, and the genetics that Lucius inherits,” he says. “So I kind of tried to park that to one side because ultimately, where Lucius is coming from at the start of the film, he has a very different journey than Maximus does. And I was hoping that whatever DNA and even just the physical gestures was going to be one part of, and a kind of small part of, the performance. But then what I tried to do is figure out exactly who Lucius was and where those differences lay between Lucius and Maximus.”
The sequel reveals that Lucius had been despatched away from Rome as a toddler by his mom for his safety. But when the tyrannical emperors who now lead Rome conquer his new residence, he's captured and, like his father, compelled to turn out to be a gladiator. Now resentful of Rome and his mom, Lucius enters the Colosseum to get revenge and fulfill his future.
The trailer additionally contains a extra in-depth take a look at the motivations of Denzel Washington's character, Macrinus, a robust businessman and gladiator proprietor, as effectively as extra clues to the connection between Pedro Pascal's General Acacius and Lucius.
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Gladiator II hits theaters on Nov. 22.
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