WEBVTT - Gladiator: Everything You Didn't Know 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:03.920 Too Much Information is a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:09.200 --> 0:00:12.280 Hello everyone, and welcome to Too Much Information, the show 0:00:12.320 --> 0:00:14.880 that brings you the secret histories and fascinating facts and 0:00:14.920 --> 0:00:18.319 figures behind your favorite TV shows, music, movies, and more. 0:00:18.680 --> 0:00:22.640 We are your two sandal class sword brandishing soldiers of Scintilla. 0:00:23.480 --> 0:00:25.880 You know, there's not that many synonyms for like trivia. 0:00:25.960 --> 0:00:28.320 Yeah, I've been learning that now that we're on episode 0:00:28.320 --> 0:00:29.840 one sixty. 0:00:29.520 --> 0:00:32.120 Nine, Yeah, Jordan. Today we're talking about a turn of 0:00:32.120 --> 0:00:35.839 the century classic, turn of the millennium classic that conquered 0:00:35.880 --> 0:00:39.920 its its own genre simply by naming itself that. That's right. 0:00:40.400 --> 0:00:44.120 We're talking about Ridley Scott's Gladiator, I guess, henceforth known 0:00:44.120 --> 0:00:49.440 as Ridley Scott's Gladiator why or Gladiator one, because now 0:00:49.440 --> 0:00:50.440 there's Gladiator two. 0:00:51.120 --> 0:00:54.040 I don't think Gladiator two is much of a competitor. Frankly, 0:00:54.280 --> 0:00:59.240 Gladiator I, the Phantom Menace, Gladiator and the Furious Glad 0:00:59.360 --> 0:01:00.800 Glad in fears. 0:01:00.600 --> 0:01:02.640 It should be it should be Gladiator too Glad and 0:01:02.720 --> 0:01:06.959 Furious too Glad too furious Gladiators. 0:01:07.200 --> 0:01:08.920 Take a page from the Alien playbook. 0:01:09.120 --> 0:01:12.479 Yeap the dollar sign. Now that movie, this, this movie's 0:01:12.520 --> 0:01:13.480 gonna flop so hard. 0:01:13.640 --> 0:01:15.800 I know my friend saw it last night and said 0:01:15.800 --> 0:01:18.959 it was a giant mess. Yeah, c G I was 0:01:19.360 --> 0:01:20.959 the worst thing that ever happened to Ridley. 0:01:21.040 --> 0:01:23.520 God love him, but this movie shows why he's he 0:01:23.560 --> 0:01:26.880 should be kept on a leash with that stuff. Anyway. Uh, 0:01:27.120 --> 0:01:31.120 that's right, we're talking about Really, Scott's The Gladiator. There's 0:01:31.160 --> 0:01:35.759 a sequel. I've heard It's bad. Live your truth. Ridley 0:01:35.760 --> 0:01:38.120 Scott still has shooters out there on Twitter. They've come 0:01:38.160 --> 0:01:44.480 after me? Really? Oh god? Yeah, may friends of the pod? No, no, 0:01:44.560 --> 0:01:46.360 friends of the pod. It was over the whole Alien 0:01:46.400 --> 0:01:51.040 franchise cluster. So I don't know. Man, be careful dissenting 0:01:51.240 --> 0:01:56.800 on Twitter about about the Rids the ridsler. Uh does 0:01:56.840 --> 0:01:57.880 that do anything anything? 0:01:57.880 --> 0:01:58.080 There? 0:01:58.160 --> 0:02:04.520 Skiddy badivity, Skimmitty's Skimbitty Scott skibbe Lee Scott Wow, already 0:02:04.520 --> 0:02:05.080 off the rails. 0:02:05.880 --> 0:02:06.000 Uh. 0:02:06.880 --> 0:02:09.400 The og remains a high water mark for the sword 0:02:09.440 --> 0:02:12.640 and sandal genre, unless, of course, you prefer three hundred, 0:02:12.919 --> 0:02:16.000 in which case that's fine, but you're probably listening to 0:02:16.000 --> 0:02:18.799 the wrong podcast. Go check out something that involves human 0:02:18.840 --> 0:02:22.200 growth hormone and MMA, and. 0:02:22.480 --> 0:02:25.200 You've probably plugged your headphones into the wrong orifice. Yeah, 0:02:25.360 --> 0:02:26.960 just hit yourself in the head with the hammer a 0:02:26.960 --> 0:02:31.120 few times. That's sad. People will yell at me. I 0:02:31.160 --> 0:02:33.280 saw three hundred the Day Open my friends. 0:02:33.320 --> 0:02:35.240 Really yeah, I mean I do remember watching that movie 0:02:35.320 --> 0:02:36.960 in college and it ended and we were all like, 0:02:37.240 --> 0:02:44.280 should we start working out crazy anyway? All right, we're 0:02:44.280 --> 0:02:46.960 gonna just we're gonna dive into this. Jordan, hit me 0:02:47.000 --> 0:02:51.280 with your gladiator you're glad's memories. You're glad, You're glad memory. 0:02:51.360 --> 0:02:54.760 Hit me with the gladiator stick. Oh, I'm glad to 0:02:54.760 --> 0:02:55.160 be here. 0:02:57.320 --> 0:02:58.239 Yeah, this is a movie. 0:02:58.360 --> 0:03:01.079 I recall my dad really like it, And when you're twelve, 0:03:01.200 --> 0:03:03.880 sometimes that's all it takes you to think something's really cool. 0:03:04.000 --> 0:03:06.200 I saw it with my dad. Yeah, you know, we 0:03:06.280 --> 0:03:08.200 got boomer dads. I'm sure there was a lot of 0:03:08.280 --> 0:03:10.160 Spartacus memories. 0:03:09.760 --> 0:03:12.400 That went into that much Gladiator movies with our dads. 0:03:12.600 --> 0:03:12.880 Yeah. 0:03:13.000 --> 0:03:14.560 Yeah, how many times are we going to get the 0:03:14.960 --> 0:03:16.360 airplane joke in here? 0:03:16.400 --> 0:03:18.959 Just enough? I trust you to be tasteful in the edit. 0:03:20.400 --> 0:03:23.480 There are admittedly a lot of pitfalls the historical dramas, 0:03:23.520 --> 0:03:25.120 because I feel like you either run the risk of 0:03:25.120 --> 0:03:29.440 coming across as self serious and overblown and therefore ridiculous 0:03:29.600 --> 0:03:33.000 or boring as hell. And this movie is charitably neither, 0:03:33.360 --> 0:03:35.960 maybe more towards the overblown and ridiculous. I haven't seen 0:03:36.000 --> 0:03:38.400 it in a while. I have to admit I love 0:03:38.480 --> 0:03:40.360 Gladiator as a kid, and bear in mind I was 0:03:40.400 --> 0:03:42.280 a weird kid because it was the last chance to 0:03:42.320 --> 0:03:45.280 see a bunch of my beloved sixties hell raiser actors 0:03:45.360 --> 0:03:48.600 on film, because part of that I'd only seen them 0:03:48.600 --> 0:03:51.440 in like old sixties movies. But suddenly you had Richard Harris, 0:03:51.800 --> 0:03:56.440 Oliver Reid, and David Hemmings being cool on screen. So 0:03:56.520 --> 0:03:57.920 that was really thrilling to me. 0:03:58.040 --> 0:04:00.480 I mean, I wouldn't say that David Hemmings is cool 0:04:00.480 --> 0:04:02.800 in this no. I think the most you could say 0:04:02.800 --> 0:04:04.680 about Richard Harris is that he is. 0:04:04.640 --> 0:04:08.240 A lot alive in it barely and didn't even clear 0:04:08.280 --> 0:04:10.920 that bar by dying midway through. 0:04:11.440 --> 0:04:13.800 I do actually like I mean, it's we'll get into 0:04:13.840 --> 0:04:17.120 it later. It is sad, but I do actually quite 0:04:17.360 --> 0:04:21.440 like Oliver Reed in this role. Oliver It's crazy. Yeah, 0:04:21.600 --> 0:04:24.640 I forgot so crazy to me that you know David 0:04:24.640 --> 0:04:28.640 Hemmings from all his British style from blow Up. Yeah, 0:04:28.680 --> 0:04:30.440 But I only know him. I mean I mostly know 0:04:30.520 --> 0:04:33.040 him from the from Deep Red, the Dario Argento film 0:04:33.080 --> 0:04:35.200 that he's in the Jallo Jallo film. 0:04:35.480 --> 0:04:39.240 I forgot like after the sixties, he just was a 0:04:39.320 --> 0:04:43.400 character actor in terrible sci fi movies for like thirty years, Right, 0:04:43.480 --> 0:04:47.520 he was almost Alex in a clockwork Orange and that's where. 0:04:47.360 --> 0:04:50.160 Two roads diverged in a wood. 0:04:50.279 --> 0:04:52.760 Yeah, life would have been really different for him had 0:04:52.800 --> 0:04:55.560 that worked out or maybe not. Anyway, where were we 0:04:55.880 --> 0:04:57.599 Maybe I'm wrong. I know we kind of touched on 0:04:57.600 --> 0:04:59.480 this with the whole three hundred point, but I feel 0:04:59.480 --> 0:05:02.279 like the this movie did the whole sword and sample 0:05:02.360 --> 0:05:06.000 thing so well that there really hasn't been one to 0:05:06.000 --> 0:05:10.279 top it since, like at least for like pure drama, 0:05:10.720 --> 0:05:13.680 certainly not by Ridley, and he took so many goddamn 0:05:13.720 --> 0:05:15.680 stabs at it, you know, Kingdom of Heaven. 0:05:15.920 --> 0:05:19.720 Immediately after this, there was King Arthur h Yeah, there's 0:05:19.760 --> 0:05:21.760 a there's like a there were a few others that 0:05:21.800 --> 0:05:24.560 I saw dredged up as the kind of aftermath of this, 0:05:24.720 --> 0:05:26.760 and none of them. I mean, people will go to 0:05:26.800 --> 0:05:28.920 bad for Kingdom of Heaven, because, like I said earlier, 0:05:28.960 --> 0:05:33.239 Ridley has shooters out there, but I don't know, not 0:05:33.240 --> 0:05:37.240 not like unanimously hailed. You know, it's it's it is 0:05:37.279 --> 0:05:40.200 all of those things. It is self serious, it is overblown. 0:05:40.360 --> 0:05:42.960 It is not boring as hell though, because it's got 0:05:42.960 --> 0:05:45.599 all that great action. And you know, Ridley, God bless 0:05:45.680 --> 0:05:47.120 him for as much of pain in the ass as 0:05:47.120 --> 0:05:53.080 he might be personally and professionally. Man can move a camera, 0:05:53.839 --> 0:05:56.720 you know. And and it's great. I mean, it's Russell. 0:05:57.240 --> 0:05:59.880 I like Russell Crowe more than I did at the time. 0:06:00.240 --> 0:06:02.640 I think he he's like the best thing he's ever 0:06:02.680 --> 0:06:08.839 done is The Nice Guys with Ryan Gosling, No right 0:06:08.920 --> 0:06:09.760 as the other Guys. 0:06:09.839 --> 0:06:13.200 Oh yeah, The Nice Guys is like a Shane blackfil 0:06:13.279 --> 0:06:15.200 I think it's written by Shane Black. That is, like 0:06:15.400 --> 0:06:17.240 I sort of flew under the radar, but it is 0:06:17.279 --> 0:06:23.159 one of the genuinely most like beloved, non franchise, one 0:06:23.200 --> 0:06:25.679 off comedy movies at least on the pockets of Twitter 0:06:25.720 --> 0:06:26.080 that I'm in. 0:06:26.160 --> 0:06:29.440 And it's great. He's it's him and Ryan Gosling and 0:06:29.480 --> 0:06:33.080 he just they it's hilarious. It's a great film. But yeah, 0:06:33.160 --> 0:06:35.480 at the time, I firmly remember this being the era 0:06:35.640 --> 0:06:39.000 of like Russell crow sucking. I really didn't realize the 0:06:39.040 --> 0:06:42.200 foam throwing thing was like a full five years after this, 0:06:42.240 --> 0:06:46.120 because I've kind of into the Gladiator the Gladiator thing. 0:06:46.240 --> 0:06:48.640 But yeah, I don't know. I watched this recently and 0:06:48.680 --> 0:06:54.039 it still goes that's it. Watch it or don't. I 0:06:54.040 --> 0:06:55.400 don't care. 0:06:55.720 --> 0:06:57.800 I was reading some New Yorker profile I think it 0:06:57.839 --> 0:07:00.680 was New Yorker on Ridley Scott recently. I didn't realize 0:07:00.680 --> 0:07:05.440 that his brother Tony called him from the bridge shortly 0:07:05.480 --> 0:07:08.840 before he jumped. Oh Jesus, that was a fact I 0:07:08.920 --> 0:07:09.720 learned the other day. 0:07:09.800 --> 0:07:12.640 That hasn't left my mind. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, look, 0:07:12.680 --> 0:07:14.440 I've read a lot of I've read the whole making 0:07:14.440 --> 0:07:16.360 of Blade Runner. There's a great book that's out there 0:07:16.400 --> 0:07:18.040 about that, and I've read a lot about that, and 0:07:18.080 --> 0:07:23.080 I've read multiple set things about Ridley and I don't 0:07:23.120 --> 0:07:26.240 particularly love the direction that he took the Alien franchise in, 0:07:26.400 --> 0:07:29.240 and there's a lot of caveats that I have about him. 0:07:29.240 --> 0:07:32.920 But great movie. Great movie. Let's talk about Gladiator. So 0:07:33.160 --> 0:07:36.280 from the acts of violence, creative and otherwise that Russell 0:07:36.320 --> 0:07:39.520 Crowe brought to the set to legendary British hell raiser 0:07:39.560 --> 0:07:44.000 all over reads tragic demise and tragic comic demise, to 0:07:44.080 --> 0:07:47.080 the thousands and thousands of pieces of arms and armor 0:07:47.120 --> 0:07:49.800 they made for the film, to the perils of live 0:07:49.960 --> 0:08:00.680 tiger wrangling. Here's everything you didn't know about Ridley Scott's Gladiator. 0:08:01.000 --> 0:08:04.600 Of course, it was an Italian. The story of Gladiator 0:08:04.640 --> 0:08:09.720 begins with David Franzoni, a screenwriter best known for writing 0:08:09.840 --> 0:08:16.280 basically Amistad, Amistad, Amistad Stad. I thought it was okay. 0:08:16.440 --> 0:08:18.760 He wrote Amistad, and then he wrote Gladiator, and then 0:08:18.800 --> 0:08:21.840 not much else. Grew up in Vermont, got into war 0:08:21.920 --> 0:08:24.840 movies thanks to his dad, who was a veteran, Like 0:08:25.000 --> 0:08:27.720 a load of people from that generation that it was 0:08:27.840 --> 0:08:31.360 John Ford and the Westerns and Roger Corman and like 0:08:32.360 --> 0:08:35.240 his World War II sort of stuff, The Hell's Angels 0:08:35.240 --> 0:08:38.880 and the flying you know all that right, ringing a bell. 0:08:38.880 --> 0:08:40.800 I'm talking out in my ass there Hell's Angels. 0:08:40.800 --> 0:08:42.560 I thought was Howard Hughes. 0:08:42.679 --> 0:08:45.040 Oh that is Howard Hughes. Let me take that back. 0:08:46.600 --> 0:08:51.000 You could be wrong, It's okay. No. Franzoni, growing up 0:08:51.000 --> 0:08:54.520 in Vermont, developed an interest in war movies, likely informed 0:08:54.520 --> 0:08:56.839 by his dad, who was a veteran. He name dropped 0:08:56.840 --> 0:09:00.439 films by John Ford, Roger Corman and he wants. Described 0:09:00.480 --> 0:09:03.120 the experience of seeing all quiet on the Western Front 0:09:03.200 --> 0:09:05.720 as quote like being hit with a hammer. 0:09:05.960 --> 0:09:07.559 I'm trying to figure out if that's a good thing 0:09:07.679 --> 0:09:09.240 or not gets your attention. 0:09:09.040 --> 0:09:11.240 At least I was gonna say, depends what kind of hammer, 0:09:11.400 --> 0:09:18.960 but and where and when and how long? How and pooh, 0:09:19.120 --> 0:09:21.400 the five journalistic questions are being struck by a hammer 0:09:22.679 --> 0:09:25.120 if we have none of them. Yeah, you won't learn 0:09:25.160 --> 0:09:28.880 that in jay school. That said, Franzoni did not pursue 0:09:28.880 --> 0:09:31.240 his dream of filmmaking until a good while later. First, 0:09:31.320 --> 0:09:34.959 he majored in paleontology at the University of Vermont, as 0:09:35.000 --> 0:09:37.360 so many young men did before him, though at least 0:09:37.480 --> 0:09:41.280 white boomer men. Franzoni took time off following graduation and 0:09:41.400 --> 0:09:43.960 decided to travel. He arrived in Europe, where he about 0:09:44.000 --> 0:09:47.520 a cheap motorcycle and took off across Europe and Western Asia. 0:09:48.120 --> 0:09:51.000 It was in Baghdad where, whilst living in a yurt, 0:09:51.160 --> 0:09:53.360 he traded a book on the Irish Revolution with an 0:09:53.360 --> 0:09:56.679 Australian woman in return for those about to die a 0:09:56.720 --> 0:10:00.320 book about the Roman gladiator games. That whole thing sounds 0:10:00.360 --> 0:10:05.479 like an extended Matt Berry riff. It was in Baghdad. 0:10:05.880 --> 0:10:08.439 We're living in a yurrop. I traded a book on 0:10:08.480 --> 0:10:12.280 the Irish Revolution with an Australian woman and returned for 0:10:12.360 --> 0:10:16.480 those about to Die a book about of a Romania game. 0:10:18.040 --> 0:10:21.000 There's a lot of like mid century man's stories in 0:10:21.040 --> 0:10:23.640 this episode, things that never could happen now. 0:10:24.440 --> 0:10:27.680 Yeah, yeah, I just walked in there with my shoes, 0:10:28.040 --> 0:10:30.439 holding my shoes in my hand, and the guy said, 0:10:30.600 --> 0:10:32.120 I like your shoes and how you hold them in 0:10:32.120 --> 0:10:35.319 your hand. Would you like to direct a movie? It's 0:10:35.400 --> 0:10:40.280 like the story of every mid century man. Anyway, friend 0:10:40.320 --> 0:10:43.480 Zone was hooked. He told y'a who everywhere I went 0:10:43.520 --> 0:10:46.880 in Europe there were arenas. Even as I went east, 0:10:46.960 --> 0:10:49.640 going through Turkey. I began to think to myself, this 0:10:49.720 --> 0:10:53.120 must have been a hell of a franchise. Spoken like 0:10:53.160 --> 0:10:58.760 a true American, because yeah, Hollywood screenwriter brain there. Then, 0:10:58.800 --> 0:11:01.640 in his words, I'm more in India. I decided I 0:11:01.679 --> 0:11:05.760 wanted to be a screenwriter. Despite this, Franzoni's first script 0:11:05.800 --> 0:11:09.080 in Hollywood was the exact polar opposite of a historical epic. 0:11:09.400 --> 0:11:11.440 He sold a treatment that would become nineteen eighty six 0:11:11.559 --> 0:11:14.480 is Jumpin' Jack Flash, which is a spy comedy starring 0:11:14.480 --> 0:11:17.920 Whoopee Goldberg and directed by Penny Marshall in her theatrical 0:11:18.000 --> 0:11:21.320 film directorial debut. There's a little bar trivia question for you. 0:11:22.120 --> 0:11:25.520 The whole thing was your typical first screenplay sold nightmare. 0:11:26.040 --> 0:11:28.600 This movie was originally intended as a starring vehicle for 0:11:28.720 --> 0:11:31.280 Shelley Long, you know, in her Get Me the Hell 0:11:31.320 --> 0:11:35.679 Out of Cheers phase, but Goldberg hated the film's director, 0:11:36.360 --> 0:11:41.280 who were just peeling with nesting matroysh cadals of trivia here. 0:11:41.720 --> 0:11:45.720 Jumpin Jack Flash's director was Howard Ziefe, who's an ad 0:11:45.760 --> 0:11:49.040 guy best known for writing alcas Seltzer's That's a Spicy 0:11:49.080 --> 0:11:53.400 Meat de Ball TV spot. And then the studio hated 0:11:53.440 --> 0:11:56.960 this guy's dailies, so they bought in Penny Marshall, who 0:11:57.040 --> 0:12:00.560 sat down with producer Joel Silver, who was also in this, 0:12:00.600 --> 0:12:02.960 and they rewrote a bunch of Frianzoni script They brought 0:12:02.960 --> 0:12:05.080 in a bunch of other writers, so the whole thing 0:12:05.120 --> 0:12:08.480 was a debacle for the guy. His next project, though, 0:12:08.559 --> 0:12:11.520 was nineteen ninety two's Citizen Khan, which is an HBO 0:12:11.600 --> 0:12:15.480 biopic of framed attorney Roy Kahan played by James Woods. 0:12:15.920 --> 0:12:18.880 In a truly one to one ratio bit of casting 0:12:19.960 --> 0:12:23.959 a real life scumbag to an actor scumbag. This earned 0:12:24.000 --> 0:12:26.960 him one of those famed Cable Ace Awards that we 0:12:27.160 --> 0:12:29.600 constantly hear about but that are not real and don't 0:12:29.640 --> 0:12:31.600 mean anything. But he won a Peabody. 0:12:31.720 --> 0:12:32.160 That's real. 0:12:32.240 --> 0:12:35.079 It's pretty real, that's real. They got nominated for an Emmy. 0:12:35.679 --> 0:12:38.680 Oliver Stone then commissioned Franzoni to write The Mayor of 0:12:38.720 --> 0:12:42.000 Castro Street, which is about the assassinated San Francisco councilman 0:12:42.040 --> 0:12:45.280 Harvey Milk. That film, eventually, many years later, became two 0:12:45.280 --> 0:12:49.040 thousand and Eight's Milk, starring Sean Penn. So from there, 0:12:49.080 --> 0:12:52.120 Franzoni became the historical guy. He wrote a script about Shakespeare, 0:12:52.200 --> 0:12:55.120 he wrote about one about George Washington, and he was 0:12:55.280 --> 0:12:59.559 supposedly tapped to write Ralph Nader's life story, but all 0:12:59.559 --> 0:13:01.240 he had to say about that to the La Times 0:13:01.280 --> 0:13:04.120 was that doing research, he decided Nader was a crank, 0:13:04.440 --> 0:13:06.400 that's it, and then didn't pursue it. 0:13:06.440 --> 0:13:09.920 Further, can you imagine like people lining up to see 0:13:10.080 --> 0:13:16.439 the Ralph Naders story like a Bohemian Rhapsody style? Who 0:13:16.480 --> 0:13:20.840 would play Ralph Nader? I guess in that era Dustin Hoffman. Yeah, 0:13:21.960 --> 0:13:24.479 Ralph Nader's got a lankiness to him. 0:13:24.559 --> 0:13:27.360 She's still alive, Ralph Nader. Yeah. I'm trying to think 0:13:27.400 --> 0:13:29.920 of the you know, he's created. Ralph Nader's creating such 0:13:29.960 --> 0:13:33.360 a like Lovecraftian blank in my mind, Like trying to 0:13:33.400 --> 0:13:37.480 contemplate him is just giving me nothing but horrible, endless 0:13:37.520 --> 0:13:41.000 blackness that I don't I don't even know casting. I 0:13:41.000 --> 0:13:44.240 wouldn't even shadow cast, fantasy cast him. Kevin Costner. 0:13:44.280 --> 0:13:48.880 It's kind of James Woods if you google him, all right. 0:13:48.960 --> 0:13:52.280 Frienzoni's fortunes changed when he wrote the script for Steven 0:13:52.320 --> 0:13:56.400 Spielberg's I'm Astad before that film was ever completed, though 0:13:56.880 --> 0:13:58.920 or based on the strength of it at the timeline 0:13:58.920 --> 0:14:02.160 gets fuzzy Anyway, Works, which was then Steven Spielberg's new 0:14:02.360 --> 0:14:06.800 new studio, offered Franzoni a three picture deal. Amistad wasn't 0:14:06.840 --> 0:14:12.520 actually like a huge, chart conquering box office success, but 0:14:13.120 --> 0:14:17.360 and it was pilloried for its historical inaccuracy, but people 0:14:17.480 --> 0:14:19.680 seem to think of it fondly, and I certainly remember 0:14:19.720 --> 0:14:23.040 it being a prestige historical piece of the era. The 0:14:23.160 --> 0:14:26.640 La Times noted in their review of Abishtad that Frenzoni's 0:14:26.680 --> 0:14:31.160 script was praised for its facile, if occasionally hamhanded, synthesis 0:14:31.200 --> 0:14:34.800 of historical sources and for its unflinching description of the 0:14:34.840 --> 0:14:38.080 whrrors of the slave trade. Newsmax called it the feel 0:14:38.120 --> 0:14:41.120 good movie of the year, a laugh a minute, edge 0:14:41.120 --> 0:14:45.480 of your seat, thrill ride, wacky for the whole family. 0:14:47.640 --> 0:14:51.600 Variety called it FAFO. For his next pick with DreamWorks, 0:14:51.760 --> 0:14:55.560 Franzoni dug out his old concept for a gladiator focused movie, 0:14:55.680 --> 0:14:58.400 and he pitched Spielberg. And this was the entirety of 0:14:58.440 --> 0:15:01.280 the process that he recalled to The La Times. I 0:15:01.280 --> 0:15:03.840 get a call from Stephen's office. You got two days 0:15:03.840 --> 0:15:05.840 to come up with a pitch. I walk in and 0:15:05.880 --> 0:15:08.280 Stephen goes, David, you want to do a gladiator movie 0:15:08.280 --> 0:15:14.080 for DreamWorks. Yeah, ancient gladiators, Yeah in Rome, ancient Rome, Yeah, 0:15:14.240 --> 0:15:18.200 in the coliseum. Yeah. Okay, he says, that was it. 0:15:18.440 --> 0:15:22.160 I said yeah, four times, that was it. That makes 0:15:22.200 --> 0:15:29.640 me sad and mad. Yeah yeah, yeah, also ancient gladiators 0:15:29.640 --> 0:15:34.360 as opposed to American gladiators. Oh right, right right with 0:15:34.560 --> 0:15:43.479 drawn blaze and laser and charger and the rest the aristocrats. 0:15:46.520 --> 0:15:49.760 By the new millennium, Hollywood's rich tradition of ancient epics 0:15:49.840 --> 0:15:53.080 was well established, particularly by filmmakers of Spielberg, Franzoni, and 0:15:53.120 --> 0:15:57.280 Ridley Scott's age. Arguably the Golden Age of gladiator films 0:15:57.280 --> 0:16:00.360 began with films like Henry Costers The Robe, which I'm 0:16:00.360 --> 0:16:03.160 not familiar with, and ces B. De Mill's The Ten Commandments, 0:16:03.480 --> 0:16:06.440 which pushed the Roman Empire through Judeo Christian lens in 0:16:06.520 --> 0:16:08.600 nineteen fifty three and fifty six. 0:16:09.080 --> 0:16:12.080 Tomill's Ten Commandments had also been filmed in nineteen twenty three, 0:16:13.000 --> 0:16:16.280 I think also happened to Ben Herd. There's two of 0:16:16.280 --> 0:16:18.640 these that were like shot in like Silver Age and 0:16:18.680 --> 0:16:20.720 then Golden Age or whichever the ages were. 0:16:21.400 --> 0:16:24.000 All these sword and sandal epics of the fifties were preceded, 0:16:24.000 --> 0:16:27.360 of course, by Stanley Kubrick Spartacus in nineteen fifty That 0:16:27.400 --> 0:16:29.960 was like the movie that kind of made him starring 0:16:30.000 --> 0:16:33.440 a barrel chested. Kirk Douglas as a gladiator who started 0:16:33.440 --> 0:16:37.000 a slave revolt. Say it with me now, rapist. Oh 0:16:37.160 --> 0:16:39.520 that wasn't what I was going to go with. I 0:16:39.560 --> 0:16:41.720 am spartakus, But that works too. 0:16:42.440 --> 0:16:44.280 Yeah, he raped Natalie would. 0:16:44.240 --> 0:16:45.800 Yeah, allegedly always dead. 0:16:46.080 --> 0:16:49.160 Finally, kind of how old was he that made me 0:16:49.200 --> 0:16:55.440 believe in god? Kirk Douglas living till one hundred and decreptitude? 0:16:55.520 --> 0:16:56.520 Was he one O four? 0:16:56.840 --> 0:17:02.200 No? Just shy of one O four? One hundred and three? Wow? Wow? Yep, rapist, 0:17:02.360 --> 0:17:04.880 He's dead and in hell? Hashtag dead and in hell. 0:17:07.080 --> 0:17:10.119 That is a new That's something I've noticed cropping up 0:17:10.160 --> 0:17:12.159 a lot in our last bunch of episodes. 0:17:13.280 --> 0:17:16.760 Well, it goes back to the Warrens and the Omenyville. 0:17:16.800 --> 0:17:21.080 Hohrr guy, Oh you're right, trace the loure back to that. Yes, yes, yes, yes. 0:17:21.359 --> 0:17:23.800 There's also nineteen fifty one's quo wattis? 0:17:23.880 --> 0:17:24.120 I think? 0:17:24.240 --> 0:17:26.639 Is how you pronounced that? Because you don't pronounce v's 0:17:26.680 --> 0:17:29.440 in Latin. It's woe. It's like w It's the one 0:17:29.480 --> 0:17:33.760 that I remember from Latin, starring Robert Taylor and Debor Kerr. However, 0:17:33.880 --> 0:17:36.720 the high budget flops of nineteen sixty three is Cleopatra, 0:17:36.880 --> 0:17:40.120 famously starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in nineteen sixty four, 0:17:40.200 --> 0:17:43.520 Is The Fall of the Roman Empire dented the genre's momentum, 0:17:43.600 --> 0:17:46.920 making it fertile ground for parody. In nineteen sixty six, 0:17:47.000 --> 0:17:48.560 Is A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the 0:17:48.600 --> 0:17:53.960 Forum starring Zero Mostelle with music by Stephen Sondheim. And 0:17:54.080 --> 0:17:57.760 also Fellini's Satrakhan in nineteen seventy, which focused on the 0:17:57.800 --> 0:18:01.960 declining decadence of the Empire. Truly weird movie. Never seen it. 0:18:02.080 --> 0:18:04.240 I'm not a big Felini guy. I should start. You 0:18:04.280 --> 0:18:05.000 would enjoy it? 0:18:05.720 --> 0:18:06.840 Okay? Cool by. 0:18:06.840 --> 0:18:09.639 In eighteen seventy nine, Monty Python's Life of Brian was 0:18:09.720 --> 0:18:11.960 using the trappings of the sword and sandal ethics to 0:18:12.040 --> 0:18:15.560 mock both Christianity and the Roman Empire, and the year 0:18:15.600 --> 0:18:19.760 following that, nineteen eighty, the disastrous spoof Airplane memorably used 0:18:20.000 --> 0:18:24.480 gladiator movies as shorthand for a pilot's queer coded conversation 0:18:24.840 --> 0:18:25.920 with a young boy. 0:18:26.119 --> 0:18:27.280 What's the actual close? 0:18:27.400 --> 0:18:29.000 Yeah? Do you like movies about gladiators? 0:18:29.080 --> 0:18:31.639 Jimmy, There's it's a series of it's a series of 0:18:31.680 --> 0:18:34.919 It's g and masterclass and editing, because it's like all 0:18:34.960 --> 0:18:37.680 this other mad cat is happening, and it just goes 0:18:37.720 --> 0:18:42.280 back to keeps cutting back to Peter Graves's pilot character asking, Uh, 0:18:43.000 --> 0:18:47.399 He's like what eight. Yeah, kid's name is Joey, just 0:18:47.480 --> 0:18:52.080 like Joey. Do you like movies about gladiators? Joey? Have 0:18:52.119 --> 0:18:55.440 you have you ever seen a grown man naked? Joey? 0:18:56.040 --> 0:18:59.600 Have you ever been in Turkish prison? Do you like 0:18:59.600 --> 0:19:01.400 to hang a men's locker rooms? 0:19:02.200 --> 0:19:07.480 Anyway, It's such a great kind of random bit. 0:19:08.160 --> 0:19:11.119 I have no idea what they what the logic behind 0:19:11.160 --> 0:19:14.879 it was. That's what makes a truly perfect mad cap bit. Yeah, like, 0:19:15.000 --> 0:19:19.040 let's make this guy creepy but in this very specific 0:19:19.080 --> 0:19:22.200 way and weave it into the editing and overall pace 0:19:22.240 --> 0:19:26.240 of this movie and not addressed. No, they don't lambshade it. Yeah, incredible, 0:19:26.240 --> 0:19:27.520 incredible stuff. Great work. 0:19:28.760 --> 0:19:30.919 All this to say that in the late nineties, the 0:19:30.920 --> 0:19:34.960 Gladiator of film's influence on culture had waned Ridley Scott 0:19:34.960 --> 0:19:37.240 acknowledged in the book Gladiator. The making of the Ridley 0:19:37.280 --> 0:19:40.239 Scott epic Spartacus was forty years old, and Ben hur 0:19:40.440 --> 0:19:42.760 was even before that. These movies were part of my 0:19:42.840 --> 0:19:45.520 cinema going youth, But at the dawn of the New millennium, 0:19:45.840 --> 0:19:48.200 I thought this might be the ideal time to revisit 0:19:48.320 --> 0:19:51.320 what may have been the most important period of the 0:19:51.400 --> 0:19:54.159 last two thousand years. Debatable. 0:19:55.080 --> 0:20:00.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean it's Ridley Man. He talked 0:20:00.240 --> 0:20:01.760 like that just about Breakfast. 0:20:02.000 --> 0:20:04.040 You know, is he the one that the people made, 0:20:04.080 --> 0:20:07.960 the that his crew made the t yes Governor, Yes, yes, Govenor. 0:20:08.240 --> 0:20:10.200 Yeah yeah, what's the fame it? I think that was 0:20:10.240 --> 0:20:12.240 actually on Blade Roy. Let me let me check that out. 0:20:12.480 --> 0:20:15.600 I think it was Blade Well been Aliens. It was 0:20:15.640 --> 0:20:19.320 an interview that he gave about Blade Runner. He gave 0:20:19.359 --> 0:20:21.439 an interview and he said that he preferred working with 0:20:21.480 --> 0:20:24.280 British crews because you could give them orders and they'd 0:20:24.280 --> 0:20:28.919 say yes Governor. And then the the American crew on 0:20:29.000 --> 0:20:31.760 Blade Runner printed up T shirts that said yes Governor, 0:20:32.000 --> 0:20:35.600 my ass and then Scott, rather than diffuse the situation, 0:20:36.359 --> 0:20:39.959 uh and every other British person on the set printed 0:20:40.000 --> 0:20:43.480 up their own T shirts that read xenophobia sucks. 0:20:43.880 --> 0:20:47.680 Not a great rebuttal but okay, but a fair point. 0:20:47.840 --> 0:20:49.720 Is he's one of those guys man where people are 0:20:49.760 --> 0:20:52.639 like seemed just short of making him like a David o' 0:20:52.680 --> 0:20:57.360 russell like this man, or a Freedkin like. Nobody wants 0:20:57.440 --> 0:21:00.000 to say that he's like an outright monster, but people 0:21:00.400 --> 0:21:05.359 all these use all these euphemisms like demanding. It's no 0:21:05.520 --> 0:21:09.119 secret that a Scott set is a charged one, you know, 0:21:09.280 --> 0:21:11.520 like all they write around it and such. He's got 0:21:11.520 --> 0:21:14.440 to have I mean, he's got some Jews, but he's 0:21:14.480 --> 0:21:17.639 got to have dirt on someone. Anyway, This is probably 0:21:17.640 --> 0:21:20.240 a good time to talk about the original book Daniel P. 0:21:20.520 --> 0:21:24.919 Mannix is nineteen fifty eight Those About to Die, republished 0:21:24.920 --> 0:21:27.760 in two thousand and one as The Way of the Gladiator. 0:21:27.800 --> 0:21:29.840 You may remember that quote appearing in the movie, said 0:21:29.880 --> 0:21:34.400 by Tigris of Gall in the film's penultimate fight scene. 0:21:34.720 --> 0:21:37.639 He says, we who are about to die, salucchu Moron. 0:21:37.760 --> 0:21:41.679 Tigris of Gall later Manix as one of those biographies that, 0:21:41.840 --> 0:21:44.199 as mentioned earlier, were only available to white men in 0:21:44.240 --> 0:21:46.840 the twentieth century. He was born to a naval family, 0:21:46.880 --> 0:21:48.920 and he was set to follow in that tradition until 0:21:48.920 --> 0:21:51.600 he flopped out of training so badly that his commandant 0:21:51.600 --> 0:21:54.400 wrote a letter to his father saying he is definitely 0:21:54.400 --> 0:21:57.960 not officer material. Now. This so traumatized the young man 0:21:58.119 --> 0:22:00.240 X that he spent the next two months in bed. 0:22:00.720 --> 0:22:02.720 Though in nineteen thirty one he earned a degree in 0:22:02.760 --> 0:22:06.040 journalism from the University of Pennsylvania after failing out of 0:22:06.119 --> 0:22:09.680 zoology first, Mannix did end up working for the Navy 0:22:09.760 --> 0:22:11.840 during World War II, where he was tasked with creating 0:22:11.880 --> 0:22:16.760 training films. After that, Wikipedia notes helpfully that Mannix's civilian 0:22:16.840 --> 0:22:21.280 career could be briefly described as engaging in various adventurous activities, 0:22:21.359 --> 0:22:24.399 which he filmed for lectures or wrote about in magazines 0:22:24.440 --> 0:22:27.640 and books. One such example was the series of Collier's 0:22:27.760 --> 0:22:30.840 articles that he turned into nineteen fifty one's Step Right Up, 0:22:31.400 --> 0:22:34.960 a book about Mannix's experience allegedly traveling with a carnival 0:22:35.000 --> 0:22:37.359 after college, where he supposedly learned how to be a 0:22:37.400 --> 0:22:41.760 sword swallower, fire eater, stage magician, escape artist, mind reader, 0:22:41.800 --> 0:22:46.880 and lock picker, working under the stage name The Great Zadma. 0:22:46.920 --> 0:22:49.800 Another big thing for Mannix was hunting. He enjoyed hunting 0:22:49.840 --> 0:22:53.520 creatures great and small, specializing in ancient or traditional methods 0:22:53.600 --> 0:22:56.960 of doing so, like a blowgun, boomerang, or bow and arrow. 0:22:57.200 --> 0:23:02.600 He also trained hawks and hounds, and also hunted with 0:23:02.640 --> 0:23:08.439 a trained cheetah, otter, seabird, cormorant, all of those things 0:23:08.560 --> 0:23:13.480 rule And then somehow, after doing all this magically funded 0:23:13.560 --> 0:23:15.920 both he and his wife, who is like his chief 0:23:15.920 --> 0:23:21.000 creative collaborator, would create movies, lectures, articles, books. One of 0:23:21.000 --> 0:23:23.520 these was turned into an OSCAR nominated short called The 0:23:23.520 --> 0:23:26.640 Boy in the Eagle. Here's just a Wild Thing. Mannix 0:23:26.680 --> 0:23:31.840 witnessed a famous herpetologist person who studies reptiles, Grace Olive Wiley, 0:23:32.480 --> 0:23:35.160 die in real time in front of his eyes when 0:23:35.160 --> 0:23:37.719 she was fatally bitten by an Indian cobra at her 0:23:37.760 --> 0:23:39.400 house in nineteen forty eight. 0:23:40.600 --> 0:23:43.040 You know, I will say, and I'm being serious right now, 0:23:43.600 --> 0:23:47.200 I find this whole story very inspiring. Going from spending 0:23:47.240 --> 0:23:51.080 two months in bed to hunting with a trained cheetah, 0:23:51.160 --> 0:23:52.840 it is very Yeah, there's hope. 0:23:53.200 --> 0:23:56.919 Well, you know you can do anything with a strong 0:23:57.000 --> 0:24:02.679 spirit and a very old white military family connection and funding. Yes. 0:24:03.160 --> 0:24:07.080 Mannix wrote a lot on topics ranging from Frank l 0:24:07.240 --> 0:24:09.879 Baum in the World of Oz. Frank Olbaum wrote The 0:24:09.880 --> 0:24:13.600 Wizard of Oz. He wrote so much about Oz. Why 0:24:14.000 --> 0:24:17.920 this guy was wildly prolific. I mean, his Wikipedia page 0:24:17.960 --> 0:24:22.480 is endless. But apparently, other than animals and adventuring, his 0:24:22.480 --> 0:24:26.159 big thing was oz like how that story was developed 0:24:26.240 --> 0:24:27.679 or like fanfic. 0:24:28.200 --> 0:24:32.880 Just like compendium like omni books about it and writings 0:24:32.920 --> 0:24:33.480 about it. 0:24:33.640 --> 0:24:34.800 Weird, huh. 0:24:35.000 --> 0:24:40.200 Yeah. Also wrote a biography of Aleister Crowley That's that's sick. Yeah. 0:24:40.240 --> 0:24:43.480 His florid style and writing on historic topics was derided 0:24:43.520 --> 0:24:47.160 by real life historians. One Oxford historian and historical fiction 0:24:47.200 --> 0:24:50.080 writer called Those About to Die the worst novel ever 0:24:50.119 --> 0:24:54.760 written set in the ancient world, pretty unambiguous, but even 0:24:54.800 --> 0:24:57.440 without inspiring the basic script and idea of Gladiator. 0:24:57.520 --> 0:25:01.679 Mannix also wrote The Fox and the I know I 0:25:01.840 --> 0:25:04.080 buried that so deep I can't that's I would have 0:25:04.160 --> 0:25:05.679 led with that. Oh my god. He wrote it. 0:25:05.680 --> 0:25:08.240 He wrote it back in nineteen sixty seven, and it 0:25:08.320 --> 0:25:13.120 was in sort of prolonged development hell until nineteen eighty one, 0:25:13.160 --> 0:25:16.760 when it was released by Disney. The film adaptation was 0:25:16.840 --> 0:25:20.119 incredibly troubled. Disney Production purchased the rights to Manic's novel 0:25:20.119 --> 0:25:22.240 the same year it was published, in nineteen sixty seven, 0:25:22.840 --> 0:25:25.560 but work on the film adaptation didn't start until ten 0:25:25.640 --> 0:25:29.000 years later nineteen seventy seven, and at that time, then 0:25:29.040 --> 0:25:31.679 Disney CEO Ron Miller wanted to use the film as 0:25:31.680 --> 0:25:35.520 a vehicle for newer talents because the famous nine old 0:25:35.640 --> 0:25:38.639 men of Disney's animation, these were the pioneers of the studio, 0:25:38.720 --> 0:25:43.560 basically launched the division we're nearing retirement. Consequently, The Fox 0:25:43.560 --> 0:25:45.880 and the Hound would be the last film that Ollie Johnson, 0:25:46.000 --> 0:25:51.600 Frank Thomas and I can't say that name, Hooly Reitherman. 0:25:52.000 --> 0:25:54.520 You've got to be kidding me. Nope, who are some 0:25:54.600 --> 0:25:57.199 of the legends of Disney would ever work on? But 0:25:57.359 --> 0:26:00.480 arguments developed between Rutherman and the younger director of the film, 0:26:00.560 --> 0:26:04.639 Art Stevens. The younger team sided was Stevens, except for 0:26:04.760 --> 0:26:08.359 Don Bluth, who eventually walked out of Disney based on 0:26:08.440 --> 0:26:11.879 this whole kerfuffle, taking eleven others with him to form 0:26:11.880 --> 0:26:15.240 his own animation studio, which you would use to then 0:26:15.320 --> 0:26:21.600 traumatize millennials with movies like Lamb Before Time All Dogs 0:26:21.640 --> 0:26:24.720 Go to Heaven. I remember, his movies were distinctly sadder 0:26:24.760 --> 0:26:28.639 than Disney movies. Anyhow, this exodus forced Disney to bail 0:26:28.680 --> 0:26:31.240 on The Fox. In the Hound's original nineteen eighty release date, 0:26:31.680 --> 0:26:34.400 though it eventually premiered a year later in nineteen eighty one. 0:26:35.080 --> 0:26:39.760 To enormous success. Also deeply sad. That's the TMI promise, folks, 0:26:39.880 --> 0:26:42.520 we get from Gladiator to Fox and the Hound in 0:26:42.560 --> 0:26:47.359 one move, really and yeah, one degree of separation off 0:26:47.800 --> 0:26:53.200 blank check you rubes? How did this get made? Suck my? Anyway. 0:26:55.119 --> 0:26:58.359 David Franzoni finished his first draft in April of nineteen 0:26:58.440 --> 0:27:01.320 ninety eight, and about six months later the second draft, 0:27:01.359 --> 0:27:04.320 completed with help from John Logan, whose credits include the 0:27:04.440 --> 0:27:08.640 HBO film RKO two eight one, which Ridley Scott produced 0:27:09.000 --> 0:27:13.280 and Oliver Stones. Any Given Sunday was completed. And this 0:27:13.320 --> 0:27:16.840 is the last detail that you'll get about the actual script, 0:27:16.880 --> 0:27:18.920 because there were many writers brought in and then, if 0:27:18.920 --> 0:27:23.120 you believe many different parties, Ridley and Russell Crowe basically 0:27:23.119 --> 0:27:25.720 rewrote it on set. So it's so funny to me 0:27:25.760 --> 0:27:27.800 that David Franzoni got a three picture deal out of 0:27:27.840 --> 0:27:29.959 one script that he wrote, and his other most famous 0:27:30.000 --> 0:27:34.040 one had like charitably four other people writing it. 0:27:34.960 --> 0:27:35.120 Uh. 0:27:35.760 --> 0:27:39.400 Franzoni told Creative Screenwriting dot Com that he studiously ignored 0:27:39.440 --> 0:27:42.359 influences from the rich history of Hollywood sword and sandal flicks, 0:27:42.560 --> 0:27:45.800 instead looking to the nineteen sixties and early seventies doomed 0:27:45.800 --> 0:27:50.159 hero canon like Easy Writer, Five Easy Pieces, more films 0:27:50.160 --> 0:27:53.440 with easy in the title one such and Jack mcafoe 0:27:53.480 --> 0:27:56.600 of them, Yeah One Flew Over the Cougar's Nest, oh 0:27:56.640 --> 0:28:01.679 and nineteen seventy one's classic badass driving movie Vanishing Point. Unfortunately, 0:28:01.720 --> 0:28:03.720 there was a back and forth with the studios and 0:28:03.840 --> 0:28:06.760 with Scott and Crow once they were all brought on board, 0:28:07.000 --> 0:28:09.000 hence why the film is ultimately credited to not just 0:28:09.119 --> 0:28:12.880 David Franzoni, but John Logan and William Nicholson and I'm 0:28:12.920 --> 0:28:18.600 uncredited Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe. John and Williams's influences 0:28:18.600 --> 0:28:20.800 on the shooting drafts were indelible, but there were too 0:28:20.840 --> 0:28:24.880 many screenwriters involved, Franzoni said, although he ultimately blamed the studio, 0:28:25.440 --> 0:28:28.679 the big differences were between competing drafts, where the studio 0:28:28.800 --> 0:28:30.800 was trying to enforce their rules on how a hit 0:28:30.880 --> 0:28:34.080 movie was composed. Studio is one of the usual audience 0:28:34.119 --> 0:28:37.639 friendly stuff, such as happy endings and heroes triumphing over adversity. 0:28:38.200 --> 0:28:41.160 For example, Franzoni wanted to begin the movie with Maximus's 0:28:41.240 --> 0:28:45.760 death and then work backwards from there. Irascible King Ridley 0:28:45.800 --> 0:28:49.480 Scott came aboard without even seeing a script. Producer Walter 0:28:49.520 --> 0:28:52.520 Parks met with Scott, who then had just wrapped Gi 0:28:52.640 --> 0:28:56.240 Jane with Demi Moore, and simply pulled up a nineteenth 0:28:56.280 --> 0:29:00.000 century painting. Ridley Scott told Variety, I'm a very visual 0:29:00.200 --> 0:29:03.240 driven director. Walter Parks opened a picture of a painting 0:29:03.360 --> 0:29:08.440 called Pelisse Verso Latin with a turned thumb by a 0:29:08.440 --> 0:29:12.480 fellow called Jean Leon Jerome. It shows the armored man 0:29:12.520 --> 0:29:15.240 with the TUNEI fork that would kill You, standing over 0:29:15.240 --> 0:29:18.520 a netted victim, which is a perfect and poetic description 0:29:18.600 --> 0:29:22.160 of a painting of a gladiator. The armored man with 0:29:22.240 --> 0:29:25.480 the tune of fork that would kill you. He's looking 0:29:25.560 --> 0:29:26.880 up for Italians. 0:29:26.920 --> 0:29:30.720 See if that comes out. 0:29:32.680 --> 0:29:34.480 I want to Google translate that. I'll do it while 0:29:34.520 --> 0:29:38.760 you're reading. Um. He's looking up at a black marble wall, 0:29:38.800 --> 0:29:40.960 at this purple faced nero out of his mind on 0:29:41.120 --> 0:29:46.600 wine or water. Really, it's a weird dude. This is 0:29:46.600 --> 0:29:49.160 a weird quote. He's got a thumbs down and I 0:29:49.200 --> 0:29:50.520 stared at it for a moment, and it was like 0:29:50.560 --> 0:29:54.200 a flash. When you're experienced like me, you can do 0:29:54.280 --> 0:29:57.680 a little knee jerk flash decision and normally it's accurate. 0:29:58.040 --> 0:30:01.040 So I said, I'll do it. Park said, hang on, 0:30:01.280 --> 0:30:03.120 you don't know what the story is about. I said, 0:30:03.160 --> 0:30:05.400 I don't care. I'll do it, and that was it. 0:30:05.520 --> 0:30:08.120 I just want to observe that they got on dream 0:30:08.160 --> 0:30:11.840 Works by saying yeah four times, and they got Ridley 0:30:11.880 --> 0:30:14.800 Scott by showing them a painting, painting that they didn't do. 0:30:15.760 --> 0:30:19.800 Truly a blessed industry. Franzoni said that as he and 0:30:19.880 --> 0:30:22.560 Really discussed the film, they continued to ignore Hollywood's tradition 0:30:22.640 --> 0:30:25.320 of gladiator movies. He told Variety that some of the 0:30:25.320 --> 0:30:27.240 movies that Ridley and I watched and talked about were 0:30:27.240 --> 0:30:29.880 the aforementioned All Quiet on the Western Front and ladoce 0:30:30.040 --> 0:30:33.760 Vita and The Conformist. I don't know that film off 0:30:33.760 --> 0:30:35.520 the top of my head. The only Roman film I'm 0:30:35.520 --> 0:30:37.640 pretty sure Ridley looked at was satirra Con. 0:30:37.680 --> 0:30:41.080 As far as casting, Franzoni recalled the Yahoo Mel Gibson 0:30:41.160 --> 0:30:46.360 and Antonio Banderiz are both considered for the role of Maximus. 0:30:46.400 --> 0:30:49.480 Gibson would have been coming off Brave Heart and Benderris 0:30:49.520 --> 0:30:54.440 had probably just done Mask of Zorro. Oh yeah, these 0:30:54.520 --> 0:30:55.880 were just the regular Zorro. 0:30:56.240 --> 0:30:59.120 Yeah, I'm not mad at either of those. 0:30:59.840 --> 0:31:03.880 Yeah. Well I did Gibson do The Patriot before or 0:31:03.880 --> 0:31:05.440 after this? And it doesn't matter. We don't need to 0:31:05.440 --> 0:31:10.400 talk about him. 0:31:10.720 --> 0:31:12.920 There are a couple of actors that Steven Spielberg felt 0:31:12.960 --> 0:31:15.479 he needed to go to because of his relationship with them. 0:31:15.520 --> 0:31:17.880 This is Franzoni talking, and we were all sort of 0:31:17.880 --> 0:31:21.040 hoping they'd say no. One of those actors was apparently 0:31:21.080 --> 0:31:25.920 Tom Cruise, who I cannot imagine as a gladiator. I 0:31:25.960 --> 0:31:28.320 know he played a samurai and that was weird too. 0:31:29.160 --> 0:31:32.880 I just the greatest White Savior, like the most hilarious 0:31:32.880 --> 0:31:34.240 white Savior movie of all time. 0:31:34.400 --> 0:31:37.400 Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. Ultimately they went with Russell Crowe, 0:31:37.400 --> 0:31:40.600 who was then hot off of La Confidential, and those 0:31:40.600 --> 0:31:43.560 has been reported that Mel Gibson turned himself down on 0:31:43.600 --> 0:31:46.280 the basis of age. Ridley Scott told CNN in two 0:31:46.280 --> 0:31:49.360 thousand that Russell was really always my first choice. I 0:31:49.440 --> 0:31:52.440 noticed him maybe five years ago in Romper's Stomper, which 0:31:52.480 --> 0:31:54.120 I'm not familiar with, and I. 0:31:54.080 --> 0:31:56.120 Thought it was great. It's a title little, low budget 0:31:56.120 --> 0:32:01.520 movie about Australian Nazis. He is genuinely terrifying in it 0:32:01.560 --> 0:32:06.880 in the forties, and I thought he was someone worth watching. 0:32:08.280 --> 0:32:10.800 Russell crowetl Variety. I read the script and I thought 0:32:10.840 --> 0:32:11.760 it wasn't a. 0:32:11.640 --> 0:32:18.560 Movie devastating critical analysis. Then producer Walter Parks said, it's 0:32:19.320 --> 0:32:21.720 one hundred and eighty four a d. You're a Roman 0:32:21.760 --> 0:32:24.320 general and you're going to be directed by Ridley Scott, 0:32:25.120 --> 0:32:26.640 and that was enough for me to want to talk 0:32:26.680 --> 0:32:28.760 to Ridley doesn't think much. 0:32:29.360 --> 0:32:33.000 Yeah, I had a good pitch, so you want to 0:32:33.000 --> 0:32:36.719 punch this in Later. The Italian title of a painting 0:32:36.800 --> 0:32:38.960 called The Armored Man with the tune of Fork that 0:32:38.960 --> 0:32:42.600 Would Kill You is Luomo corrato conra fouquetta da tono 0:32:42.760 --> 0:32:46.840 key ti uchrebe. Sounds like a Jallo title that would 0:32:46.880 --> 0:32:52.440 have been directed by Yeah, Daria Argento. The pronunciation all 0:32:52.440 --> 0:32:55.560 these languages is so good. I just thought having I 0:32:55.560 --> 0:32:57.760 didn't take I did take Italian in college. At least 0:32:57.760 --> 0:32:58.640 I got something out of it. 0:32:58.760 --> 0:33:01.440 Gladiator cast was filled out by a roster of who's 0:33:01.480 --> 0:33:04.640 who British actors like Oliver Reed and Richard Harris, as 0:33:04.680 --> 0:33:11.920 well as jimmen holnsu Gemon Gimon Honsu fresh off Amistad, 0:33:12.520 --> 0:33:15.040 and there was also Connie Nielsen and also a very 0:33:15.080 --> 0:33:19.280 young Joaquin Phoenix. It's been said that Jennifer Lopez. I 0:33:19.320 --> 0:33:20.640 don't know why I said her name like that. It's 0:33:20.640 --> 0:33:22.400 been said that Jennifer Lopez was in the running for 0:33:22.440 --> 0:33:25.000 Nielsen's part, but producer Douglas Wick shot that. 0:33:25.000 --> 0:33:26.920 Down in Any of You with the Huffington Post in 0:33:26.960 --> 0:33:29.960 twenty twenty. It's funny because when I didn't throw this 0:33:29.960 --> 0:33:31.880 in anywhere else but Joaquin Phoenix when he got on 0:33:31.920 --> 0:33:34.800 set for when he met Johnny Cash for Walk the Line, 0:33:35.160 --> 0:33:39.880 Johnny Cash just started quoting Gladiator ride him. I could hello, 0:33:39.920 --> 0:33:44.600 walking Hello, Joaquin. I loved your work and Gladiator am 0:33:44.640 --> 0:33:50.200 I not merciful good stuff? I was gonna say, those 0:33:50.240 --> 0:33:54.840 who are about to die, salute you, those who are 0:33:54.880 --> 0:33:59.920 about to die Walking the Line, those are about to 0:34:00.120 --> 0:34:06.320 I in Reno just to watch them die. Anything there, 0:34:07.400 --> 0:34:14.080 no matter. It is a brainstorm, yes, and screenwriter friend zone. 0:34:14.080 --> 0:34:15.960 He said, my wife and I will never forget the 0:34:16.000 --> 0:34:16.600 day they sent. 0:34:16.520 --> 0:34:20.440 Over Waquin's audition tape because everyone was like Joaquin Phoenix. 0:34:20.520 --> 0:34:22.920 Isn't he some kind of stone or surf kid? The 0:34:22.960 --> 0:34:26.799 audition tape was a knockout. It was mind boggling. Jude 0:34:26.840 --> 0:34:29.239 Law was also in the running but got knocked out 0:34:29.239 --> 0:34:33.040 by said tape. That's so weird because he I never 0:34:33.080 --> 0:34:35.640 really thought of this until now. They both kind of 0:34:35.680 --> 0:34:36.280 look the same. 0:34:36.400 --> 0:34:39.480 Yeah, and Judlaw has that, you know, as he gained 0:34:39.480 --> 0:34:42.680 weight and drink drank more, he had that British tendency 0:34:42.719 --> 0:34:45.520 of all British men turning and lost some of his harea, 0:34:45.600 --> 0:34:48.360 that British thing were all men turn into Phil Collins, 0:34:48.120 --> 0:34:52.320 that the British face naturally wants to become a flat, 0:34:53.320 --> 0:34:57.319 a flat circle with little hair on top. But then 0:34:57.360 --> 0:34:58.799 he got back in control of it and got the 0:34:58.880 --> 0:35:01.120 jaw line back. But around this time he did have 0:35:01.160 --> 0:35:06.000 that sort of fay aristocratic mia from talent to mister 0:35:06.080 --> 0:35:08.440 Ripley that would have I think sold him as this. 0:35:09.480 --> 0:35:13.200 And then Gatica, I always think of him, and too 0:35:14.280 --> 0:35:14.759 kind of think I. 0:35:14.880 --> 0:35:17.480 Ever think about Gatka has when from his always study, 0:35:17.520 --> 0:35:20.799 when Charlie gets uh, he's trying to rabble rouse and 0:35:20.960 --> 0:35:24.000 instead of yelling Attica like in Dog Day Afternoon, he 0:35:24.040 --> 0:35:28.320 starts yelling Gatica the funniest throw ray jokes of all time. 0:35:29.239 --> 0:35:31.480 But even with this cast in place, the arguments of 0:35:31.600 --> 0:35:35.160 the script continued. Connie Nielsen weighed in obsensively with notes 0:35:35.200 --> 0:35:38.360 for her character. Those she wound up just correcting weird 0:35:38.400 --> 0:35:41.440 bits of anachronistic phrasing. I had a line where it 0:35:41.520 --> 0:35:46.160 just said the police state, and it's like, the police state. 0:35:46.400 --> 0:35:48.800 Do you want me to actually use that phrase or 0:35:48.840 --> 0:35:51.640 the phrase put it in a museum. I don't think 0:35:51.640 --> 0:35:53.880 at the time that people consider the word museum the 0:35:53.880 --> 0:35:55.920 same way we consider it a museum today. 0:35:56.880 --> 0:35:58.839 I you know, it's weird because I kept reading things 0:35:58.880 --> 0:36:01.120 about like in all these trivia, like Connie Nilssen was 0:36:01.160 --> 0:36:03.799 tapped for her extensive knowledge of Roman history, and I 0:36:03.840 --> 0:36:05.880 couldn't find if she was actually that or if she 0:36:06.000 --> 0:36:08.360 just went through the script, and like common sense was like, 0:36:08.440 --> 0:36:11.279 that's dumb. We wouldn't say that in Rome. But either way, 0:36:11.960 --> 0:36:15.080 salute to Connie Nilsen. 0:36:16.239 --> 0:36:18.880 These problems persisted even as the films one hundred and 0:36:18.920 --> 0:36:23.080 three million dollar budgeted production got underway. Russell Croll told 0:36:23.160 --> 0:36:26.240 Radio one and twenty sixteen we had twenty one pages 0:36:26.280 --> 0:36:27.600 when we started shooting. 0:36:28.160 --> 0:36:30.600 It's the dumbest possible way to make a film. 0:36:31.000 --> 0:36:33.239 At one point in time, Ridley gave the crew the 0:36:33.320 --> 0:36:35.680 day off because we simply didn't know what we were going 0:36:35.760 --> 0:36:39.760 to shoot the next day. That is my worst nightmare. 0:36:40.400 --> 0:36:42.279 Oh yeah, I mean that's horrifying. 0:36:42.520 --> 0:36:44.040 Yeah. According to David S. 0:36:44.120 --> 0:36:47.360 Cohen in his book Screenplays, freen Joni's original draft is 0:36:47.440 --> 0:36:50.920 quote different in almost every detail from the finished movie. 0:36:50.840 --> 0:36:53.279 Or Ridley Scott told Variety, in the first act the 0:36:53.280 --> 0:36:55.960 Battle of Germania, Russell was saying, what the bloody hell 0:36:55.960 --> 0:36:58.919 am I going to say? And I said, well, there's 0:36:58.960 --> 0:37:00.839 going to be a bird on a and you're going 0:37:00.880 --> 0:37:03.160 to look at this robin, and how ironic this robin 0:37:03.239 --> 0:37:04.800 is in the field of battle where we're going to 0:37:04.840 --> 0:37:08.200 see a blood bath. So he went okay, and he 0:37:08.239 --> 0:37:11.440 looks at this twig and imagines a robin. Then he said, 0:37:11.520 --> 0:37:13.719 but what the am I gonna say? I said, I 0:37:13.760 --> 0:37:16.600 don't know. Why don't you just say, hmm, morning, it 0:37:16.680 --> 0:37:21.920 looks like snow, which he does in the film. Again, 0:37:22.120 --> 0:37:25.520 I really like Russell Crowe for nice guys, but his 0:37:25.520 --> 0:37:29.760 his loudish Australianism is so godamn funny in every quote 0:37:30.360 --> 0:37:33.920 that he gave or excited to, saying in this movie. 0:37:34.840 --> 0:37:38.080 We need to talk about show you my passions. I 0:37:38.120 --> 0:37:39.680 feel like this is probably a good moment. 0:37:40.719 --> 0:37:45.920 Yes, my time, my all time favorite celebrity tweet. Russell 0:37:45.960 --> 0:37:47.719 crow is very funny on Twitter. At one point he 0:37:47.760 --> 0:37:51.000 was just live tweeting his entire workout thing because his 0:37:51.120 --> 0:37:53.560 weight yo yo's so much for rolls and everything. So 0:37:53.600 --> 0:37:55.879 there's like a string of tweets from twenty thirteen where 0:37:55.880 --> 0:37:59.040 it's just like leg press two hundred pounds, bicep two 0:37:59.080 --> 0:38:02.880 hundred pounds, forty minutes on treadmill, like all individually nested 0:38:02.960 --> 0:38:08.480 as replies. Let me find the aforementioned explain my passions tweet. 0:38:10.160 --> 0:38:14.600 Someone was tweeting at him. I believe about Oh yes so, 0:38:14.880 --> 0:38:21.120 Russell Crowe tweeted fight back, humiliation is news, denile of 0:38:21.120 --> 0:38:25.000 climate change, etri it over education. Media should not be 0:38:25.040 --> 0:38:30.360 the enemy of progress. Brendan McClaskey at T Bones thirty 0:38:30.360 --> 0:38:34.440 two on Twitter replied at Russell Crowe, li rural Hollywood. 0:38:34.760 --> 0:38:38.440 Just keep acting, pretty boy, leave politics alone. Russell Crowe 0:38:38.800 --> 0:38:42.400 at T Bones thirty two, Simple facts. I'm not pretty. 0:38:42.719 --> 0:38:45.960 I'm not your boy, you simpleton, Send me your address 0:38:46.000 --> 0:38:49.880 so I can visit you and explain my passions. No period. 0:38:52.480 --> 0:38:55.000 It is the perfect threat. I love it so much. 0:38:55.160 --> 0:38:57.360 There's like there's been a trend like on Twitter lately 0:38:57.560 --> 0:39:00.160 or I don't know lately pass a couple of year 0:39:00.239 --> 0:39:02.680 of variations on what if I came to your house 0:39:02.680 --> 0:39:06.759 with a weapon or something like that. But send me 0:39:06.840 --> 0:39:09.360 your address so I can visit you and explain my 0:39:09.520 --> 0:39:13.560 passions is the rawest line of all time. Anyway, Hell 0:39:13.640 --> 0:39:16.320 was I talking about? Uh oh yeah? So Ridley Scott, 0:39:16.400 --> 0:39:18.759 David Franzoni, Russell crow would sit together after day of 0:39:18.760 --> 0:39:21.200 filming as new bits of writing would come in, and 0:39:21.320 --> 0:39:24.400 over whiskey and cigars, they would just decide what was 0:39:24.480 --> 0:39:27.080 going to stay for the next day of shooting. These 0:39:27.200 --> 0:39:31.640 editing sessions occasionally crossed over into real on set disputes. 0:39:32.280 --> 0:39:35.200 Writer William Nicholson recalled to The Daily Mail that Russell 0:39:35.239 --> 0:39:37.640 Crowe said to him one day, your lines are garbage, 0:39:37.920 --> 0:39:39.640 But I'm the gradiest actor in the world, and I 0:39:39.680 --> 0:39:43.799 can make even garbage sound good. That's bad, I'm not 0:39:43.880 --> 0:39:47.279 dialed into it, Nicholson added. And the funny thing is 0:39:47.280 --> 0:39:51.320 that it's true extremely beta move. Okay, the lines weren't garbage, 0:39:51.320 --> 0:39:53.040 and he was a bit aggressive, but he is a 0:39:53.040 --> 0:39:56.200 great actor, so his occasional fits of arrogance didn't bother 0:39:56.320 --> 0:39:59.320 me at all. Richard Harris, who was playing Marcus Aurelius, 0:39:59.360 --> 0:40:02.160 was too old for the and took a more dignified route. 0:40:02.239 --> 0:40:04.640 He simply ignored all rewrites as they came in for 0:40:04.680 --> 0:40:07.760 his scenes and said the original lines. This all gets 0:40:07.800 --> 0:40:10.240 so much funnier to me when you learn that throughout 0:40:10.239 --> 0:40:14.720 filming Ridley Scott wore the red USS Alabama navy hat 0:40:14.760 --> 0:40:17.440 that Gene Hackman wears and cribs and tide. It was 0:40:17.480 --> 0:40:19.760 given to him by his brother Tony Scott, who directed 0:40:19.880 --> 0:40:22.120 that film. So in all these onset photos you can 0:40:22.160 --> 0:40:25.360 see Ridley Scott with his like veteran USS Alabama with 0:40:25.400 --> 0:40:29.360 the navy wings, like red trucker hat. This is all anyway. 0:40:29.600 --> 0:40:31.680 A Time magazine article from May of two thousand and 0:40:31.680 --> 0:40:34.239 went a little further detailing Crow's shenanigans on the set 0:40:34.239 --> 0:40:37.920 of Gladiator. They quoted a DreamWorks executive who said Russell 0:40:38.040 --> 0:40:40.600 was not well behaved. He tried to rewrite the entire 0:40:40.640 --> 0:40:42.719 script on the spot. You know, the big line in 0:40:42.760 --> 0:40:44.839 the trailer in this life for the next, I will 0:40:44.840 --> 0:40:47.879 have my vengeance. At first he absolutely refused to say it. 0:40:48.360 --> 0:40:50.239 He did a lot of posturing and put the fear 0:40:50.280 --> 0:40:53.319 of God into some people. Thankfully, Ridley never yelled. He 0:40:53.400 --> 0:40:55.960 was the voice of reason dealing with many unreasonable factors, 0:40:56.120 --> 0:40:58.840 not the least of which was his lead. There was 0:40:58.880 --> 0:41:02.800 an Entertainment Weekly article in which Crow remembered originally pushing 0:41:02.880 --> 0:41:06.000 Ridley Scott to let him voice Maximus with a Spanish accent, 0:41:06.120 --> 0:41:09.560 since the character is from the Iberian Peninsula and he's 0:41:09.600 --> 0:41:11.960 referred to thusly as the Spaniard, which is a bit 0:41:12.000 --> 0:41:15.880 of historical inaccuracy. Ridley Scott pushed back and asked for 0:41:15.920 --> 0:41:19.799 the generic British you know received pronunciation style accent, which 0:41:19.840 --> 0:41:23.160 Crow said ended up as Royal Shakespeare Company, two pints 0:41:23.200 --> 0:41:27.839 after Lunch. As I mentioned earlier, this is sort of 0:41:27.880 --> 0:41:31.239 the ground zero or assent for I guess it really 0:41:31.280 --> 0:41:34.080 started with La Confidential, where he plays like a like 0:41:34.120 --> 0:41:39.160 a muscle bound passionate La police Detective. But this is 0:41:39.200 --> 0:41:41.120 all in the on ramp bleeding up to South Park's 0:41:41.239 --> 0:41:44.720 depiction of Russell Crowe as having a show called Russell 0:41:44.760 --> 0:41:47.920 Crowe's fighting round the world, which is just that a 0:41:48.040 --> 0:41:51.279 very cartoonish Australian accent and Russell Crowe just travel log 0:41:51.320 --> 0:41:54.600 style but just getting into fights. The phone throwing thing 0:41:54.640 --> 0:41:56.880 is at one point in New York he'd like literally 0:41:57.160 --> 0:41:59.799 hawked a desk phone at a clerk, I believe, and 0:41:59.920 --> 0:42:02.560 was arrested for it. But also from that time magazine 0:42:02.600 --> 0:42:06.080 article is the quote a hard drinking perfectionist Crow got 0:42:06.120 --> 0:42:09.520 into brawls with villagers on one occasion and laid such 0:42:09.560 --> 0:42:12.400 waste to his rented villa in Morocco that the caretaker 0:42:12.480 --> 0:42:16.360 protested to Ridley Scott saying he must leave. He's violating 0:42:16.400 --> 0:42:21.680 every tenant of the Quran. Another hilarious story about Crowe, Sorry, 0:42:21.680 --> 0:42:25.120 one more, well, a couple more, Sorry, two more. Russell 0:42:25.120 --> 0:42:28.760 Crowe once made reference to George Clooney having quote sold 0:42:28.800 --> 0:42:32.680 out when Clooney was doing then espresso commercials. George Clooney 0:42:32.680 --> 0:42:35.720 supposedly didn't take kindly to this, and ward traveled about 0:42:35.719 --> 0:42:39.880 this through Hollywood to Russell Crowe. Russell Crowe's apology to 0:42:39.960 --> 0:42:43.799 Clooney was a mail package that included a CD of 0:42:43.880 --> 0:42:47.719 Russell Crowe's band thirty odd Foot of Grunts, a book 0:42:47.760 --> 0:42:51.799 of Russell Crowe's poetry, and handwritten note saying he had 0:42:51.800 --> 0:42:55.880 been misquoted. Fro did supposedly improvise the line at my 0:42:55.960 --> 0:42:59.440 signal unleash hell in the Battle of Germania, which is 0:43:00.040 --> 0:43:03.040 incredibly raw, so we can call it a wash. He 0:43:03.080 --> 0:43:05.719 also did the maximum speech. He also asked to write 0:43:05.760 --> 0:43:08.000 a speech when the guy says like, what is going 0:43:08.000 --> 0:43:09.920 home mean to you? Or something? And he just jotted 0:43:09.920 --> 0:43:13.160 that speech down thinking about his ranch in Australia, which 0:43:13.200 --> 0:43:19.000 is a great Yeah, it's a nice little moment as 0:43:19.000 --> 0:43:21.480 you meditate on that. We'll be right back with more 0:43:21.520 --> 0:43:23.759 too much information after these messages. 0:43:35.840 --> 0:43:38.040 But even Russell Crowe couldn't compare it to one of 0:43:38.080 --> 0:43:42.160 his forebears. In on set hell Raising, we're talking about 0:43:42.600 --> 0:43:45.400 all of read, oh read. I don't think he's a 0:43:45.400 --> 0:43:49.040 big deal in America, but he was a legend in England, 0:43:49.120 --> 0:43:54.680 like Sean Connery, Michael Caine, Peter O'Toole, Richard Burton. Contemporary 0:43:54.800 --> 0:43:58.319 's actually an incredible book called hell Raisers about all 0:43:58.360 --> 0:44:02.640 those guys in the fifties and sixties who you know, 0:44:02.840 --> 0:44:05.160 doing stuff. But we really shouldn't be glorifying but. 0:44:05.560 --> 0:44:10.319 Nope, really incredibly problematic drinking and abuse. Yeah. I think 0:44:10.360 --> 0:44:12.960 Oliver Reed is most known in this country for playing 0:44:12.960 --> 0:44:16.280 Bill Sikes in Oliver Yeah, yeah, yeah, and Oliver maybe 0:44:16.360 --> 0:44:20.759 in Werewolf After Midnight, one of the werewolf of I 0:44:20.760 --> 0:44:24.280 think it's Werewolf at either at midnight or after midnight, 0:44:24.360 --> 0:44:26.200 the timing doesn't matter. He was a werewolf. 0:44:26.480 --> 0:44:29.160 Oh, he's in Tommy too. He's in the Who's Movie 0:44:29.200 --> 0:44:32.480 at that poss of Tommy's. He's the dad or the 0:44:32.480 --> 0:44:36.680 step dad. I forget. He's in Margaret's Husband. In England. 0:44:36.719 --> 0:44:40.439 He's mostly known for being him drinking, for drinking. Yeah, 0:44:40.560 --> 0:44:46.080 basically he was cast as a proximous and Ridley Scott 0:44:46.120 --> 0:44:49.239 warned Red again known through his drinking and whacked out 0:44:49.280 --> 0:44:52.640 behavior on sets to keep things cool, really fought really 0:44:52.640 --> 0:44:56.280 hard for Oliver Reed. German weightlifter Ralph Mohler, who plays 0:44:56.280 --> 0:44:59.480 the towering gladiator Hagen, told Yahoo in an interview he 0:44:59.560 --> 0:45:02.120 later went to Oliver and said, look, they didn't want you, 0:45:02.200 --> 0:45:04.640 but I want you. Don't let me down, and he 0:45:04.719 --> 0:45:08.080 never did until he died three weeks before the movie ended. 0:45:08.920 --> 0:45:10.960 But before that, let's just get into. 0:45:10.800 --> 0:45:14.399 Exactly why a lot of people didn't want Oliver reed. 0:45:14.400 --> 0:45:17.600 I want to do a quick lightning round of anecdotes 0:45:17.640 --> 0:45:20.920 of this man. He famously drank one hundred and twenty 0:45:20.920 --> 0:45:24.600 six pints in a twenty four hour sitting, and celebrated 0:45:24.640 --> 0:45:28.239 this accomplishment by performing a horizontal handstand atop the bar. 0:45:29.719 --> 0:45:31.280 He invented, Heigel, I've kept. 0:45:31.120 --> 0:45:32.880 These from Heigel, so I want to get your authentic 0:45:32.920 --> 0:45:36.000 reactions to these. He invented a drink that he called 0:45:36.200 --> 0:45:40.520 gunk gu n K, which consisted of filling an ice 0:45:40.600 --> 0:45:44.160 bucket with a little bit of every single drink from 0:45:44.280 --> 0:45:47.280 every bottle in whatever. The bar he was currently sitting 0:45:47.320 --> 0:45:50.560 in had. Oh so, it's like Long Island iced tea. 0:45:50.640 --> 0:45:53.160 It's like the h bomb equivalent of Long Island iced tea. 0:45:53.280 --> 0:45:56.200 I was just saying, it's this. Did they call it 0:45:56.200 --> 0:45:58.560 a suicide run when you do with the soda fountain. 0:45:58.960 --> 0:46:04.319 I've never heard that. Maybe I made that up. I 0:46:04.320 --> 0:46:04.680 don't know. 0:46:05.920 --> 0:46:09.520 His drinking shockingly never impacted his work on set, but 0:46:10.120 --> 0:46:13.080 it cost him a high profile part in a Steve 0:46:13.160 --> 0:46:16.759 McQueen movie. Apparently, Steve McQueen flew over to England to 0:46:16.800 --> 0:46:18.080 meet with him and talk about a role. 0:46:18.120 --> 0:46:19.920 I don't actually know what role is. 0:46:19.960 --> 0:46:22.960 Offhand, they went on what's been described as a legendary 0:46:23.040 --> 0:46:27.560 pub crawl, which culminated in Reid becoming ill and vomiting 0:46:27.600 --> 0:46:30.560 all down Steve McQueen's front, and that kind of cooled 0:46:30.600 --> 0:46:34.200 the whole working together thing. During the filming of the 0:46:34.200 --> 0:46:37.520 movie The Sellout, when Oliver Reed learned how much room 0:46:37.560 --> 0:46:41.120 service drinks cost, he ordered boxes of wine and spirits 0:46:41.200 --> 0:46:43.959 shipped to his hotel room and turned his suite into 0:46:44.000 --> 0:46:44.480 a pub. 0:46:45.239 --> 0:46:46.280 Hell yeah. 0:46:46.480 --> 0:46:49.960 While on break filming in Durango, Oliver Reed noticed the 0:46:50.000 --> 0:46:52.799 production assistant and his wife sitting at the table in 0:46:52.840 --> 0:46:57.160 the restaurant in which he was drinking. Reid then politely 0:46:57.200 --> 0:46:59.040 approached them, in the form of the man and his 0:46:59.080 --> 0:47:01.200 wife that they should go back to the hotel room 0:47:01.200 --> 0:47:04.160 because quote, I'm going to smash this place up in 0:47:04.280 --> 0:47:06.719 ten minutes, and I wouldn't want to hurt you or 0:47:06.760 --> 0:47:11.640 your lady. The couple left the restaurant just as Reid 0:47:11.719 --> 0:47:15.319 hurled tooth tables through the window, not one but two. 0:47:17.320 --> 0:47:19.600 He was arrested once for brawling in a pub. I 0:47:19.600 --> 0:47:22.759 think this was a separate incident, and he apologized to 0:47:22.800 --> 0:47:26.840 the court and sent flowers to all the responding police officers. 0:47:27.640 --> 0:47:31.759 Ow, yeah, he's a real what's the no half measures? 0:47:31.880 --> 0:47:35.680 Isn't that a bit from uh A breaking bad? Yeah? 0:47:35.760 --> 0:47:39.719 He was a real no half measures kind of drinker. Uh. 0:47:39.880 --> 0:47:42.880 Once, this is a sort of a quieter act of destruction. 0:47:43.120 --> 0:47:46.080 Upset with the lighting in his home after an evening 0:47:46.120 --> 0:47:49.040 of drinking, he walked through his house and just punched 0:47:49.040 --> 0:47:50.280 out all of the light bulbs. 0:47:50.800 --> 0:47:51.120 Nice. 0:47:52.080 --> 0:47:55.960 Another occasion, impatient for New Year's to begin, he moved 0:47:55.960 --> 0:47:59.040 his clock ahead, called at the New Year, and celebrated 0:47:59.080 --> 0:48:01.520 by firing his shot good in the air and then 0:48:01.560 --> 0:48:02.360 shooting the clock. 0:48:02.800 --> 0:48:05.160 I mean making that kind of shot. Yeah. 0:48:05.239 --> 0:48:07.080 Yeah, Well we don't know how far away he was. 0:48:07.120 --> 0:48:08.080 It could have been a point play. 0:48:09.800 --> 0:48:13.399 Yeah, he was someone holding the clock still he. 0:48:13.480 --> 0:48:15.960 Was actually you know what We talked about him being 0:48:16.000 --> 0:48:18.319 more famous in America for being an oliver. He was 0:48:18.440 --> 0:48:22.080 probably most famous as a talk show guest, both in 0:48:22.120 --> 0:48:24.760 the UK and the United States, because he would famously 0:48:24.880 --> 0:48:28.960 show up drunk. Yes he was. His most infamous incident 0:48:29.000 --> 0:48:32.040 in the UK was when of many there are probably 0:48:32.120 --> 0:48:34.880 half a dozen or maybe even a dozen famous instances 0:48:34.920 --> 0:48:37.719 of him on talk shows. But the most notorious is 0:48:37.760 --> 0:48:39.640 him on a show called After Dark, when he showed 0:48:39.680 --> 0:48:43.160 up drunk and offended the feminist writer Kate Millet by 0:48:43.239 --> 0:48:46.680 telling her give us a kiss, big not good. 0:48:47.320 --> 0:48:48.520 He went on The Tonight. 0:48:48.280 --> 0:48:52.480 Show frequently drunk and would share his belief that a 0:48:52.520 --> 0:48:55.800 women's place was in the kitchen. Fellow guest Shelley Winters 0:48:55.880 --> 0:48:59.920 naturally took offence and eventually dumped her glass of bourbon 0:49:00.120 --> 0:49:03.160 on his head. Read would then appear on a UK 0:49:03.320 --> 0:49:05.880 chat show months later to defend himself and claim that 0:49:05.920 --> 0:49:08.000 those comments on the Tonight Show to Shelley Winners were 0:49:08.040 --> 0:49:10.160 tongue in cheek designed to get a rise out of her. 0:49:11.560 --> 0:49:14.520 His argument was kind of undercut on this British interview 0:49:14.560 --> 0:49:18.040 by falling off his chair and making his exit from 0:49:18.080 --> 0:49:23.520 the show by crawling away. He was on Letterman a 0:49:23.520 --> 0:49:26.920 bunch of times, and when Letterman tried to ask him 0:49:26.920 --> 0:49:30.120 about an incident when he challenged Lee Marvin to a 0:49:30.200 --> 0:49:35.279 drinking contest, Reid replied, that's hearsay. When Letterman continued with 0:49:35.320 --> 0:49:39.560 this line of questioning, a seemingly genuinely angry Reid told 0:49:39.600 --> 0:49:42.400 Letterman that the showrunners knew that this topic was not 0:49:42.520 --> 0:49:45.319 to be discussed, and so he said, let's cool it 0:49:45.360 --> 0:49:48.160 with that one, get to a new subject. I love 0:49:48.239 --> 0:49:51.680 trees and boats. Cool, God bless him. 0:49:51.960 --> 0:49:54.800 I mean yeah, I would talk about trees and boats 0:49:54.840 --> 0:49:55.520 with Allie Reid. 0:49:55.680 --> 0:49:59.719 Yeah. And finally, while promoting the film Castaway, Oliver Reid 0:49:59.719 --> 0:50:01.880 appeared as a guest on the British talk show Aspell 0:50:01.960 --> 0:50:04.960 and Company. He walked on set carrying a picture of 0:50:05.040 --> 0:50:06.120 gin and orange juice. 0:50:06.200 --> 0:50:08.440 Hell Yeah, gin and juice Baby, ripped off. 0:50:08.320 --> 0:50:11.000 His sport coat and drunkenly sang along with the show's 0:50:11.040 --> 0:50:14.080 band when he sat on the couch. Another guest on 0:50:14.120 --> 0:50:16.960 the show asked Reid why do you drink? And Reid 0:50:17.120 --> 0:50:20.680 offered this all time quote. It's probably familiar to most 0:50:20.680 --> 0:50:20.920 of you. 0:50:22.120 --> 0:50:22.960 Why do you drink? 0:50:23.640 --> 0:50:26.200 Because the finest people I've ever met in my life 0:50:26.280 --> 0:50:27.839 are in pubs. 0:50:29.160 --> 0:50:30.440 Oliver read ladies and gentlemen. 0:50:30.719 --> 0:50:33.120 But his reputation had caught up with him by the 0:50:33.120 --> 0:50:36.960 time Ridley Scott cast him again, cast him against the 0:50:37.000 --> 0:50:41.279 advice of every studio, and Reid was upset by how 0:50:41.320 --> 0:50:44.120 low his stock had sung. He was complaining to director 0:50:44.160 --> 0:50:47.640 Michael Winner that Oliver Reid actually wanted him to audition 0:50:48.080 --> 0:50:51.080 because you know, oh yeah, people at this stage in 0:50:51.120 --> 0:50:54.279 their career, you know audition. Shelley Winters actually famously was 0:50:54.320 --> 0:50:56.880 asked to audition once and she showed up with a 0:50:56.880 --> 0:50:59.960 big bag, reached in and pulled out an oscar and 0:51:00.120 --> 0:51:02.239 slammed it on the table and said, here's my TV. 0:51:02.840 --> 0:51:04.840 Reached in and pulled that her second oscar and slammed 0:51:04.840 --> 0:51:06.560 it on the table and said, here's my head shot. 0:51:06.760 --> 0:51:09.319 And I believe she was given the role. So yeah. 0:51:09.360 --> 0:51:12.239 Reid was not happy about being asked to audition, but 0:51:12.280 --> 0:51:15.040 director Michael Winners, who was very close to him, said, oh, 0:51:15.120 --> 0:51:17.399 he don't with me. You're not a FA star, you're 0:51:17.440 --> 0:51:19.960 out of work. You're not old enough to retire, so 0:51:20.000 --> 0:51:22.920 you need a third act to your career. Obviously, they 0:51:22.920 --> 0:51:24.799 think if you're working with me, you can't be as 0:51:24.880 --> 0:51:27.520 drunk as people think you are. So go to Ridley 0:51:27.520 --> 0:51:29.840 and read end of story. And if he wants you 0:51:29.880 --> 0:51:33.080 to read twice, you read twice. I'm getting like Don 0:51:33.160 --> 0:51:35.319 Draper and oh you know, watch Man Man nevermind and. 0:51:35.320 --> 0:51:36.319 Ollie Bless his soul. 0:51:36.520 --> 0:51:39.239 He was sober from months before filming, and he made 0:51:39.280 --> 0:51:42.400 assurances to Ridley Scott that his drinking wouldn't be a factor. 0:51:42.680 --> 0:51:45.720 He would limit it only to weekends, and his longtime 0:51:45.760 --> 0:51:49.600 friend fellow Gladiator CASTMATEE David Hemmings, who played Cassius, also 0:51:49.640 --> 0:51:53.640 promised Ridley Scott that he'd look after Reid. Nevertheless, Oh, 0:51:53.680 --> 0:51:55.520 I felt you got You should take this story. Tell 0:51:55.600 --> 0:51:59.919 us about the sad, tragic, comic demise of Oliver Reed. 0:52:00.800 --> 0:52:03.560 Yeah, I mean, it depends on how you. He went 0:52:03.600 --> 0:52:06.680 down swaying few things he did. He did. On the 0:52:06.800 --> 0:52:10.120 day of May second, nineteen ninety nine, the sixty one 0:52:10.239 --> 0:52:13.280 year old Reid was parked in a bar in Malta 0:52:13.600 --> 0:52:17.200 with his wife Josephine, and some Maltese friends for lunch 0:52:17.239 --> 0:52:20.640 break when a group of sailors from the Royal Navy 0:52:20.719 --> 0:52:24.799 Frigate HMS Cumberland, who were on shore leave, strolled into 0:52:24.800 --> 0:52:28.280 the bar. Eight beers in and with only one scene 0:52:28.440 --> 0:52:31.040 left to film, Reid was about to head back to 0:52:31.080 --> 0:52:34.440 his hotel when, as the story goes, he was recognized 0:52:34.480 --> 0:52:36.960 by some of the officers who called out, shall we 0:52:37.040 --> 0:52:40.600 have a drink Alie, which activates something in his brain. 0:52:40.920 --> 0:52:43.879 So Reid sits down with these guys and this all 0:52:43.920 --> 0:52:47.120 comes from. None of the Western newspapers had this. This 0:52:47.160 --> 0:52:50.520 is a Spanish newspaper, El Paiees who all of this 0:52:50.600 --> 0:52:55.080 detail comes from so grain of salt, but print the legend. Yeah. 0:52:55.400 --> 0:52:58.160 In addition to the eight beers, he'd already had read 0:52:58.200 --> 0:53:01.759 down a dozen double shot of rum while chatting with 0:53:01.800 --> 0:53:07.800 these naval men and as arm wrestling matches subsequently piled 0:53:07.880 --> 0:53:10.520 up also had a bottle of whiskey next to him. 0:53:10.920 --> 0:53:16.800 He supposedly won five arm wrestling matches against British navelmen 0:53:17.080 --> 0:53:20.239 at age sixty one. Whilsh Shoust at the age of 0:53:20.280 --> 0:53:23.000 sixty one will drunker than you or anyone you know 0:53:23.040 --> 0:53:28.080 has ever been signed autographs, hugged these guys and bid farewell, 0:53:28.719 --> 0:53:31.560 and then just said I don't feel very well, collapsed 0:53:31.560 --> 0:53:34.000 on the floor and died in the ambulance before they 0:53:34.000 --> 0:53:37.520 made it to the hospital. He was buried in Bruney 0:53:37.520 --> 0:53:40.560 Graveyard in Churchtown, Ireland, where he'd been living, and his 0:53:40.600 --> 0:53:43.319 epitaph reads he made the air move. 0:53:44.120 --> 0:53:47.000 That's amazing. I don't even know what that means, but 0:53:47.040 --> 0:53:47.719 that's amazing. 0:53:48.280 --> 0:53:50.880 He sure did read more or less predicted his own 0:53:50.960 --> 0:53:53.520 death during a nineteen ninety four appearance on something called 0:53:53.600 --> 0:53:57.200 The Obituaries Show, saying I died in a bar of 0:53:57.200 --> 0:53:58.880 a heart attack, full of laughter. 0:54:00.520 --> 0:54:02.399 You know you can't get sev and you read that. 0:54:03.320 --> 0:54:07.400 You don't want to valorize much of that, but you 0:54:07.440 --> 0:54:10.560 know the man went out on his own terms. Russell 0:54:10.600 --> 0:54:14.120 Crowe had some very terrible things to say about him, 0:54:15.000 --> 0:54:21.400 but we'll grow right. Oliver Reed's final scene, somewhat weirdly, 0:54:21.560 --> 0:54:23.840 was his character's death scene, in which he repeats a 0:54:23.840 --> 0:54:26.000 bit of a line from earlier in the film. We 0:54:26.200 --> 0:54:29.880 mortals are but shadows and dust. A clause in the 0:54:29.920 --> 0:54:33.279 production's insurance contract would have allowed them to reshoot all 0:54:33.320 --> 0:54:35.680 of Reid's scenes with another actor at a cost of 0:54:35.719 --> 0:54:37.960 about twenty five million, even though this would have been 0:54:38.000 --> 0:54:40.440 paid for by the insurer. Ridley Scott felt that the 0:54:40.440 --> 0:54:42.799 cast and crew were exhausted by this point because the 0:54:42.800 --> 0:54:46.000 movie was shot in sequence, so this would have been 0:54:46.040 --> 0:54:49.120 near it if they were writing it. Yeah, exactly, so 0:54:49.160 --> 0:54:51.800 they were. This is ultimately at the end of both 0:54:51.800 --> 0:54:55.160 filming and the plot of the movie. So he accomplished 0:54:55.160 --> 0:54:57.760 the final scene of Reid's character by finding an actor 0:54:57.800 --> 0:55:00.239 of his similar build and then they just pay did 0:55:00.239 --> 0:55:03.240 a CGI version of Reid's face over him and then 0:55:03.960 --> 0:55:06.719 overdubbed a bit of dialogue from an alternate take of 0:55:06.760 --> 0:55:09.120 that earlier scene. So this is a really early example 0:55:09.160 --> 0:55:11.600 of how what they could do with CGI, and I 0:55:11.640 --> 0:55:14.560 think it won Best Visual Effects at the Oscars, or 0:55:14.600 --> 0:55:16.399 at least was nominated for it. So it's a really 0:55:17.000 --> 0:55:19.880 As I said earlier, it's a great example of tasteful CGI, 0:55:19.960 --> 0:55:23.520 which Ridley has apparently not leaned into. In the New One, 0:55:25.200 --> 0:55:28.160 Iranian British actor Omit Djili, who's also known for his 0:55:28.200 --> 0:55:31.080 work in nineteen ninety nine's The Mummy, he has a 0:55:31.120 --> 0:55:33.840 tremendous story about working with Reid on the set of Gladiator. 0:55:33.920 --> 0:55:36.480 He says he was scared of Oliver Reed, going back 0:55:36.480 --> 0:55:39.640 to again read's Roland Oliver. They wrote this op ed 0:55:39.680 --> 0:55:42.000 for The Guardian, which we'll quote now. In the script, 0:55:42.000 --> 0:55:43.759 Ali was meant to punch me in the face and 0:55:43.800 --> 0:55:47.400 say you sold me queer giraffes. I'd worked with some 0:55:47.440 --> 0:55:49.200 of the crew a few months before in the Mummy 0:55:49.239 --> 0:55:51.000 and they knew I was scared of Oli, so they 0:55:51.000 --> 0:55:53.160 decided to play a trick on me. They thought it 0:55:53.160 --> 0:55:54.880 would be funny to get Oli to grab me by 0:55:54.920 --> 0:55:58.160 the nuts during the scene. Ollie said, do you mind 0:55:58.160 --> 0:56:00.440 if I really grab you hard to make it authentic? 0:56:01.040 --> 0:56:04.520 I said fine, so he did. Usually you do the scene, 0:56:04.640 --> 0:56:06.360 they say cut and you have a few minutes to 0:56:06.400 --> 0:56:09.400 reset before you go again. Ollie continued to hold my 0:56:09.480 --> 0:56:12.000 nuts during the reset. I was so frightened of him 0:56:12.000 --> 0:56:13.800 that I thought it was part of his acting process, 0:56:14.160 --> 0:56:16.200 so I allowed him to hold me while we talked 0:56:16.239 --> 0:56:19.200 about the food in the hotel. By take three, I 0:56:19.239 --> 0:56:22.640 became aware of a massaging sensation. By take four, he said, 0:56:23.000 --> 0:56:24.799 you do realize this is a wind up, don't you. 0:56:25.520 --> 0:56:27.319 Everyone thought it was so funny they kept it in 0:56:27.320 --> 0:56:29.759 the final cut and he didn't have to punch me. 0:56:30.480 --> 0:56:31.520 Rip Oliver reed. 0:56:33.160 --> 0:56:36.720 Makes me sad, something about like the Line and Winter 0:56:36.960 --> 0:56:42.399 type stuff with like guys, powerful guys having the power diminished. Yeah, 0:56:42.480 --> 0:56:44.959 I mean again, it's not a healthy thing. 0:56:45.040 --> 0:56:49.360 But no, no, no, but it's you know, there's a 0:56:49.440 --> 0:56:52.520 sort of you filter through the Jim Morrison lens and 0:56:52.560 --> 0:56:57.040 there's this sort of drunken Jester archetype that people glom onto. 0:56:57.160 --> 0:57:01.680 And you know again, man, he went out on his 0:57:01.719 --> 0:57:02.280 own terms. 0:57:02.440 --> 0:57:04.760 I didn't even mean that, like anytime, like an older 0:57:04.920 --> 0:57:07.960 guy who is like a champion of something goes head 0:57:07.960 --> 0:57:11.120 to head with like the younger guy and struggles a 0:57:11.120 --> 0:57:13.719 bit that just like hits a certain part in me. 0:57:14.680 --> 0:57:19.440 Oh yeah, yeah, don't drink like that. Well you can 0:57:19.520 --> 0:57:23.520 have you can have a longer off rampant Like no, 0:57:23.640 --> 0:57:25.360 I don't even mean like I don't know. 0:57:25.400 --> 0:57:28.040 I mean it's I'm not even intentionally thinking about the 0:57:28.160 --> 0:57:31.240 Jake Ball Mike Tyson thing, like I oh yeah, not 0:57:31.320 --> 0:57:34.680 even just any anything like that, any kind of feet 0:57:35.240 --> 0:57:36.840 of skill or talent. 0:57:37.600 --> 0:57:42.959 Sure, man, I guess it's the line in winter. Yeah, 0:57:42.960 --> 0:57:46.600 the lion in the very drunk lion in the Multese bar. 0:57:47.240 --> 0:57:53.160 Arm wrestling naval Navy men. That's awesome. Yeah, I'm sorry, 0:57:53.360 --> 0:57:56.400 Like it's just so imagine being the Navy. The Navy 0:57:56.440 --> 0:58:01.640 guy who was like I'll over read housed, beat me 0:58:01.680 --> 0:58:04.320 in arm wrestling and then died. I would dine out 0:58:04.320 --> 0:58:05.720 on that story for the rest of my life. 0:58:05.960 --> 0:58:08.840 It took the last bit of his strength to beat 0:58:08.840 --> 0:58:13.400 me in arm wrestling. There are some truly incredible, like 0:58:13.720 --> 0:58:17.800 just candid photos of oliveried in bars, like clearly just 0:58:17.840 --> 0:58:21.840 taken by other patrons of like Oliver Reed stacking up 0:58:22.160 --> 0:58:26.600 all of his glasses into this like giant pillar that 0:58:26.720 --> 0:58:29.400 reaches the ceiling of all these pint glasses. 0:58:29.480 --> 0:58:33.680 Oh, the wizard wand oh yeah, is that a term? Uh? 0:58:33.760 --> 0:58:35.080 You know you can do that with if you have 0:58:35.080 --> 0:58:36.720 a roll at duct tapeley you're drinking, you just do 0:58:36.760 --> 0:58:43.280 that with all your empties, ah, wizard staff. Yeah. An 0:58:43.320 --> 0:58:45.480 on set death is never easy, but it must have, 0:58:45.520 --> 0:58:49.800 especially rattled Joaquin Phoenix. Sorry, serious voice. An on set 0:58:49.880 --> 0:58:52.280 death is never easy, but it must have especially ratted 0:58:52.320 --> 0:58:54.600 Joaquin Phoenix, who was returning to the screen for the 0:58:54.640 --> 0:58:57.560 first time since the death of his brother River from 0:58:57.600 --> 0:59:01.240 a drug overdose in West Hollywood on Halloween nineteen ninety three. 0:59:02.240 --> 0:59:05.080 Phoenix told Collider in twenty eighteen, Gladiator was one of 0:59:05.120 --> 0:59:07.560 the most intimidating films I've done, because it was the 0:59:07.600 --> 0:59:10.280 first set I went on that was just massive. It 0:59:10.280 --> 0:59:12.760 looked like it was acres of land and tons of 0:59:12.800 --> 0:59:17.360 trucks and trailers and you know, hundreds of extras, multiple cameras. Suddenly, 0:59:17.360 --> 0:59:19.240 the scale of this hit me, and I was overwhelmed 0:59:19.240 --> 0:59:20.800 by that. I didn't think I was going to be 0:59:20.800 --> 0:59:23.560 able to make it through. He continued. I went to 0:59:23.600 --> 0:59:26.000 Ridley Scott and said, I don't know what to do. 0:59:26.400 --> 0:59:28.280 I just can't do this. I don't know what you're 0:59:28.280 --> 0:59:30.960 gonna do. This just isn't going to be possible. And 0:59:31.080 --> 0:59:33.720 Ridley was really smart. He just shot me for four 0:59:33.760 --> 0:59:36.280 hours and he didn't put film in the camera. The 0:59:36.280 --> 0:59:38.120 first scene that I did, I was really nervous, and 0:59:38.160 --> 0:59:40.760 we shot I don't know, an unbelievable amount of takes, 0:59:40.800 --> 0:59:44.080 a shocking amount, over and over again. At some point 0:59:44.160 --> 0:59:46.960 at the end, after hours, Scott finally said, okay, we 0:59:47.040 --> 0:59:49.200 got it. And then later on when we were working 0:59:49.240 --> 0:59:50.920 on the film, he told me that he hadn't been 0:59:50.920 --> 0:59:53.480 putting film in the camera for like the first thirty takes. 0:59:53.960 --> 0:59:57.040 But everybody did everything. The camera did its movements, sound people, 0:59:57.120 --> 0:59:59.200 everyone behaved as if we were shooting takes. I don't 0:59:59.280 --> 1:00:02.000 understand that. Well, you just get all the nervousness out 1:00:02.000 --> 1:00:02.520 of his system. 1:00:02.640 --> 1:00:03.600 I guess it. 1:00:03.680 --> 1:00:06.080 Was another of Oliver Reed's hell raising peers who had 1:00:06.120 --> 1:00:09.160 a hand in helping Phoenix. Russell Crowe told the news 1:00:09.200 --> 1:00:11.960 service w E N N. Joaquin was very nervous on 1:00:12.000 --> 1:00:14.960 the set and I went to Richard Harris and I said, mate, 1:00:15.000 --> 1:00:16.600 what are we going to do with this kid? He's 1:00:16.640 --> 1:00:20.120 asking me to abuse him before takes so Richard said, 1:00:20.280 --> 1:00:23.280 let's get him pissed through a number of hours and 1:00:23.320 --> 1:00:25.400 a number of cans of Guinness. I got the point 1:00:25.440 --> 1:00:28.480 across to Joaquin that is actually an internal journey and 1:00:28.600 --> 1:00:32.160 everything he needs to do with the character lives within him. 1:00:32.200 --> 1:00:38.160 Just imagining like a all right mate, an act of 1:00:38.240 --> 1:00:44.919 prepas handing of a copy of the artists way. Yeah, 1:00:45.080 --> 1:00:50.880 how many affirmations you been doing in the morning? I 1:00:51.440 --> 1:00:59.520 love here, You're great, you can it lives within you. 1:01:00.560 --> 1:01:05.680 May It's amazing that your your sober Australian voice is 1:01:05.760 --> 1:01:10.680 kinda B minus is nailed. 1:01:10.960 --> 1:01:18.560 It's incredible. Another great Oliver Reed's story, Richard Harris took 1:01:18.560 --> 1:01:21.280 to Russell Crowe, but Oliver Reed hated him instantly and 1:01:21.400 --> 1:01:24.560 challenged him to a fight. At one point, Russell Crow 1:01:24.560 --> 1:01:27.600 spoke very uncharitably of him in GQ, after saying that 1:01:27.640 --> 1:01:30.720 he wouldn't in twenty ten. He said, I never got 1:01:30.720 --> 1:01:33.440 on with Oli. He has visited me in dreams and 1:01:33.480 --> 1:01:36.440 asked me to talk kindly of him, so I should, 1:01:36.800 --> 1:01:39.120 but we never had a pleasant conversation. And then he 1:01:39.200 --> 1:01:43.200 goes on to say some very uncharitable things. He says 1:01:43.240 --> 1:01:46.840 something like disgusting and undignified the way that he behaved, 1:01:46.880 --> 1:01:49.920 like striding down the set and wanting to fight people 1:01:50.080 --> 1:01:51.960 drunk in the middle of the day and dying in 1:01:52.000 --> 1:01:53.880 your own piss and vomit and like blah blah blah 1:01:53.880 --> 1:01:54.240 blah blah. 1:01:54.400 --> 1:01:56.480 Who's that sound like minus the dying in your own 1:01:56.480 --> 1:01:57.040 pisson fone? 1:01:57.120 --> 1:02:00.040 I know, I know, right, yeah, bit rich. During the 1:02:00.040 --> 1:02:02.720 film's press tour, Russell Kurt told Variety there were a 1:02:02.720 --> 1:02:05.080 lot of people in that strange journalistic habit who just 1:02:05.080 --> 1:02:07.479 wanted to poke that fire and kept asking Joaquin about 1:02:07.480 --> 1:02:10.080 his brother and then about his relationship with me, because 1:02:10.080 --> 1:02:12.040 we have that in the film. At one point we 1:02:12.040 --> 1:02:14.160 were doing some press conference and he just said something 1:02:14.200 --> 1:02:16.800 along the lines of look, Russo treated me like a brother, 1:02:17.160 --> 1:02:20.040 and it just hit me in a really heavy way. Now, 1:02:20.080 --> 1:02:23.120 not to make an immediate pun on heavy, but Joaquin 1:02:23.120 --> 1:02:25.960 Phoenix also deliberately decided to gain weight as his character 1:02:26.120 --> 1:02:29.240 gained power, which Scott noticed during the dailies and mentioned 1:02:29.240 --> 1:02:32.320 to a producer the following day. Ridley explains in the 1:02:32.400 --> 1:02:35.240 DVD commentary for the film, Joaquin walks up to me. 1:02:35.440 --> 1:02:38.760 Commitis Joaquin. It is full regalia and armor, and he says, 1:02:39.120 --> 1:02:42.480 I hear, I look like a fat little hamster. He 1:02:42.480 --> 1:02:45.440 then didn't eat any food for weeks. But enough about 1:02:45.480 --> 1:02:48.560 all this acting and personality and stuff. Let's get to 1:02:48.600 --> 1:02:55.040 the real meat of the episode minute production details. As usual, 1:02:55.240 --> 1:02:58.800 Ridley Scott, trained Lest we Ever Forget at London's prestigious 1:02:58.880 --> 1:03:01.800 Royal College of Art, was heavily involved with storyboarding before 1:03:01.840 --> 1:03:06.400 filming began. Storyboard artist Sylvan de Fretz, I don't know 1:03:06.600 --> 1:03:09.400 recalled for the film's making of book. Several months out 1:03:09.440 --> 1:03:12.479 Ridley will give very detailed sketches, shot by shot, blow 1:03:12.520 --> 1:03:15.280 blay blow. A couple weeks out, sketches get very rough, 1:03:15.360 --> 1:03:17.920 and the instruction's very loose because he just doesn't have 1:03:17.960 --> 1:03:21.080 the time. I'm imagining just like a stick figure with 1:03:21.120 --> 1:03:21.920 a story. 1:03:23.680 --> 1:03:24.800 Like blood Drops. 1:03:25.400 --> 1:03:29.320 Yeah, looks cool. But once filming, Sylvain said, Ridly changes 1:03:29.360 --> 1:03:31.480 his mind a lot and sometimes uses the storyboard to 1:03:31.480 --> 1:03:33.960 get rid of ideas rather than lock them in. He's 1:03:34.040 --> 1:03:37.800 quite loose. He shoots with five six seven cameras sometimes 1:03:37.800 --> 1:03:41.040 and can be quite spontaneous. I can't say the storyboard 1:03:41.080 --> 1:03:45.160 particularly resembles the final film that sounds like it sucks 1:03:45.800 --> 1:03:50.280 Yeah anyway. Gattire was filmed in England, Morocco and Malta 1:03:50.400 --> 1:03:53.720 between January and May of nineteen ninety nine. Production designer 1:03:53.800 --> 1:03:55.959 Arthur Max were called in the book we trumped around 1:03:56.040 --> 1:03:58.440 the Roman Empire for six weeks, scouting all of the 1:03:58.480 --> 1:04:02.840 existing remains in England, France, Italy, Eastern Europe and North Africa. 1:04:02.920 --> 1:04:04.760 But your access to us left of the real Rome 1:04:04.840 --> 1:04:07.680 is quite limited. All the ruins are historical monuments and 1:04:07.720 --> 1:04:11.200 so cannot be touched. Consequently, the film found stand ins 1:04:11.200 --> 1:04:14.200 for certain historical settings, and as we will get too shortly, 1:04:14.680 --> 1:04:18.040 used CGI to restore others to their period accurate glory. 1:04:18.160 --> 1:04:20.640 The film's opening scene, for example, is set in what 1:04:20.760 --> 1:04:24.440 was then Germania, a massive swath of eastern and northern Europe. 1:04:24.960 --> 1:04:28.120 Production originally wanted a film outside of Bratislava, a port 1:04:28.120 --> 1:04:30.560 on the Danube River, not far from where Marcus Aurelia 1:04:30.600 --> 1:04:33.960 is actually campaigned, but as scheduling issues pushed the filming 1:04:33.960 --> 1:04:36.760 into winter, shooting was switched to England and a forest 1:04:36.800 --> 1:04:40.800 near Farmham. Sorry. Another reason why the site was chosen 1:04:40.960 --> 1:04:43.760 was because production learned from England's Forestry Commission. At the 1:04:43.800 --> 1:04:48.200 area Bourne Woods was slated to be deforested anyway, so 1:04:48.400 --> 1:04:51.439 as really Scott remembered, I said, I'll do it, I'll 1:04:51.480 --> 1:05:00.160 burn it to the ground. And they said, good, incredible sound. 1:05:00.000 --> 1:05:04.240 A phone call, yeah, and a phone call this this forest. 1:05:05.080 --> 1:05:08.520 I'll do it. I'll burn it to the ground. Click. Good. 1:05:09.480 --> 1:05:14.200 It doesn't even wait to hear the response. Yeah. 1:05:14.320 --> 1:05:17.320 The weather was actually astoundingly cooperative, to the point where 1:05:17.360 --> 1:05:21.040 Crow's last minute line about the snow was actually preceded 1:05:21.040 --> 1:05:23.439 by real life snow that had started ten minutes before 1:05:23.480 --> 1:05:24.480 the take one rolled. 1:05:25.280 --> 1:05:27.560 That makes a bit of him not struggling with what 1:05:27.760 --> 1:05:30.480 to say, and that's so much funnier, Like he's staring 1:05:30.520 --> 1:05:32.560 at this thing, imagining a robin that'll be there and 1:05:32.560 --> 1:05:36.479 be like, what think Russell think what he sick? 1:05:37.040 --> 1:05:37.600 Looks up? 1:05:38.440 --> 1:05:40.800 Yeah, it starts snowing. Really, Scott's over there waiting to 1:05:40.920 --> 1:05:45.720 roll like, well it's snowing. We'll go with that. Go 1:05:45.800 --> 1:05:47.720 with that take, do a take of that. I think 1:05:47.760 --> 1:05:50.760 his line is literally in the film, just like looks 1:05:50.800 --> 1:05:59.000 like snow has so funny? Is Russell Crow a secret idiot? 1:05:59.400 --> 1:06:03.800 Well yeah, but also like a good actor. 1:06:04.360 --> 1:06:06.200 I I mean, like I said, man, I so much 1:06:06.200 --> 1:06:08.520 of it is colored by this reputation that makes seem 1:06:08.520 --> 1:06:12.080 really shy. But he is hilarious in nice guys. I 1:06:12.120 --> 1:06:15.640 don't really he has a very He's very charismatic in 1:06:15.680 --> 1:06:21.960 this era when his horizontal proportions kept up with his height, 1:06:24.800 --> 1:06:27.720 you know. I mean, he's great in La Confidential. But 1:06:27.800 --> 1:06:30.400 he does just have to play a loudish, you know, 1:06:30.560 --> 1:06:34.760 walking act of violence, and he does bring a sort 1:06:34.800 --> 1:06:39.160 of wounded, heavy browed gravitas to this. I don't dislike 1:06:39.280 --> 1:06:41.480 him in this, just when you weigh it against all 1:06:41.520 --> 1:06:44.200 this priggish stuff that you hear, Like, okay, buddy. 1:06:43.960 --> 1:06:46.520 We're leaving out some of the nitty gritty that involved 1:06:46.520 --> 1:06:51.800 trucking thousands of extras, animals, hairdressers, makeup artists, armors, choreographers 1:06:52.200 --> 1:06:53.800 and the rest of the cast and crew needed to 1:06:53.840 --> 1:06:56.320 a location over an hour from London. 1:06:58.200 --> 1:06:59.080 That doesn't sound fun. 1:07:00.680 --> 1:07:03.200 Following the opening scene, the action moves to Morocco with 1:07:03.240 --> 1:07:05.520 a crew of two hundred people, which kind of sounds 1:07:05.560 --> 1:07:07.800 small to me and a cast of almost one hundred 1:07:07.840 --> 1:07:11.000 so does that. Where scenes of slavery, desert travel, and 1:07:11.040 --> 1:07:14.800 gladiatorial training were shot in and around Iite ben had 1:07:15.280 --> 1:07:17.960 I think how you say that. The crew used basic 1:07:18.040 --> 1:07:22.680 materials and local building techniques to craft thirty thousand mud 1:07:22.760 --> 1:07:25.480 bricks that make up the arena. The fighter's first battle 1:07:25.520 --> 1:07:28.080 in this is according to a Gladiator the making of 1:07:28.080 --> 1:07:31.440 the Ridley Scott Epic Making of book. But they were 1:07:31.480 --> 1:07:34.640 also aided by the fact that Morocco just kind of 1:07:34.720 --> 1:07:39.560 looked like that. David Franzoni, the screenwriter, told Yahoo. The 1:07:39.640 --> 1:07:42.240 reason it worked is because Ridley built the real thing. 1:07:42.520 --> 1:07:44.400 When you drove up to it, it looked like it 1:07:44.440 --> 1:07:48.920 was part of the city. The gladiatorial arena, the bedroom 1:07:48.960 --> 1:07:50.880 would come in from the desert to watch the shoot, 1:07:51.240 --> 1:07:53.320 and so Ridley just put them in the movie. It 1:07:53.360 --> 1:07:56.320 has this legitimacy to it that happened naturally. The areas 1:07:56.360 --> 1:07:59.120 around ie ban Hado may look familiar to folks at 1:07:59.120 --> 1:08:02.600 this point. It's subsequently been used in Oliver Stones two 1:08:02.640 --> 1:08:06.720 thousand and four epic, Alexander Releas, Scott's historical drama Kingdom 1:08:06.760 --> 1:08:09.440 of Heaven in two thousand and five, and twenty ten's 1:08:09.520 --> 1:08:13.040 Prince of Persia. Not to mention, portions of Game of Thrones. 1:08:13.240 --> 1:08:15.880 The biggest challenge in filming, though, was recreating ancient Rome, 1:08:16.080 --> 1:08:19.280 and in particular the forum, the Senate scenes a shot 1:08:19.400 --> 1:08:23.080 and the Colosseum the Hearts of the Empire. Production designer 1:08:23.160 --> 1:08:26.320 Arthur Max and Ridley Scott settled on Port Mifha, Salfi, 1:08:26.479 --> 1:08:29.519 where the British had constructed Fort Rica Soli in eighteen 1:08:29.520 --> 1:08:34.160 oh three. This is in Malta, conveniently done at romanesque 1:08:34.240 --> 1:08:37.600 yellow limestone, aged nicely by wind and sand in the 1:08:37.640 --> 1:08:41.799 intervening in nearly two centuries. All told, the fort's existing 1:08:41.840 --> 1:08:44.680 structure and its compounds and parade grounds would be used 1:08:44.680 --> 1:08:47.320 for about half the final sets seen in the movie. 1:08:47.439 --> 1:08:48.960 So if you go to this place in Malta you 1:08:48.960 --> 1:08:52.680 can see about half of Gladiator, which is tight. This 1:08:53.120 --> 1:08:56.280 not quite the real thing, but close enough. Approach served 1:08:56.320 --> 1:08:58.000 the art direction of the film as well, which pulled 1:08:58.000 --> 1:09:02.000 in influences from Modernist architect Hugh Ferris and Nazi architects 1:09:02.000 --> 1:09:06.639 like Albert Speer. Filmmakers used large scale miniatures to model 1:09:06.680 --> 1:09:09.639 the Rome sets before over one hundred British crew members 1:09:09.720 --> 1:09:13.719 and two hundred Maltice workers took nineteen weeks to build 1:09:13.880 --> 1:09:17.439 the real thing. During the high winds and storms of 1:09:17.439 --> 1:09:20.360 what was eventually reported to be Malta's worst winter in 1:09:20.479 --> 1:09:24.840 thirty years, Production literally used one hundred percent of the 1:09:24.880 --> 1:09:28.400 plaster and plywood available in Malta and had to start 1:09:28.439 --> 1:09:32.680 importing those materials, eventually using around six hundred tons of 1:09:32.720 --> 1:09:36.000 plaster in a process that was also hampered by the 1:09:36.040 --> 1:09:39.919 storms that would leave ships unable to dock and unload. 1:09:40.439 --> 1:09:45.400 This isn't like some obscure substance wood and plaster. You've 1:09:45.439 --> 1:09:48.720 taken all of it from the siland there's simply no more. 1:09:48.760 --> 1:09:53.000 Ridley puffing on a cigar, chuck it in, burn it, 1:09:53.040 --> 1:09:55.920 burn it to the ground. I don't care. The ships 1:09:55.960 --> 1:09:59.160 can unload, Ridley, burn them, bring in new ones. The 1:09:59.200 --> 1:10:02.280 real coliseum, just a historical note, was begun by the 1:10:02.320 --> 1:10:05.760 Emperor Vespasian in seventy a d. And finished about ten 1:10:05.800 --> 1:10:08.559 years later by his son Titus and then Emperor Nero, 1:10:09.000 --> 1:10:12.799 who gifted the public the grounds from his sprawling palace. 1:10:13.479 --> 1:10:16.840 So Production thought about using these existing smaller structures, before 1:10:16.880 --> 1:10:20.439 eventually determining that they would simply build a small chunk 1:10:21.280 --> 1:10:25.519 at full scale of the Colisseum and then expanded digitally 1:10:26.000 --> 1:10:29.519 so they programmed these initial scale designs into a computer 1:10:30.040 --> 1:10:33.880 used that to determine lens angles and camera movements to 1:10:33.880 --> 1:10:36.480 figure out how much they would actually need for coverage. 1:10:36.920 --> 1:10:39.759 This ended up being a fragment of the coliseum's first tier, 1:10:39.920 --> 1:10:42.400 about one third of the circumference of the original and 1:10:42.479 --> 1:10:45.680 fifty two feet high. Now, this also included sets for 1:10:45.760 --> 1:10:48.160 the lower portions of the arena where the gladiators enter 1:10:48.200 --> 1:10:51.080 an exit and the animals were released from. And then 1:10:51.120 --> 1:10:56.320 they also made a massive seventeen sale PVC and steel sunshade. 1:10:56.600 --> 1:11:00.120 This is somewhat historically inaccurate. In the gladiated times, they 1:11:00.120 --> 1:11:04.599 did have these massive sheets hanging over the seating crowd 1:11:04.640 --> 1:11:07.600 called valarium that were necessary because of the it was 1:11:07.640 --> 1:11:12.040 the Mediterranean at high noon. This one was controlled by 1:11:12.080 --> 1:11:15.080 a massive system of rigs and pulleys, and they used 1:11:15.080 --> 1:11:18.920 it to light and shade the set. Accordingly, cinematographer John 1:11:18.960 --> 1:11:23.320 Matheson called it the most expensive shadow ever and it's 1:11:23.360 --> 1:11:25.920 really beautiful in the film. I mean to know that 1:11:26.000 --> 1:11:29.160 they were using this thing to generate all the kirascuro 1:11:29.280 --> 1:11:32.040 the beautiful light and shading the shafts of light that 1:11:32.120 --> 1:11:35.040 come in really something. And then The rest of the 1:11:35.040 --> 1:11:38.200 imaging of the coliseum was handled by mill Film in London. 1:11:38.720 --> 1:11:41.480 They filled the structure with a combination of cardboard cutouts, 1:11:42.080 --> 1:11:46.680 two thousand real extras and about thirty three thousand CGI spectators, 1:11:47.560 --> 1:11:51.479 while also adding the rest of the structure digitally. Scott 1:11:51.520 --> 1:11:53.640 relied on natural lighting as much as possible for the 1:11:53.640 --> 1:11:56.719 film to achieve the proper pseudo realism, but they didn't 1:11:56.720 --> 1:11:59.439 need to create much of their set dressing. For example, 1:11:59.479 --> 1:12:04.200 the elaborate mosaic floor of Commodis's Joaquin Phoenix's chambers. Those 1:12:04.240 --> 1:12:08.120 were bespoke linoleum tiles that arrived in Malta in one 1:12:08.240 --> 1:12:12.280 hundred and forty boxes, accompanied by a team of employees 1:12:12.760 --> 1:12:16.200 straight from the fabricator who spent weeks piecing them together. 1:12:16.520 --> 1:12:21.679 Movie magic, I love it. Just blank checks. Now, of course, 1:12:21.720 --> 1:12:23.840 we have to get into the most fun parts of 1:12:24.040 --> 1:12:30.520 historical epic filmmaking. Wardrobe in weapons, costume designer Janty yeats 1:12:30.800 --> 1:12:34.479 wonderful name. She had got her start in the world 1:12:34.520 --> 1:12:37.679 of high fashion, and so she did research from artists 1:12:37.760 --> 1:12:40.679 like Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema and George de la Tour, 1:12:41.360 --> 1:12:44.519 and the resulting wardrobe that she designed of it. The 1:12:44.520 --> 1:12:47.920 Emperor's family was of course the most elaborate for Connie 1:12:47.960 --> 1:12:51.559 Nielsen's wardrobe. For example, not only the raw materials, so 1:12:51.600 --> 1:12:55.760 the raw fabric has gold thread woven into it, but 1:12:55.920 --> 1:12:59.080 then there's also gold thread that's embroidered in and around 1:12:59.160 --> 1:13:02.200 all the detailing to make it subtly shimmer in lighting. 1:13:02.880 --> 1:13:05.880 All of the footwear for the film was handmade in Rome, 1:13:06.479 --> 1:13:10.840 although devout vegan Joaquin Phoenix refused to wear period correct 1:13:10.920 --> 1:13:15.080 leather and I guess was given full leather. The Royal 1:13:15.160 --> 1:13:19.160 jewelry was largely handcrafted by England's Martin Adams, although one 1:13:19.200 --> 1:13:22.200 of Connie Nielsen's rings was a two thousand year old 1:13:22.200 --> 1:13:24.880 signet ring that she found an antique store and I 1:13:24.960 --> 1:13:27.880 guess she found it, yeah, and I guess bought it 1:13:27.920 --> 1:13:32.640 herself or build it to production which power move The 1:13:32.760 --> 1:13:35.240 armour portions of the wardrobeough had to be flexible and 1:13:35.360 --> 1:13:37.120 much lighter than they would have been in real life. 1:13:37.200 --> 1:13:40.719 So some of them like Committis's beautiful like white marble 1:13:40.920 --> 1:13:43.519 armor thing that he wears that was made of rubber 1:13:43.560 --> 1:13:46.040 which was then covered in leather or I guess vegan 1:13:46.160 --> 1:13:51.000 leather in precious Little Joaquin's case, although Crow's armour, since 1:13:51.040 --> 1:13:53.240 he was fighting in it, had to be made from 1:13:53.320 --> 1:13:55.960 leather covered foam, so these things would have just been 1:13:56.040 --> 1:14:00.720 like basically Halloween costumes wouild I love as opposed to 1:14:00.720 --> 1:14:03.760 like Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones where 1:14:03.760 --> 1:14:06.679 they like handhampered. This sh it was just an enormous 1:14:06.760 --> 1:14:10.559 chore for people to wear. Also, fun fact for Crow 1:14:10.600 --> 1:14:13.799 and his stunt doubles every single piece of his armor, 1:14:14.080 --> 1:14:17.639 not just the breastplate, but the gloves, all the different 1:14:17.640 --> 1:14:20.439 discrete little pieces had to be made twelve times over 1:14:21.680 --> 1:14:25.280 every single piece twelve times for continuity so that they 1:14:25.320 --> 1:14:28.400 could have different stages of combat wear and et cetera. 1:14:28.680 --> 1:14:32.360 Production also put together five hundred gladiator tunics out of 1:14:32.439 --> 1:14:36.479 rough linen and over ten thousand other costumes for the 1:14:36.479 --> 1:14:40.599 rest of the cast and extras. Costume supervisor Rosemary Burrows 1:14:40.600 --> 1:14:43.839 had the fun job of supervising the quote costume villages 1:14:43.880 --> 1:14:46.280 that had to be set up to manage costume, hair 1:14:46.360 --> 1:14:49.719 and makeup on location, which for the Germania shoot also 1:14:49.760 --> 1:14:54.120 included mud baths. That's right, folks, mud baths. Friend of 1:14:54.160 --> 1:14:57.720 the Pod mud babs mudbaths so that they could just 1:14:57.800 --> 1:15:00.600 look disgusting and grimy, and Burrows was also responsible for 1:15:00.600 --> 1:15:05.080 finding the quaint little British ferrier. Who's that's a horse 1:15:05.160 --> 1:15:08.639 equipment maker? I believe I think you're right. Yeah, who 1:15:08.680 --> 1:15:10.000 made all the film's chain mail? 1:15:10.400 --> 1:15:13.280 Oh that wasn't like like fabric made the look like 1:15:13.320 --> 1:15:13.920 real chain mail. 1:15:13.920 --> 1:15:15.519 It was real chain mail, just rings. 1:15:16.320 --> 1:15:19.120 On the film's DVD commentary, Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe 1:15:19.160 --> 1:15:23.559 reveal a neat easter egg emblazoned on Maximus's breastplate. He 1:15:23.640 --> 1:15:27.880 names the horses Argento and Scatto, which means silver and 1:15:28.160 --> 1:15:30.960 more or less trigger and Silver was the name of 1:15:30.960 --> 1:15:33.479 the horse ridden by the Lone Ranger, and trigger was 1:15:33.479 --> 1:15:36.200 the name of the horse ridden by Roy Rogers. I 1:15:36.280 --> 1:15:38.360 love that nice little bit of Americana there hit in 1:15:38.400 --> 1:15:40.679 an ancient rome, and there are a few other little 1:15:40.720 --> 1:15:43.200 Easter eggs nestled throughout the film. You can hear a 1:15:43.240 --> 1:15:46.759 sample of chanting from the nineteen sixty four film Zulu 1:15:46.880 --> 1:15:49.479 mixed into the beginning of the Germania Battle. That's cool, 1:15:49.880 --> 1:15:52.479 and one of the totems carried by the opposing forces 1:15:52.960 --> 1:15:57.120 is a mask from the much mocked Sean Connery film 1:15:57.360 --> 1:16:00.439 Zardo's that's the one of him in the in the 1:16:00.600 --> 1:16:05.559 Sling the Sling speedo. Yes, yes, it's painted gray and 1:16:05.600 --> 1:16:10.160 subjected to appropriate weathering to make it look slightly less obvious. Meanwhile, 1:16:10.320 --> 1:16:13.400 art director Cliff Robinson was responsible for putting together the 1:16:13.400 --> 1:16:17.280 film's vehicles, which included the Royal carriage, but more importantly 1:16:17.360 --> 1:16:20.439 the chariots used in the Colisseum. They both had the 1:16:20.439 --> 1:16:24.160 look cool as hell and served various functions. Twenty four 1:16:24.200 --> 1:16:27.000 of these were built in total, which is incredible rannging 1:16:27.000 --> 1:16:29.880 from the more ornate ones used by a commutus Antigris 1:16:29.880 --> 1:16:32.559 of gall and sixteen of these were used for the 1:16:32.560 --> 1:16:36.040 battle scene. For that scene, some were stunt ready, meaning 1:16:36.040 --> 1:16:38.360 they were able to take a beating and or be destroyed, 1:16:38.600 --> 1:16:42.080 but others were constructed with special combat angle camera mounts. 1:16:42.479 --> 1:16:45.160 Cliff Robinson, the art director, also built the Roman War 1:16:45.200 --> 1:16:50.560 weapons like arrow volleying scorpions and two full sized catapults, 1:16:51.000 --> 1:16:55.160 each weighing a ton incapable of launching missiles four hundred 1:16:55.200 --> 1:16:56.200 and fifty feet. 1:16:57.040 --> 1:17:01.120 What a sick day, Yeah at work, I made that catapult. 1:17:01.280 --> 1:17:07.160 It works as one would expect. Over twenty five hundred 1:17:07.160 --> 1:17:10.840 pieces of weaponry were designed and manufactured by Simon Atherton 1:17:10.880 --> 1:17:13.360 and his team, although this figure does not include the 1:17:13.479 --> 1:17:18.000 sixteen thousand flaming and ten thousand non flaming arrows used 1:17:18.000 --> 1:17:20.640 in the opening scene. I saw figures somewhere that they 1:17:20.720 --> 1:17:24.920 made twenty seven five hundred individual armor components to be 1:17:25.000 --> 1:17:28.840 mixed and matched among the different extras. Simon Atherton is 1:17:28.840 --> 1:17:31.200 the real deal. He started his life as an armorer 1:17:31.240 --> 1:17:33.600 as an apprentice in a gun shop when he was sixteen, 1:17:33.720 --> 1:17:37.000 and subsequently went to work on two Indiana Jones's A Highlander, 1:17:37.160 --> 1:17:41.040 Two Aliens, A Bond, The Three Musketeers, Brave Heart, the 1:17:41.160 --> 1:17:43.720 Fifth Element. I don't know why I emphasized it like that. 1:17:44.040 --> 1:17:48.240 He made Ridley's gun, the pulse rifle in Aliens, which 1:17:48.280 --> 1:17:50.360 is like one of the most iconic pieces of sci 1:17:50.400 --> 1:17:54.080 fi weaponry ever, the mask of Zoro and the Mummy 1:17:54.240 --> 1:18:01.160 before getting onto Gladiator once again, Happy Mumvember to everyone. Ironically, 1:18:01.320 --> 1:18:03.559 Atherton says in the making of book that there was 1:18:03.600 --> 1:18:06.040 not much reference to be found in books for weaponry 1:18:06.040 --> 1:18:09.240 and armor from this period, sure Man, and so many 1:18:09.240 --> 1:18:12.519 of the film's weapons were original concept, like scissor shaped 1:18:12.640 --> 1:18:17.639 sword gauntlets and the multi firing crossbow used at one scene. 1:18:17.760 --> 1:18:19.840 Yeah, we can't really find much. So I got, I got, 1:18:19.880 --> 1:18:21.880 I got these cool things I was thinking about, Like 1:18:22.120 --> 1:18:22.920 we could just do that. 1:18:23.439 --> 1:18:27.160 Wow, scissor hands, any precedent for that in Hollywood recently? 1:18:27.800 --> 1:18:30.120 A guy with scissors for hands. 1:18:30.680 --> 1:18:33.360 One of the most well documented periods in human history. Yeah, 1:18:33.360 --> 1:18:34.160 I can't find much. 1:18:35.000 --> 1:18:37.360 We could go scissor hands. Really, Scott literally was like, 1:18:38.520 --> 1:18:43.040 give me a machine gun. And he says in that 1:18:43.160 --> 1:18:44.960 there's there's an there's like a three and a half 1:18:44.960 --> 1:18:46.960 hour making of on YouTube and I did not watch 1:18:47.000 --> 1:18:51.120 all of so caught me sleeping. But he talks about 1:18:51.160 --> 1:18:53.479 the machine gun, cross crossbone. He's like, I could even 1:18:53.479 --> 1:18:56.240 figure out how to sketch this thing out and design it, 1:18:56.520 --> 1:18:59.720 so I just had to build it. Like so it 1:19:00.400 --> 1:19:05.080 after a fashion Athington. This is interesting because there are 1:19:05.160 --> 1:19:07.920 like specific if you're a nerd like me, for taxonomy, 1:19:08.080 --> 1:19:12.000 there are like a bunch of actually documented types of 1:19:12.080 --> 1:19:15.240 gladiators that they got from frescoes and different writings. So 1:19:15.400 --> 1:19:19.479 like Murmillos is a specific class of gladiator who have 1:19:19.560 --> 1:19:22.760 these fish helms, and if you see these, it's hard 1:19:22.760 --> 1:19:24.720 to describe with in a podcast. But if you see 1:19:24.720 --> 1:19:28.559 these sort of goggle eyed, grilled mask with the big 1:19:29.120 --> 1:19:33.960 almost conquistador style helmets, like those archetypes are present in 1:19:34.040 --> 1:19:36.000 frescoes and stuff. And now that's how they pulled out 1:19:36.000 --> 1:19:39.040 of this. The aforementioned men with a tuna sword who 1:19:39.040 --> 1:19:42.760 could kill you in the source painting is called a 1:19:42.800 --> 1:19:47.759 reterrioris or retire. They were specifically armed with a trident 1:19:47.800 --> 1:19:50.640 and a net. Thracians had a very specific kind of 1:19:50.680 --> 1:19:55.320 almost boomerang as curved short sword. There were basically guys 1:19:55.320 --> 1:19:59.320 who just fought with enormous brass knuckles or like knife 1:19:59.400 --> 1:20:03.200 gloves and were otherwise unarmored. And then there was a 1:20:03.240 --> 1:20:05.719 special guy who appears in the film named for Pluto, 1:20:05.880 --> 1:20:08.040 the Roman god of the dead, and you can see 1:20:08.080 --> 1:20:10.040 him in the film. His job is to just he 1:20:10.160 --> 1:20:15.400 was specifically just to walk around the arena afterwards and 1:20:15.640 --> 1:20:20.080 with a giant spear combo spear club combo, just bash 1:20:20.160 --> 1:20:22.479 people's heads in real good if it didn't look like 1:20:22.520 --> 1:20:25.240 they were going to be able to recover. And so 1:20:25.320 --> 1:20:27.679 that one of those weapons is on auction, I believe 1:20:27.720 --> 1:20:30.479 currently it's called the A lot of this is on auction. 1:20:30.520 --> 1:20:32.760 It's all over Julian's in different prop places because they 1:20:32.760 --> 1:20:34.080 made so much of it. So if you want to 1:20:34.840 --> 1:20:38.240 for a loved one, or say a podcaster you really like, 1:20:40.040 --> 1:20:45.519 go buy one. They're called Elysium Dispatchers. So that's cool, man. 1:20:46.120 --> 1:20:48.320 The fun note that everyone about the hip hop nerds 1:20:48.320 --> 1:20:51.920 will note about this is that MF. Doom wears a 1:20:52.040 --> 1:20:58.519 version of Maximus's mask. Jordan. Hip hop is a genre 1:21:00.080 --> 1:21:03.640 speak rhythmically over beats. It might be a bit of 1:21:03.640 --> 1:21:06.880 a blind spot for you since the fifties. But sorry, 1:21:06.960 --> 1:21:11.720 that was necessarily mean. But yeah, that Maximus's mask that 1:21:11.760 --> 1:21:14.600 he first wears just became stage makeup for this for 1:21:14.640 --> 1:21:17.320 British rapper m F. Doom, who sadly died a few 1:21:17.400 --> 1:21:22.360 years back. At this point, I think Tigris of Gulls sick, 1:21:23.880 --> 1:21:28.519 absolutely raw as hell. Tiger head face mask that has 1:21:28.560 --> 1:21:32.040 a tear on one eye, it's so unbelievably cool as 1:21:32.080 --> 1:21:36.400 hell that was made up. Copies of certain weapons were 1:21:36.439 --> 1:21:39.040 also rendered in leather or rubber for close ups that 1:21:39.080 --> 1:21:41.840 required people to take real hits. And then I just 1:21:41.840 --> 1:21:44.200 want to drop in a quote about from Simon Atherton 1:21:44.240 --> 1:21:47.679 about archery, which is cool Roman archery. He said, while 1:21:47.760 --> 1:21:52.200 Roman soldiers would use they typically use short swords, spears 1:21:52.200 --> 1:21:55.120 and shields and military situations. He gave this very interesting 1:21:55.880 --> 1:21:59.720 breakdown of the Roman field tactics. You know, they had 1:21:59.760 --> 1:22:03.960 the They would first throw these spears that were very 1:22:04.680 --> 1:22:08.559 weakly constructed so that they couldn't be repurposed. They were 1:22:08.640 --> 1:22:11.960 javelins essentially that were designed to break. And then they 1:22:11.960 --> 1:22:15.000 would advance either with longer spears that were more sturdy 1:22:15.439 --> 1:22:18.640 behind shields, or the short swords which are called gladyeye. 1:22:18.920 --> 1:22:21.640 That's where you get the term gladiator from. And what 1:22:21.680 --> 1:22:24.760 Simon said is that Romans didn't actually like archery very 1:22:24.840 --> 1:22:27.439 much as a concept. That was more of a I 1:22:27.439 --> 1:22:30.360 think it evolved more of British stuff. But then he 1:22:30.439 --> 1:22:34.000 gives this insanely minute detail of how they were made. 1:22:34.560 --> 1:22:37.800 They used a horn and sinew bow because from that 1:22:37.840 --> 1:22:41.880 part of the world, Mediterraneans very dry wood. So you 1:22:41.920 --> 1:22:44.479 make a bow on a small wooden cord, and then 1:22:44.520 --> 1:22:47.280 on the outside you lay sinew from the achilles tendon 1:22:47.439 --> 1:22:50.479 or the backstrap of an animal dried out, and then 1:22:50.520 --> 1:22:52.960 the inside of the bow you put horn from an animal. 1:22:53.120 --> 1:22:56.240 So in fact what they were making was ancient. Three 1:22:56.280 --> 1:23:00.360 layered fiberglass. Wow, I think that's all so neat, really cool. 1:23:01.120 --> 1:23:03.479 You titled this next section do you like to hang 1:23:03.520 --> 1:23:08.120 around in men's locker rooms? We've been jerry judicious at 1:23:08.160 --> 1:23:09.679 the airplane quote. 1:23:09.720 --> 1:23:12.559 I must say, yeah, we haven't brought it back that much. 1:23:12.720 --> 1:23:17.920 Russell Crowe, Jim and Hansu and Ralph Mohler really hitting 1:23:17.960 --> 1:23:20.439 all my pronunciational blind spots. 1:23:20.479 --> 1:23:24.760 Here a real international casting of beefy Men. 1:23:25.840 --> 1:23:29.360 They were all trained by stunt coordinator Phil Nilsen and 1:23:29.400 --> 1:23:33.040 fight master Nicholas Powell. Russell Crow had an uphill battle 1:23:33.040 --> 1:23:35.679 from the start, sweating through farm chores at his ranch 1:23:35.680 --> 1:23:37.960 in Australia to try to lose forty pounds, and he'd 1:23:38.000 --> 1:23:41.240 put on for the insider to get back into fighting shape, 1:23:41.760 --> 1:23:43.479 so we maintained he didn't do much more. 1:23:43.360 --> 1:23:45.240 Than that, which is good for him. 1:23:45.760 --> 1:23:48.640 The three principal gladiators also lifted weights every day in 1:23:48.720 --> 1:23:51.960 a mobile gym on set where Moler, a former Mister Universe, 1:23:52.000 --> 1:23:55.160 would keep them pumped up. But all the training in 1:23:55.200 --> 1:23:58.360 the world doesn't account for accidents, and by all accounts 1:23:58.439 --> 1:24:01.920 there were a fair number. Hans So told Variety, I 1:24:01.960 --> 1:24:04.679 almost accidentally stab somebody in the head. In the fight 1:24:04.760 --> 1:24:07.679 sequence at the coliseum where Maximus gets on the horse, 1:24:08.120 --> 1:24:10.080 most of us got carried away, and I think when 1:24:10.080 --> 1:24:12.760 you're truly doing it for real, the pretend sort of 1:24:12.800 --> 1:24:15.479 goes out of the way and the emotion takes over. 1:24:15.800 --> 1:24:17.560 So a lot of people got hurt. 1:24:18.280 --> 1:24:19.280 He was also one of them. 1:24:19.360 --> 1:24:21.320 During the scene where he fights the gladiator and the 1:24:21.360 --> 1:24:25.040 horned bullhead Helm, the other actor made an unexpected head 1:24:25.080 --> 1:24:28.120 movement and one of the horns missed haunts Who's eyes 1:24:28.160 --> 1:24:31.799 by inches, instead cutting a deep gash into his shoulder. 1:24:31.920 --> 1:24:35.320 Jesus naturally. Russell Krog got the worst of these accidents. 1:24:36.000 --> 1:24:38.120 He was at one point told by production to stop 1:24:38.160 --> 1:24:42.080 playing soccer between filming because of the risk it post. 1:24:42.840 --> 1:24:45.320 He responded to this with a memo of his own, saying, 1:24:46.040 --> 1:24:48.320 I can wrestle four tigers, but I can't play a 1:24:48.320 --> 1:24:52.880 game of soccer. Get over it, love Russell. You know 1:24:53.680 --> 1:24:56.120 that's really missing. That's really lacking when it's not done. 1:24:56.120 --> 1:24:59.000 In the Australian accident, can you give us a I. 1:24:58.920 --> 1:25:00.920 Can wrestle with four times, but I can't play a 1:25:00.920 --> 1:25:04.880 game of soaka, get over it, love Russell. We have 1:25:04.920 --> 1:25:08.400 a love Russell, I'm doing a very specific like bogan 1:25:08.640 --> 1:25:11.439 like a it's a it's not like the nick Cave 1:25:11.520 --> 1:25:17.360 Australian accent, posh. It's a kind of rednecky Australian accent. 1:25:18.160 --> 1:25:23.840 It's a holeover from Crocodile dundee. Yeah, an experienced horseback rider. 1:25:24.040 --> 1:25:24.639 Crowd did his. 1:25:24.600 --> 1:25:28.400 Own riding during certain scenes, including during the fairly dangerous 1:25:28.439 --> 1:25:32.120 initial charge in the Germania battle scene the Betel Variety. 1:25:32.160 --> 1:25:34.519 There were shots in there where other people would double 1:25:34.600 --> 1:25:36.559 me and then they would complain about a shot and 1:25:36.560 --> 1:25:38.479 I would just be like, we'll just let me do 1:25:38.560 --> 1:25:41.920 it then. But that particular slope down into the battlefield 1:25:41.960 --> 1:25:44.000 with all the fire is going off and the explosions 1:25:44.040 --> 1:25:46.760 going off, that was actually a pretty hairy day. 1:25:47.200 --> 1:25:50.040 Russell Croade later detailed the breadth of his injuries from 1:25:50.040 --> 1:25:53.320 this film on inside the actor's studio. A lot of blood, 1:25:53.360 --> 1:25:55.439 a lot of blood, a lot of grazes, you know. 1:25:55.520 --> 1:25:57.519 I mean, I've still got a little scar here one 1:25:57.640 --> 1:26:00.599 under here on this elbow, a discolouration of the skin 1:26:00.680 --> 1:26:03.600 that is directly from Gladiator or just from being Australian. 1:26:05.040 --> 1:26:08.040 They are sun drenched people, Okay, it's. 1:26:07.920 --> 1:26:10.519 Right under the ozone the hole in the ozone layer exactly. 1:26:10.760 --> 1:26:13.639 He said. I've had achilles tendons go out, knees go out, 1:26:13.720 --> 1:26:16.320 both shoulders, this shoulders actually had an operation on it. 1:26:16.400 --> 1:26:18.960 I've got a lower back thing that just won't go away, 1:26:19.960 --> 1:26:22.200 and that's from a couple sort of fall impacts during 1:26:22.240 --> 1:26:24.760 fight sequences or whatever. I've got a ribub here that 1:26:24.760 --> 1:26:27.040 pops out every now and then, which is not very comfortable. 1:26:27.680 --> 1:26:30.800 Twenty years after the film, Crove joked to Variety, when 1:26:30.840 --> 1:26:32.679 you're younger, you're made of rubber and you can bounce 1:26:32.720 --> 1:26:35.040 back again. I do remember saying to my mom when 1:26:35.040 --> 1:26:36.680 I got home from that shoot. She said, how do 1:26:36.720 --> 1:26:38.839 you feel? I said, I actually feel like a football 1:26:38.840 --> 1:26:40.679 player who's played one season too many. 1:26:40.920 --> 1:26:43.800 Oh again, getting back to the Ali Reid thing that 1:26:43.840 --> 1:26:48.200 makes me sad. I just started, as you know, working 1:26:48.240 --> 1:26:50.120 out and training for the first time of my life 1:26:50.160 --> 1:26:53.479 at age thirty six, and I'm I'm kind of here's 1:26:53.479 --> 1:26:56.160 stories like this, and I'm kind of terrified. For a 1:26:56.160 --> 1:27:01.280 delicate flower like me. I'm sort of shocked. I haven't 1:27:01.320 --> 1:27:03.280 like hurt myself yet in the last couple of months. 1:27:03.360 --> 1:27:07.080 Yeah, but here I am here you are. You're surviving 1:27:07.200 --> 1:27:11.759 and shouts to your trainer, Lewis Luise. Yes, the Luise. 1:27:11.920 --> 1:27:13.680 He knows about the show. He wants me to send 1:27:13.720 --> 1:27:17.240 them episodes. Yeah, speak, he has me. Uh, let's see. 1:27:17.240 --> 1:27:21.000 It was deadlifting one seventy five this week. Damn dude, 1:27:21.479 --> 1:27:24.800 I was bench pressing one thirty five. 1:27:25.600 --> 1:27:27.360 Oh yeah, man, check you out. 1:27:27.520 --> 1:27:31.040 Yeah trying, I'm trying. Only been a couple months. The 1:27:31.120 --> 1:27:34.639 film's menagerie of animal co stars were obviously yet another 1:27:34.720 --> 1:27:39.160 logistical hurdle. One particularly fraught situation was actually the dimensions 1:27:39.200 --> 1:27:42.759 of the Colosseum. The set was actually about fifteen percent 1:27:42.840 --> 1:27:45.559 too small for the horses, and they're five hundred pound 1:27:45.640 --> 1:27:48.320 chariots plus actors to turn around it and once they 1:27:48.400 --> 1:27:52.679 emerged up that long entrance ramp at full gallop, Ridley 1:27:52.720 --> 1:27:55.080 Scott says in the making of book, they can't turn 1:27:55.120 --> 1:27:57.519 because they're going too fast. They just have to rein 1:27:57.560 --> 1:28:00.120 in and slow down fast. And I knew I was 1:28:00.160 --> 1:28:03.280 fifteen percent short, so it was really tricky. They were 1:28:03.280 --> 1:28:04.839 grazing the other end of the stadium. 1:28:05.080 --> 1:28:07.240 Ooh, that sounds dangerous. 1:28:07.640 --> 1:28:10.840 They also used cameras on rigs being towed by ATVs 1:28:10.880 --> 1:28:13.479 for some of these shots, which added another fun element 1:28:13.479 --> 1:28:17.439 of unpredictability. Chief animal trainer Paul Reynolds sourced most of 1:28:17.479 --> 1:28:23.720 the animals on the film, including tigers, leopards, girafts, lions, vultures, zebras, 1:28:23.880 --> 1:28:26.920 and let's not forget an elephant. Owing to the difficulties 1:28:26.960 --> 1:28:31.160 of transporting exotic animals over international boundaries. However, production had 1:28:31.160 --> 1:28:33.680 to borrow animals from a local zoo when they were 1:28:33.680 --> 1:28:38.960 shooting in Morocco, of which Reynolds has the following cheerful 1:28:39.000 --> 1:28:41.880 note in the book. Of course, these are not animals 1:28:41.960 --> 1:28:44.120 that have been raised and trained for this work. They're 1:28:44.160 --> 1:28:47.680 really wild. But everyone survived and we sent all the 1:28:47.720 --> 1:28:49.040 animals back healthy. 1:28:51.840 --> 1:28:53.760 But you don't want to hear about that. No, you 1:28:53.760 --> 1:28:56.120 want to hear about Russell Crowe fighting tigers. Oh yeah, 1:28:56.240 --> 1:28:58.000 which would be said to learn he did not actually 1:28:58.000 --> 1:29:04.639 do on Phil James Brown Outs bands right now? Yeah, yeah, fellas, 1:29:04.640 --> 1:29:06.439 can I tell him about Russell crow fighting tigers? Tell 1:29:06.439 --> 1:29:09.280 about Russell coll fighting tigers? He didn't actually do it? 1:29:10.439 --> 1:29:15.920 Take him? Yeah, So really, Scott had storyboard in that 1:29:16.000 --> 1:29:20.200 whole fight, and he had overconfidently budgeted a mere four 1:29:20.280 --> 1:29:23.439 days for tiger's shooting purposes. This ended up taking weeks. 1:29:24.200 --> 1:29:27.719 The workflow was, at least in some parts alarmingly real. 1:29:28.280 --> 1:29:31.960 Animal trainers would use bait to get the tigers to lunge, 1:29:32.160 --> 1:29:35.519 leap and roar with, you know, just chunks of meat, 1:29:36.080 --> 1:29:39.760 and their controls were just the chains you see in 1:29:39.800 --> 1:29:42.800 the film, just a caller and some chains to run 1:29:42.840 --> 1:29:47.360 through ira eye hooks, you know, in the ground. But 1:29:47.400 --> 1:29:51.799 these were done independently of Crow's stuntwork and his stunt actors, 1:29:51.840 --> 1:29:55.080 So basically they would composite shots. Basically, the tigers do 1:29:55.160 --> 1:29:58.200 something in one take that they put Crow or his 1:29:58.240 --> 1:30:02.880 stunt double in a you know, another in the same background, 1:30:02.960 --> 1:30:05.760 film their reaction, and then they paste it together. And 1:30:05.800 --> 1:30:09.640 this happened daily. Film editor patro Scalia would view the 1:30:09.720 --> 1:30:11.759 dailies to see if he had enough of these angles 1:30:11.760 --> 1:30:14.880 to edit with and then ask for reshoots accordingly, Now 1:30:14.960 --> 1:30:17.759 that there were some shots that they did do within 1:30:17.840 --> 1:30:21.840 a degree of distance, Ridley Scott in the book says 1:30:21.880 --> 1:30:24.120 that he allowed for fifteen feet of distance between the 1:30:24.120 --> 1:30:27.080 tigers and actors most of the time, although in recent 1:30:27.160 --> 1:30:29.960 years that number has shrunk. In the telling, he said 1:30:29.960 --> 1:30:31.960 to Variety the tiger would come out of the hole 1:30:32.000 --> 1:30:33.680 and Russell would roll out of the way and he 1:30:33.720 --> 1:30:37.040 said me, that was close, and I said, we were 1:30:37.040 --> 1:30:39.800 there as well, Russell, you were two feet I was 1:30:39.920 --> 1:30:43.760 like four feet. Anyway, four six hundred pound tigers were 1:30:43.840 --> 1:30:46.360 used for that fight scene. Two were more docile ones 1:30:46.400 --> 1:30:48.880 from the US that had been hand raised, and two 1:30:48.960 --> 1:30:53.559 were quote less predictable ones from France. This is where 1:30:53.560 --> 1:30:57.519 you fade in the so fade in that music. In France, 1:30:57.560 --> 1:31:01.800 we do not trains italielles MWC and feeds in the 1:31:01.880 --> 1:31:07.320 cigarette wine, collected cameo and paperback. Buff. 1:31:10.520 --> 1:31:11.679 What does buff means? 1:31:11.760 --> 1:31:14.320 It's just like buff is like a standard French interjection 1:31:14.400 --> 1:31:16.320 that's kind of like, you know, just saying like m 1:31:16.439 --> 1:31:20.040 er yeah, I guess like buff usually a companied by 1:31:20.040 --> 1:31:23.799 like an eye roll. So much of the close distance 1:31:23.840 --> 1:31:25.800 shots that you do see were created with a full 1:31:25.840 --> 1:31:30.000 size animatronic tiger that could be positioned over Maximus's shoulders 1:31:30.360 --> 1:31:33.760 and move or on top of him and move suspended, 1:31:33.840 --> 1:31:36.840 be suspended in mid air for leaping shots, and so 1:31:36.920 --> 1:31:39.000 the shots that you see in the final film were 1:31:39.000 --> 1:31:41.800 achieved by a combination of compositing, real tigers, with the 1:31:41.840 --> 1:31:45.240 actors and the animatronic one and some subtle CGI work. 1:31:45.600 --> 1:31:48.280 One of the live tigers actually did get sort of 1:31:48.360 --> 1:31:51.559 loose one day. It reared back suddenly on its chain 1:31:51.720 --> 1:31:54.360 and it knocked its handler to the ground, and so 1:31:54.400 --> 1:31:56.519 all this slack went into the chain and he had 1:31:56.520 --> 1:31:58.519 to run and scramble to grab it before the thing 1:31:58.600 --> 1:32:04.599 had enough lead to I guess eat crow, get it work. 1:32:04.840 --> 1:32:06.880 Yeah, that was good. That was nice. That was nice. 1:32:06.880 --> 1:32:10.320 Thank you. There isn't a count in the fantastically named 1:32:10.640 --> 1:32:15.559 Russell Crowe a life, a book I found in Google 1:32:15.640 --> 1:32:20.080 Books that claims there was a point at which Tigers 1:32:20.080 --> 1:32:22.240 of gall actor seven ol Thorson was pinned to the 1:32:22.240 --> 1:32:25.840 ground by an arrant tiger at one point which Russell 1:32:25.880 --> 1:32:28.519 Crowe distracted by swatting it on the butt with his 1:32:28.600 --> 1:32:33.599 rubber sword. Which, okay, man, I believe that he said, 1:32:33.680 --> 1:32:38.680 winking heavily. And Maximus' dog meant to be a wolf, obviously, 1:32:38.720 --> 1:32:41.599 the Roman Romulus and rimas you know, the whole thing 1:32:41.600 --> 1:32:48.320 about Rome Wolf, et cetera. Britain's strict anti rabies laws 1:32:48.520 --> 1:32:50.439 meant that they could not use a real wolf for 1:32:50.479 --> 1:32:53.920 filming those nanny state Yeah, I know, because of woke 1:32:55.600 --> 1:32:57.960 They don't want you to have a wolf for a pack. Yeah, 1:32:58.080 --> 1:33:03.200 the woke left doesn't want you to have wolves, so 1:33:03.240 --> 1:33:08.839 they used a teruvi teruvein Belgian shepherd dog's name was Kite. 1:33:09.479 --> 1:33:12.000 He appears with Russell Crowe in the Battle of Germania scenes. 1:33:12.120 --> 1:33:14.840 Now that dog may be familiar to the anglophiles among you, 1:33:15.400 --> 1:33:18.920 because it plays Robbie Jackson's dog Wellard in the British 1:33:18.920 --> 1:33:20.360 TV show east Enders. 1:33:21.040 --> 1:33:26.000 English Friends there, John and company. Yes, yes, he doesn't 1:33:26.040 --> 1:33:27.719 strike me as an EastEnders fan though. 1:33:28.400 --> 1:33:34.360 Yeah, exactly. So. Oh, here's a depressing historical sidebar. Annimal 1:33:34.439 --> 1:33:38.280 blood sports were so popular in Rome that records suggest 1:33:38.479 --> 1:33:42.240 one emperor killed up to five thousand animals in one 1:33:42.360 --> 1:33:46.200 three day stretch of games. Elephants, rhinos. So you'll notice 1:33:46.280 --> 1:33:49.759 in the sequel there's a scene with a rhino. Ridley 1:33:49.800 --> 1:33:52.240 wanted to put a rhino into this film. They could 1:33:52.240 --> 1:33:56.000 not wrangle it. So, of course, like what's his name, 1:33:56.640 --> 1:33:59.880 Streisan director John Peters, So of course, like John p 1:34:00.600 --> 1:34:03.840 who was agitating for a giant spider scene in the 1:34:03.920 --> 1:34:07.679 Kevin Smith Superman, didn't get it. That film didn't get made, 1:34:07.760 --> 1:34:10.520 and so then in Wild Wild West, which he also produced, 1:34:10.720 --> 1:34:15.240 got an enormous CGI monstrosity giant spider. Ridley Scott wanted 1:34:15.240 --> 1:34:19.840 a rhino ingladiator and twenty four years later got his 1:34:20.200 --> 1:34:25.560 damn CGI rhinos scene. So yeah, they would use rhinos, tigers, cheetahs, 1:34:25.680 --> 1:34:28.000 all leopards, just anything they could get their hands on, 1:34:28.080 --> 1:34:31.519 and throwing an arena against humans bears. Sorry, what are 1:34:31.520 --> 1:34:31.960 you laughing at? 1:34:32.160 --> 1:34:34.760 I just love how you phrased animal blood sports like 1:34:34.840 --> 1:34:35.959 animal blood sports? 1:34:36.000 --> 1:34:37.680 What are they and what can they do for you? 1:34:39.760 --> 1:34:40.719 And now a letter? 1:34:40.960 --> 1:34:43.960 Yeah, here's a letter. 1:34:44.120 --> 1:34:47.400 Here's a letter. Commodus. So he's the emperor portrayed by 1:34:47.560 --> 1:34:52.320 Joaquin Phoenix was in reality quite an ace with a spear. 1:34:52.400 --> 1:34:56.400 According to some records, he once gave himself one hundred 1:34:56.439 --> 1:35:00.280 spears to kill one hundred lions and did so. 1:35:00.680 --> 1:35:02.720 A spear a lion. I appreciate that he I guess 1:35:02.720 --> 1:35:04.719 you wouldn't remove your spirit from a dead lion. 1:35:04.760 --> 1:35:06.920 That's just he was throwing them, I believe. 1:35:07.000 --> 1:35:08.800 Oh oh oh okay. 1:35:08.600 --> 1:35:11.520 Yeah yeah yeah. This wasn't out of concern for economy 1:35:11.680 --> 1:35:12.880 or the animals. 1:35:13.400 --> 1:35:16.360 What was the quote from was a shade O'Connor described 1:35:16.439 --> 1:35:17.760 some man as a swordsman. 1:35:18.080 --> 1:35:22.200 Oh, that was you're referring to. You were referring to 1:35:22.680 --> 1:35:27.080 Sinead O'Connor describing Peter Gabriel as a bit of a swordsman. 1:35:27.800 --> 1:35:29.599 Excuse me wrong, member of Genesis. 1:35:29.680 --> 1:35:32.640 Yes, yes, yes, yeah, because because Kate Bush turned him 1:35:32.680 --> 1:35:36.400 down when they did their duet. Ah right, I'm so 1:35:36.479 --> 1:35:42.679 glad she was never sullied by him. As you meditate 1:35:42.720 --> 1:35:44.920 on that, We'll be right back with more too much 1:35:44.960 --> 1:35:54.000 information after these messages. 1:35:56.479 --> 1:35:59.360 The gladiator Tigris is played by a Danish strong man 1:35:59.439 --> 1:36:02.920 named spann Ole Thornson. I feel like I could have 1:36:03.080 --> 1:36:04.160 given more to that, Penincia. 1:36:04.200 --> 1:36:07.519 I'm pretty sure it's svan Olthorson, not ole, as a 1:36:07.560 --> 1:36:15.120 Spanish interjection used in bull fighting, him being Danish, right, right, 1:36:15.200 --> 1:36:15.719 right right. 1:36:16.560 --> 1:36:19.000 He was an old bunny of Arnold Schwarzenegger's Going Back 1:36:19.040 --> 1:36:21.680 to the Mister Universe days, and Old Arnie brought him 1:36:21.680 --> 1:36:23.960 along with him into the film world for films. 1:36:23.600 --> 1:36:26.000 Like Conan, the Barbarian and The Running Man. 1:36:26.600 --> 1:36:30.280 He ultimately wound up in fifteen of Arnold's films. He's 1:36:30.280 --> 1:36:33.960 the boter hat wearing security guard La Four's in Molrats 1:36:34.000 --> 1:36:35.679 also Kevin Smith. 1:36:36.520 --> 1:36:39.679 Yeah, well and that's our second Kevin Smith Reverence. John 1:36:39.720 --> 1:36:42.360 Peters story is from Kevin Smith Prevence. How about that. 1:36:42.640 --> 1:36:45.760 Yeah, for him, the role of Tiggris was a hot 1:36:45.800 --> 1:36:47.240 one pension Tigris. 1:36:47.360 --> 1:36:49.200 Jesus Christ, he's got tigers. 1:36:49.439 --> 1:36:56.479 You're right, I'm sorry, the role of Tigris again, I'm sorry, yes, 1:36:56.600 --> 1:37:01.720 but tiger Tigris. I said Tigris. You said Tigris then now, 1:37:01.760 --> 1:37:02.880 and now I said Tigris. 1:37:03.000 --> 1:37:06.320 There's a really funny pressed junket clip of when they 1:37:06.320 --> 1:37:10.880 were doing I think it was Nightcrawler Jake Gillenhall, and 1:37:10.920 --> 1:37:12.639 they're doing one of those junket things with the whole 1:37:12.640 --> 1:37:15.680 principal cast, and the director says something like, well there's 1:37:15.720 --> 1:37:19.360 a real sense of melancholy in this film or something, 1:37:19.439 --> 1:37:25.720 and a furious Jake Gillenhal interjects melancholy. It's melancholy, and 1:37:25.720 --> 1:37:28.120 everyone sort of nervously jitter laughs, and then he just 1:37:28.520 --> 1:37:31.360 very cataly goes and it's not the first time today, 1:37:36.080 --> 1:37:39.599 So sorry, Yeah, it's it's Tigris, buddy. 1:37:39.640 --> 1:37:43.719 The role of Tigris was a hot one production, originally 1:37:43.760 --> 1:37:46.600 thought of stunt casting Arnold himself to play the Gladiator 1:37:47.120 --> 1:37:50.479 while ex incredible Hulk. Lou Farigno, who I always thought 1:37:50.520 --> 1:37:52.679 was kind of a punchline, though I guess he's huge, 1:37:52.960 --> 1:37:55.040 claimed that he was originally cast on the role before 1:37:55.080 --> 1:37:56.679 Schwarzenegger threw his weight around. 1:37:57.120 --> 1:37:58.200 Pun intended you. 1:37:58.320 --> 1:38:01.560 Right to get Florence and cast for Igno's quota is 1:38:01.640 --> 1:38:04.519 saying Schwarzenegger was jealous and he would rather have his 1:38:04.560 --> 1:38:06.960 friend because I was more of a threat. I was 1:38:07.000 --> 1:38:09.040 in the film. I had auditioned twice and I had 1:38:09.080 --> 1:38:11.160 the part. The casting agent told me that it had 1:38:11.200 --> 1:38:14.240 to do with Schwarzenegger. Apparently he was kind of jealous, 1:38:14.320 --> 1:38:17.000 so they switched rolls and Spenn felt bad about it. 1:38:17.040 --> 1:38:20.640 He's a good friend of mine. Schwarzenegger for Rigno have 1:38:20.720 --> 1:38:23.719 this weird dynamic because they're both in pumping iron together 1:38:24.360 --> 1:38:27.040 or the former can be seen mocking Loo's body. 1:38:27.240 --> 1:38:29.280 It's so funny too, because, like you know, if you 1:38:29.320 --> 1:38:32.120 see Schwarzenegger, he's actually short for weightlifter, and there's a 1:38:32.160 --> 1:38:34.599 pick of him. I mean, he's not short for a human, 1:38:34.680 --> 1:38:38.200 but like Forigno towers over him. There's that shot on 1:38:38.920 --> 1:38:41.879 Conan two where it's Wilt Chamberlain and under the giant 1:38:42.080 --> 1:38:45.479 like lifting up Arnold Schwarzenegger, and he looks like a toddler. 1:38:46.920 --> 1:38:49.160 It looks like the Twins poster, but he is. 1:38:50.800 --> 1:38:55.960 Two. Macho macha man. I didn't know where else to 1:38:55.960 --> 1:39:00.280 put this, but here's a surprise cinematographer moment, yay. John 1:39:00.320 --> 1:39:03.360 Matthey detailed his work on the film for the American 1:39:03.400 --> 1:39:07.240 Society of Cinematographers, explaining that he and Scott would as 1:39:07.280 --> 1:39:10.880 the storyboard artist. Earlier said employed up to seven cameras 1:39:10.920 --> 1:39:14.280 at a time for various scenes, from handheld cameras to 1:39:14.360 --> 1:39:18.200 the so called giraffe cranes, but his real trick for 1:39:18.240 --> 1:39:20.559 the film was shooting the battle scenes at various frame 1:39:20.680 --> 1:39:24.320 rates and with a forty five degree shutter. This is 1:39:24.320 --> 1:39:27.400 a method that had been recently seen in Saving Private Ryan, 1:39:27.479 --> 1:39:30.800 which helps make fast moving action feel more real and 1:39:30.840 --> 1:39:36.120 better captures minute movements without getting too nerdy about how 1:39:36.280 --> 1:39:39.800 lens's work. When you're shooting moving images, the anger the 1:39:39.840 --> 1:39:44.120 angle of the shutter forms a proportion to the time 1:39:44.439 --> 1:39:46.840 that each frame of film, the length of time that 1:39:46.920 --> 1:39:50.360 each frame film is exposed. A one hundred and eighty 1:39:50.840 --> 1:39:54.000 shutter angle is considered normal for your twenty four frames 1:39:54.040 --> 1:39:58.200 per second film shooting, So a tighter shutter angle will 1:39:58.240 --> 1:40:01.280 constrict motion blur. And when you see this in Saving 1:40:01.320 --> 1:40:04.160 Private Ryan, and you see this in Gladiator, that means 1:40:04.240 --> 1:40:07.559 when the look in quality changes, that's the shutter angle. 1:40:07.800 --> 1:40:10.320 But then what it means is that stuff like swords 1:40:10.439 --> 1:40:14.720 rather than blurring or sand in Saving Private Ryan, rather 1:40:14.760 --> 1:40:17.479 than blurring, you can see a lot more of the 1:40:17.720 --> 1:40:21.920 kind of individual frames of those action scenes. And this 1:40:22.040 --> 1:40:25.160 is also different from what would then be seen in 1:40:25.240 --> 1:40:27.880 three hundred and what has become a signature move of 1:40:28.840 --> 1:40:32.200 that jerk Off Zack Snyder called ramping, which is an 1:40:32.200 --> 1:40:36.000 effect that happens in the battle scenes where the overall 1:40:37.280 --> 1:40:40.880 rate of action suddenly slowed down to like a slow 1:40:40.920 --> 1:40:45.559 motion thing, and then very immediately sped up within the 1:40:45.560 --> 1:40:49.719 same shot. That's called ramping. That's different than shutter angle. 1:40:50.040 --> 1:40:52.280 It's like when you're tubing and the boat turns really 1:40:52.360 --> 1:40:55.000 quick and the rope hasn't had a chance to catch up, 1:40:55.000 --> 1:40:57.439 so you're just sitting there very still and you know 1:40:57.520 --> 1:41:00.200 it's about to like whip you, and then it does. 1:41:01.720 --> 1:41:05.479 Some people listening may get that that was such a 1:41:05.520 --> 1:41:08.920 far field reference from you. I could not bear to interrupt. 1:41:09.439 --> 1:41:13.160 I've been tubing. I just wouldn't connect that to movie magic. 1:41:13.880 --> 1:41:18.479 Oh you peasant, I connected the pain. Uh sorry. Since 1:41:18.479 --> 1:41:20.559 we're talking about camera stuff, it is also worth pointing 1:41:20.560 --> 1:41:23.120 out that one of the definitive images of the film, 1:41:23.560 --> 1:41:26.559 Maximus's hand passing over the grass in his fields as 1:41:26.560 --> 1:41:30.240 he dies, was a last second addition to the film, 1:41:30.479 --> 1:41:33.519 and that is not even Russell Crowe's hand as really. 1:41:33.560 --> 1:41:36.920 Scott explained it to Deadline in twenty twenty three. It 1:41:37.000 --> 1:41:40.479 was the last shot of principal photography. Russell didn't come 1:41:40.520 --> 1:41:43.559 to Italy. That was his double. The guy was standing 1:41:43.600 --> 1:41:46.280 there in this field smoking. I say, get out of 1:41:46.280 --> 1:41:50.160 the field. Are you joking? It was midsummer dry, He says, 1:41:50.320 --> 1:41:53.280 oh sorry, man. He walked off the field and did 1:41:53.280 --> 1:41:56.040 that thing with the hand. I said, stop right there, 1:41:56.320 --> 1:41:59.679 get the steady camp. We followed the hand. It became 1:41:59.720 --> 1:42:02.880 the list for immortality or Heaven if you like. Right there. 1:42:03.280 --> 1:42:07.000 It was discovered the last day. Spontaneously, Russell said, you'll 1:42:07.000 --> 1:42:10.479 never use that. I said I will when he saw 1:42:10.520 --> 1:42:13.479 the scene. When he saw on the scene, he groaned, 1:42:14.040 --> 1:42:16.479 I said, too late. It's shot I got it, mate. 1:42:17.320 --> 1:42:19.759 It was put out that cigarette and get the steady 1:42:19.760 --> 1:42:23.719 cam and don't walk on the wheat. What a character 1:42:23.800 --> 1:42:24.280 he is. 1:42:25.720 --> 1:42:30.400 Hans Zimmer, who sucks before before you, before you go? 1:42:30.800 --> 1:42:31.200 Do you see? 1:42:31.240 --> 1:42:34.519 There was some junket I must have been for Gladiator too. 1:42:34.400 --> 1:42:34.800 Who really? 1:42:34.800 --> 1:42:38.519 Scott was being interviewed and the reporter had previously talked, 1:42:38.560 --> 1:42:42.040 like in the months earlier to some famous filmmaker. I 1:42:42.080 --> 1:42:44.160 forget who it was, and he had the clip up 1:42:44.200 --> 1:42:47.000 on an iPad that he showed Ridley and was like, 1:42:47.040 --> 1:42:50.040 look look at this this director saying like how much 1:42:50.080 --> 1:42:53.599 you mean to him? And really was like I think 1:42:53.600 --> 1:42:55.840 I'm gonna cry. And the interview was like really He's 1:42:55.840 --> 1:43:00.920 like no, and they was just like what. 1:43:03.360 --> 1:43:10.240 A dick. Never forget he was an ad man, you know, 1:43:10.960 --> 1:43:15.200 he is literally don draper, Hans Zimmer, controversial guy. I 1:43:15.200 --> 1:43:17.040 didn't know that. Yeah, some of the charge. I mean, 1:43:17.080 --> 1:43:19.280 he doesn't read music, which is sort of the thing 1:43:19.320 --> 1:43:21.439 that immediately puts a lot of people off of him. 1:43:21.479 --> 1:43:25.960 He's incredibly gifted with a piano midi scoring piano role 1:43:26.040 --> 1:43:27.760 what they call it in midi when you can just 1:43:27.880 --> 1:43:31.960 you basically are just orchestrating an entire thing through MIDI 1:43:32.160 --> 1:43:34.240 just to the keyboard. So he's supposed to be very 1:43:34.360 --> 1:43:36.960 like a virtue also with that, but doesn't read music properly. 1:43:37.360 --> 1:43:39.800 One of the big charges from him is that he's 1:43:39.840 --> 1:43:41.840 one of those guys who, you know, this happens all 1:43:41.880 --> 1:43:45.080 the time. Composers come in and they just go, here's 1:43:45.120 --> 1:43:48.439 the theme, like, here's the melodic structure for this moment. 1:43:49.000 --> 1:43:51.600 I want to make it sound like ex composer, and 1:43:51.640 --> 1:43:56.559 then like five or six interns or staff orchestrators they're 1:43:56.600 --> 1:44:01.560 called fill that in. And that is apparently like especially gratuitous. 1:44:01.600 --> 1:44:03.800 In Zimmer's studio. It will just come in and be like, 1:44:05.000 --> 1:44:08.040 you know, here's this melodic frame, and then like all 1:44:08.080 --> 1:44:11.480 of his people who are either not credited or very underpaid, 1:44:11.680 --> 1:44:14.320 actually make it sound like what you're hearing and do 1:44:15.080 --> 1:44:17.519 what a lot of people would consume is the actual 1:44:17.640 --> 1:44:24.120 work of composition, harmonies, rhythmic motif elaborations, etc. But that's 1:44:24.160 --> 1:44:25.679 not even what we're talking about here. We're just talking 1:44:25.680 --> 1:44:29.960 about straight up theft. Zimmer's score for Gladiator contains what, 1:44:30.600 --> 1:44:34.680 depending on where you fall in this conception, this understanding 1:44:34.680 --> 1:44:41.280 of art is either homage references jumping points, or just 1:44:41.320 --> 1:44:45.720 straight up theft to Gustav Holst's suite the Planets, in 1:44:45.760 --> 1:44:49.360 particular Mars, the Burner of War. Now nerds will also 1:44:49.439 --> 1:44:53.400 remember that this dramatically informs John Williams's score for Star Wars, 1:44:54.160 --> 1:44:57.080 particularly the Imperial March is the one that's widely cited 1:44:57.600 --> 1:45:02.120 as using Mars as jumping off point. Zimmer didn't stop there. 1:45:02.160 --> 1:45:06.160 He also decided to yank stuff from Wagner, particularly the 1:45:06.240 --> 1:45:10.840 ring cycle. Now this this is standard practice, you know, 1:45:11.080 --> 1:45:13.719 this happens all the time. But Zimmer's quotation of Holst 1:45:13.800 --> 1:45:17.320 was glaring enough to merit a lawsuit from the Holst Foundation, 1:45:17.560 --> 1:45:20.679 who sued Zimmer over it in two thousand and six. Now, 1:45:20.720 --> 1:45:23.679 in the liner notes, Hans himself copped to using quote 1:45:23.960 --> 1:45:28.280 the same language, the same vocabulary, if not the same syntax, 1:45:29.240 --> 1:45:34.320 which is an incredibly weasily thing to say. Let's parse 1:45:34.360 --> 1:45:37.840 that for a second. The same language, the same vocabulary, 1:45:38.280 --> 1:45:42.600 but not the syntax, meaning all of the words and 1:45:42.640 --> 1:45:44.479 all of the specific. 1:45:43.920 --> 1:45:46.040 Words put in a different rhythm. 1:45:46.160 --> 1:45:48.559 I don't know. You can go on YouTube and find 1:45:48.560 --> 1:45:51.160 this in ten seconds and make the judgment for yourself. 1:45:51.280 --> 1:45:54.160 This was, of course settled out of court, presumably by Zimmer, 1:45:54.280 --> 1:45:56.799 who just wanted to avoid the bad press, I guess, 1:45:57.360 --> 1:46:00.000 and he has literally also copped to this in interviews. 1:46:00.120 --> 1:46:02.000 I found one where he said, and I love this. 1:46:02.600 --> 1:46:05.839 I managed to assume the style of Wagner so easily 1:46:05.880 --> 1:46:08.120 that I was able to write that piece and Gladiator 1:46:08.280 --> 1:46:12.200 in an hour, although also in that interview he says 1:46:12.240 --> 1:46:16.080 the whole theft evolved as an accident. I also read 1:46:16.080 --> 1:46:18.479 one other thing that says an early part of Zimmer's 1:46:18.560 --> 1:46:22.200 queue for the battle lifts a melodic passage from Tchaikowsky's 1:46:22.240 --> 1:46:26.960 Symphony Number six. So take all this theft homage however 1:46:27.000 --> 1:46:30.280 you will, but the Gladiator score drama doesn't stop there. 1:46:30.600 --> 1:46:33.800 A few years later, fans noticed a striking similarity between 1:46:33.840 --> 1:46:36.839 one of Gladiator's themes and the main theme of the 1:46:36.880 --> 1:46:41.840 Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, Caribbean. Whatever the emphosisis is 1:46:41.960 --> 1:46:44.519 there Paramel. The film's music was originally supposed to have 1:46:44.520 --> 1:46:48.000 been done by Alan Silvestri, who left that production over 1:46:48.280 --> 1:46:53.080 differences with producer Jerry Brockheimer. Zimmer took over the job 1:46:53.160 --> 1:46:57.080 with another composer named Klaus Badelt, who was employed by 1:46:57.160 --> 1:47:00.559 Zimmer's film scoring company, and Zimmer supposed that they wrote 1:47:00.760 --> 1:47:03.560 much of the themes for this for Pirates in a 1:47:03.640 --> 1:47:09.800 single night. He repurposed, allegedly, if you will, rather than 1:47:10.040 --> 1:47:14.640 self plagiarized or just recycled themes from not only Gladiator, 1:47:14.720 --> 1:47:16.519 but also a score he wrote for a movie called 1:47:16.640 --> 1:47:20.000 Drop Zone. And he may have also taken stuff that 1:47:20.040 --> 1:47:24.040 he composed for The Lion King to Simba's Pride. So 1:47:24.640 --> 1:47:29.000 punch all this in because it's difficult to describe, but 1:47:29.120 --> 1:47:31.840 people on YouTube have done the legwork of comparing the 1:47:31.840 --> 1:48:26.760 Gladiator theme to the Pirates theme and yes, also to 1:48:27.080 --> 1:49:02.679 the line kicked two simplest Pride theme. Yes, so yeah, 1:49:02.840 --> 1:49:05.000 I don't know. I don't I don't like Han Zimmer 1:49:05.040 --> 1:49:09.280 very much. The vocals, though, are interesting. Apparently Pavaratti was 1:49:09.320 --> 1:49:11.880 offered a song on the Gladiator soundtrack and he turned 1:49:11.880 --> 1:49:14.839 it down. He said later in an interview with Billboard 1:49:14.880 --> 1:49:17.080 that it was a regret of his but he performs 1:49:17.120 --> 1:49:23.400 the song titled unsurprisingly ill Gladiatore in concert. Lisa Girard 1:49:23.520 --> 1:49:25.960 is the woman from much of the score. Throughout the 1:49:26.080 --> 1:49:28.400 eighties and nineties, she had been one half of the 1:49:28.439 --> 1:49:33.559 Gothic world music, experimental Melbourne ensemble. Dead Can Dance music 1:49:33.640 --> 1:49:37.600 was described once by Ian McFarlane as constructed soundscapes of 1:49:37.640 --> 1:49:43.599 mesmerizing grandeur and solemn beauty, African polyrhythms, Gaelic folk, Gregorian chant, 1:49:43.680 --> 1:49:47.559 Middle Eastern music, mantras and art rock plug for Dead 1:49:47.560 --> 1:49:50.200 Can Dance. The group disbanded in nineteen ninety eight, but 1:49:50.240 --> 1:49:54.439 Gerard continued as a prolific solo artist. She comes into 1:49:54.479 --> 1:49:57.519 the film world with nineteen ninety nine's The Insider, which 1:49:57.560 --> 1:49:59.960 is the film that Russell Crowe got super fat for 1:50:00.080 --> 1:50:01.800 and then had to lose a bunch of weight for 1:50:01.800 --> 1:50:04.840 for Gladiator, and then she worked with on the Zimmer 1:50:04.880 --> 1:50:08.960 on Gladiator. Interesting only Zimmer was nominated for Best Score 1:50:09.000 --> 1:50:12.800 at the Oscars, but the Golden Globes at least recognized 1:50:13.240 --> 1:50:18.280 Gerard's contributions to the film. She has a contralto register, 1:50:18.360 --> 1:50:20.280 but she can also access the higher ranges of a 1:50:20.280 --> 1:50:24.120 mezzo soprano, which is why you hear music journalists cliches 1:50:24.240 --> 1:50:28.599 like otherworldly being fixed to descriptions of her voice. Many 1:50:28.640 --> 1:50:31.360 of her songs this is interesting, especially in Gladiator, are 1:50:31.800 --> 1:50:35.439 sung in what's called idioglossia, which is a technical term 1:50:35.479 --> 1:50:40.240 for self created idiosyncratic language. You might hear it reference 1:50:40.320 --> 1:50:43.080 in terms of singer ros, where the lead singer Jonzi 1:50:44.200 --> 1:50:47.680 sings in a made up language that he has termed Hopelandic, 1:50:48.160 --> 1:50:51.280 but the more technical linguistic term for that is idio 1:50:51.320 --> 1:50:52.360 glossia like. 1:50:52.400 --> 1:50:54.799 David Bowie and Lowe or sawa. 1:50:55.360 --> 1:51:02.720 Oh he's made up Italian gibberish. Yeah, forever immortalized it. 1:51:02.800 --> 1:51:05.960 That parody video, I just sing a bunch of a 1:51:06.000 --> 1:51:09.879 weird tangibbirch. Wow, that was a that was a good bullie. 1:51:10.600 --> 1:51:13.280 I love the one that the quote from that video 1:51:13.280 --> 1:51:16.280 I love is it's really doing depressing piece of music, Brian. 1:51:17.280 --> 1:51:18.599 If I don't put it on one of my arms, 1:51:18.600 --> 1:51:19.760 why don't we just save it for one of your 1:51:19.800 --> 1:51:20.360 weird ones. 1:51:20.680 --> 1:51:23.479 Tony Visconti doing a lot more than people think. 1:51:24.720 --> 1:51:26.960 Can we add some reverb on there? Sure thing? Co 1:51:27.000 --> 1:51:30.519 producer Tony Visconti adding reverb. Probably doing a lot more 1:51:30.560 --> 1:51:34.840 than most people would actually think on this record. Uh 1:51:36.360 --> 1:51:38.600 punch that in, man, Yeah, it's so good instead of 1:51:38.600 --> 1:51:43.559 my impression, and folks can compare so well. 1:51:43.560 --> 1:51:45.599 Have you been up to while I've been away? Brian, Well, 1:51:45.640 --> 1:51:47.719 I've been working on a piece of music. Actually, David, 1:51:48.479 --> 1:51:50.320 if you don't like it, I'll use it on one 1:51:50.320 --> 1:51:52.240 of my weird albums. Do you want to have a listen? 1:51:52.360 --> 1:51:53.360 Yes, I'd love to hear it. 1:51:53.479 --> 1:51:55.720 I could use some cheering up. Could you roll the 1:51:55.760 --> 1:51:58.200 tape for us, please, Tony Visconti, Yeah, sure, I mean 1:51:58.240 --> 1:52:00.600 I am co producing this record, so it's not a 1:52:00.600 --> 1:52:02.679 big problem for me doing a lot of co production. 1:52:03.080 --> 1:52:04.360 Probably more than people think. 1:52:04.400 --> 1:52:18.519 Here we go, so there you go. Lisa Gerard has 1:52:18.760 --> 1:52:22.160 stated of this approach, I sing in the language of 1:52:22.200 --> 1:52:26.960 the heart, to which I say it is an invented 1:52:27.040 --> 1:52:29.679 language I've had for a very long time. I believe 1:52:29.720 --> 1:52:31.960 I started singing in it when I was about twelve. 1:52:32.400 --> 1:52:34.360 I believed that I was speaking to God when I 1:52:34.400 --> 1:52:39.760 sang in that language. Sure thing, Lisa Jordan stifling a yawn, No, 1:52:39.840 --> 1:52:40.600 I wasn't a yawn it. 1:52:40.960 --> 1:52:45.720 I'm just thinking of like her and torri Amos and 1:52:45.800 --> 1:52:50.679 died oh uh and who else? And Kate Bush maybe 1:52:51.200 --> 1:52:53.880 and maybe even Stevie Nicks. I'm just thinking of this 1:52:54.000 --> 1:52:58.360 coven of like slightly Celtic witchy ladies. Yeah, there's something 1:52:58.360 --> 1:53:00.000 that's a big one. I'm forgetting only one. 1:52:59.880 --> 1:53:02.400 Of them had the brass balls and dame an entire 1:53:02.520 --> 1:53:06.400 song after a reverb patch would be our Deer or 1:53:06.439 --> 1:53:08.320 an engineer, which would be our dear Enya. 1:53:09.040 --> 1:53:10.840 And yeah, that was the one I was thinking of that. 1:53:10.920 --> 1:53:13.960 I yeah, Orinoco Flow fun fun fact for people is 1:53:14.080 --> 1:53:17.360 both the name of the river and let me just 1:53:17.400 --> 1:53:20.000 double check that. Yes, the title of Orinoco Flow is 1:53:20.040 --> 1:53:22.479 an illusion to both the river and the studio where 1:53:22.479 --> 1:53:25.479 it was recorded. Ah, And she says that in the 1:53:25.520 --> 1:53:29.080 song with Rob Dickens at the Wheel also co producer, 1:53:29.160 --> 1:53:30.559 this is so funny to me. I just think it's 1:53:30.560 --> 1:53:33.200 so funny. Then, and everyone whateveryone thinks about or the Flow, 1:53:33.200 --> 1:53:36.800 They just go sllo way say hello way way right. 1:53:37.439 --> 1:53:40.799 But in those lyrics, she literally says, with Rob Dickens, 1:53:40.960 --> 1:53:44.280 executive producer of the album at the Wheel and then 1:53:44.439 --> 1:53:49.360 also co producer Ross Column, we can sigh say goodbye 1:53:49.760 --> 1:53:53.720 Ross and his dependencies, which is a pun on the 1:53:53.880 --> 1:53:58.759 Ross dependency region of Antarctica, and yeah, man that whips. 1:53:59.080 --> 1:54:01.120 Should we do a I was joking about this with 1:54:01.160 --> 1:54:03.960 front of the pod Dora. Should we do a Pure 1:54:04.000 --> 1:54:04.880 Moods episode? 1:54:06.040 --> 1:54:08.400 Yes, Jordan, we should. 1:54:08.600 --> 1:54:11.120 I can't tell if everything sarcastic, but I know I'm. 1:54:10.920 --> 1:54:14.640 Being dead series that could be a joint one. And 1:54:14.920 --> 1:54:17.520 let's do pure moods. That would be awesome. 1:54:18.600 --> 1:54:21.240 Because there's so many great songs on there with insane stories. 1:54:21.280 --> 1:54:23.680 I mean, even Mike Oldfield and you what else is 1:54:23.720 --> 1:54:24.439 some pure moods? 1:54:26.120 --> 1:54:30.400 X Files theme a trance a trance remix. 1:54:30.000 --> 1:54:32.440 Of the X Files theme of memory serves right, right, 1:54:32.520 --> 1:54:36.000 right right, Vangelis share it's a fire. Of course, there's 1:54:36.000 --> 1:54:39.640 Anyo Marconi song which I don't remember which one, uh 1:54:40.880 --> 1:54:43.800 Chiemihi's not familiar with. I would have thought they would 1:54:43.800 --> 1:54:47.080 have gone with, Oh and the mission and theme from 1:54:47.120 --> 1:54:48.200 the mission too. 1:54:48.360 --> 1:54:51.360 I was gonna say Gabriels Gabriel's Obo. 1:54:51.480 --> 1:54:55.080 Kenny g Songbird of course, another Green World Brian Eno 1:54:55.800 --> 1:54:57.080 Twin Peaks theme of course. 1:54:57.720 --> 1:55:03.160 Yep, great, Yeah, that would rule. Yeah, No, that's really fun. 1:55:04.120 --> 1:55:07.000 And now we get to kind of my favorite section 1:55:07.080 --> 1:55:16.760 of this episode, historical fact checking, granular, pedantic No. So yes, 1:55:18.080 --> 1:55:19.960 as you may have gleaned from what everyone said so 1:55:20.040 --> 1:55:23.600 far about this film, total historical accuracy was very much 1:55:23.720 --> 1:55:27.560 not a concern for this production. Aside from the spinning crossbow, 1:55:27.640 --> 1:55:30.080 which we know for a fact didn't exist. There are 1:55:30.120 --> 1:55:32.800 a number of other inaccuracies that have been raised since 1:55:32.840 --> 1:55:37.400 the film first hit screens, which allegedly costs historians working 1:55:37.440 --> 1:55:40.440 as consultants on the film to either quit or ask 1:55:40.480 --> 1:55:43.520 their names be removed from the credits. Fact number one. 1:55:44.240 --> 1:55:47.320 Despite looking cool as hell, catapults and the arrow firing 1:55:47.400 --> 1:55:50.760 scorpions depicted in the opening scene probably wouldn't have been 1:55:50.800 --> 1:55:54.080 deployed for ground combat in a forested area. Those were 1:55:54.160 --> 1:55:58.720 largely siege tools and considered unwieldly for fighting in open battles, 1:55:59.080 --> 1:56:03.480 particularly one surrounded by trees. Fact number two. In real life, 1:56:03.600 --> 1:56:07.000 Marcus Aurelius did not ban gladiator fights as his filmic 1:56:07.120 --> 1:56:07.720 version did. 1:56:08.360 --> 1:56:10.560 He did stop attempted to do right. 1:56:11.240 --> 1:56:14.120 However, he did stop funding them from the Imperial Coffers 1:56:14.160 --> 1:56:17.560 as a budgetary move, and some historical records also claim 1:56:17.640 --> 1:56:21.160 that he suggested a switch to wooden swords so that 1:56:21.280 --> 1:56:26.160 skilled gladiators wouldn't die in the arena, which was itself 1:56:26.200 --> 1:56:28.920 a way to ensure that he'd have reserves of gladiators 1:56:28.920 --> 1:56:31.520 to draft in battle. So okay, anything nice that he 1:56:31.560 --> 1:56:33.960 did for these people was done purely to benefit the state. 1:56:34.720 --> 1:56:35.120 Love it. 1:56:35.640 --> 1:56:38.480 Marcus Aurelius was not murdered by his son Commitists in 1:56:38.520 --> 1:56:42.480 real life. He died of probably disease related natural causes 1:56:43.040 --> 1:56:47.560 in one eighteen CE after three years of essentially acting 1:56:47.560 --> 1:56:49.160 as co emperor with Commdasts. 1:56:49.600 --> 1:56:50.720 Commonists only ruled. 1:56:50.520 --> 1:56:53.000 Alone for about twelve more years until his death in 1:56:53.120 --> 1:56:56.800 one hundred and ninety two CE. Common era fact number three, 1:56:56.840 --> 1:57:00.320 The film's hero never existed. This one's had of a 1:57:00.320 --> 1:57:04.280 gimme Maximus is likely a combination of several historical figures, 1:57:04.480 --> 1:57:08.600 including Tarutinus Patronus, the commander of Roman forces at the 1:57:08.600 --> 1:57:10.880 Great Battle against the Germanic tribes in. 1:57:10.880 --> 1:57:11.960 One seventy nine A. D. 1:57:13.520 --> 1:57:17.520 Narcissius, the wrestler who actually killed Commodius in real life. 1:57:17.600 --> 1:57:20.160 Which was originally the name in the script. That was 1:57:20.160 --> 1:57:22.000 Maximus's character in the script got to give it to 1:57:22.040 --> 1:57:23.440 David Franzoni for that. 1:57:23.880 --> 1:57:27.080 Did he change it because everyone thinks of narcissists when 1:57:27.120 --> 1:57:27.960 they hear that, or. 1:57:28.080 --> 1:57:33.360 Just I think Ridley Scott bullied him. Any change of 1:57:33.400 --> 1:57:37.000 this could probably come down to like an irascible Englishman 1:57:37.080 --> 1:57:40.200 and an old fish Australian man leaned over him and said, 1:57:40.280 --> 1:57:41.320 I think we should do this. 1:57:42.400 --> 1:57:45.720 And also another real life person who likely factored into 1:57:45.760 --> 1:57:50.600 the character of Maximus is Tiberius Claudius Pompeianus. That sounds 1:57:50.640 --> 1:57:52.520 like a made up name. That sounds like something from 1:57:52.520 --> 1:57:55.760 money Pipon's Life of Barn. He came from a humble 1:57:55.800 --> 1:57:58.800 background in Syria and became a favorite general of Marcus 1:57:58.800 --> 1:58:01.080 Aurelius in real life, marrying. 1:58:00.720 --> 1:58:02.160 His daughter Lucia. 1:58:02.440 --> 1:58:03.560 I'll tell us more facts. 1:58:03.560 --> 1:58:06.440 I love the facts. Well. Keen, Phoenix's commodist was so 1:58:06.640 --> 1:58:10.200 much worse in real life. He was only eighteen at 1:58:10.240 --> 1:58:11.880 the time of the death his father and was very 1:58:11.920 --> 1:58:15.720 serious about his gladiatorial training. He allegedly boasted six hundred 1:58:15.760 --> 1:58:22.480 and twenty victories according to his own writings, and this 1:58:22.640 --> 1:58:26.640 is actually probably accurate because nobody would actually try and 1:58:26.720 --> 1:58:32.360 kill the emperor, so like he was the Harlem globetrotters 1:58:32.640 --> 1:58:36.240 of Gladiator or by deforce, he's spinning the sword on 1:58:36.320 --> 1:58:39.880 his finger, just stab him. He's got a lumper, he's 1:58:39.880 --> 1:58:43.280 got a ladder, so this would he would spare their 1:58:43.280 --> 1:58:46.320 lives though, But while he was practicing, though, he did 1:58:46.400 --> 1:58:49.520 like to kill his sparring partners. He was just kind 1:58:49.520 --> 1:58:51.560 of a male slot of the era. A lot of 1:58:51.560 --> 1:58:55.360 writings make reference to his good looks and height, but 1:58:55.440 --> 1:58:59.000 he didn't have a thing for his sister. Just hundreds 1:58:59.440 --> 1:59:02.760 of conki male, one of which may have been a sister. 1:59:02.960 --> 1:59:05.040 Who's to say they slip in in the middle of 1:59:05.040 --> 1:59:07.720 one of the lurgies done, you know, there'd be no 1:59:07.760 --> 1:59:10.440 way of knowing, there would no be yeah, you know, 1:59:11.520 --> 1:59:14.240 writings about the real Commudists paint him is just kind 1:59:14.240 --> 1:59:18.720 of stupid with a sadistic streak, a bit cowardly and 1:59:18.880 --> 1:59:22.840 overly impressionable. Mostly just a himbo who was really into 1:59:22.880 --> 1:59:26.600 slaughtering exotic animals in Rome's arenas, but not just limited 1:59:26.640 --> 1:59:30.360 to that. He publicly slaughtered amputees who were veterans of 1:59:30.440 --> 1:59:34.560 Roman wars, a fun little quirk, and though he wasn't 1:59:34.600 --> 1:59:36.960 actually killed by a gladiator in the ring, he did 1:59:37.040 --> 1:59:40.520 meet a suitably brutal end. First, he was poisoned by 1:59:40.520 --> 1:59:43.920 his mistress, and although that didn't take while recovering from 1:59:44.000 --> 1:59:49.760 this process, his enemies tasked Commatist's wrestling partner, the aforementioned Narcissus, 1:59:50.240 --> 1:59:54.480 with strangling the emperor in the bath. The entire thumb system, 1:59:54.480 --> 1:59:57.600 and this is much funnier, is actually inverted. In ancient Rome, 1:59:57.800 --> 2:00:01.440 thumbs up meant raise your sword and strike the killing blow, 2:00:01.760 --> 2:00:05.840 while thumbs down meant lower and sheath your sword. But 2:00:06.000 --> 2:00:08.920 because of the ingrained modern associations with the gestures, they 2:00:08.960 --> 2:00:12.080 have been inverted in pretty much all gladiatorial depictions. Is 2:00:12.200 --> 2:00:13.080 that interesting, Jordan? 2:00:13.880 --> 2:00:15.000 That's I like that a lot. 2:00:15.040 --> 2:00:18.360 I didn't know that. Now we give somebody the thumbs up, 2:00:18.400 --> 2:00:20.360 you can really mean I want someone to raise a 2:00:20.360 --> 2:00:25.480 sword and kill you. The film's nod to Christianity as 2:00:25.600 --> 2:00:28.720 religion are completely incorrect. The movie opens in one ADC, 2:00:29.040 --> 2:00:31.920 but Christianity didn't make any headway over the Roman Empire 2:00:32.040 --> 2:00:35.200 until about two hundred years later. Most characters in the 2:00:35.200 --> 2:00:37.680 film referred to the arena as the Colosseum, the twenty 2:00:37.680 --> 2:00:40.280 first century name of the massive structure. However, in the 2:00:40.320 --> 2:00:43.520 ancient world it is known much less casually as the 2:00:43.640 --> 2:00:46.840 Flavian Amphitheater, after one of the emperors who aided in 2:00:46.880 --> 2:00:49.800 its construction. Not until the Middle Ages did people refer 2:00:49.880 --> 2:00:53.000 to it as the Colosseum. The notion of Maximus being 2:00:53.040 --> 2:00:57.160 known as a Spaniard is preposterous. The Romans had occupied 2:00:57.160 --> 2:01:00.800 the Iberian Peninsula and the region was known as Hispania, 2:01:01.400 --> 2:01:03.680 but it was just considered part of Rome. The earliest 2:01:03.720 --> 2:01:05.760 use of the term Spaniard didn't even pop up until 2:01:05.760 --> 2:01:09.560 the fifteenth century. The entire naming conventions used in the 2:01:09.560 --> 2:01:12.720 movie are inaccurate. Romans had three names, the first name, 2:01:12.760 --> 2:01:15.520 the family name, and then an added name denoting position 2:01:15.640 --> 2:01:19.200 e g. Gayis Julius Caesar, who would went by Caesar. 2:01:19.880 --> 2:01:22.160 High ranking Romans went by their second or third name, 2:01:22.200 --> 2:01:24.480 since they weren't as common, so as in the film, 2:01:24.560 --> 2:01:27.960 someone named Maximus Decimus Meritis would have been addressed as 2:01:28.000 --> 2:01:31.520 either Decimus or Meredis. While there are plenty of minute 2:01:31.520 --> 2:01:34.160 anachronisms as far as the wardrobe, arms, and armor, one 2:01:34.200 --> 2:01:36.400 of the worst is probably the every German in the 2:01:36.440 --> 2:01:39.600 opening scene are depicted as wearing Stone Age era clothing 2:01:39.760 --> 2:01:43.320 like animal skins and such, which ended about two thousand 2:01:43.440 --> 2:01:46.200 years before the events depicted in the film. Lastly, the 2:01:46.360 --> 2:01:48.560 entire note of the film ending on the restoration of 2:01:48.600 --> 2:01:51.840 the republic and the rule of the people in Rome 2:01:51.880 --> 2:01:56.879 as Maximus peacefully dies, that sure didn't happen. Firstly, horrible 2:01:56.920 --> 2:02:01.440 things happened to commentist's sister, Lucilla Chilla. For being Italian, 2:02:01.920 --> 2:02:05.080 she was married off twice to her father's political allies, 2:02:05.400 --> 2:02:08.200 and then after her brother succeeded their father as emperor, 2:02:08.520 --> 2:02:11.160 she became concerned about his behavior and concluded that he 2:02:11.240 --> 2:02:14.680 must be overthrown. She orchestrated an attempt to rid rom 2:02:14.720 --> 2:02:17.160 of her brother, but this plot failed and she was 2:02:17.200 --> 2:02:21.800 banished to the Isle of Capri, where she was later executed. Then, 2:02:22.040 --> 2:02:25.680 when the next assassination attempt on communist did succeed, rule 2:02:25.880 --> 2:02:29.240 hardly returned to the people. There was a predictable rush 2:02:29.280 --> 2:02:31.600 to fill the power vacuum, and the year one ninety 2:02:31.600 --> 2:02:35.000 three CE following his death was dubbed the year of 2:02:35.120 --> 2:02:39.440 five Emperors. The last of those guys was Septimius Severus, 2:02:39.440 --> 2:02:43.080 and the forty two year dynasty of his messy, messy, 2:02:43.120 --> 2:02:46.720 turbulent family then precipitated a period in Roman history known 2:02:46.720 --> 2:02:52.160 as the Crisis of the third century. So that sucks 2:02:52.680 --> 2:02:57.839 for him and his family. Most hilariously, the filmmakers omitted 2:02:58.000 --> 2:03:01.720 one actual piece of document historical fact that they simply 2:03:01.720 --> 2:03:05.839 found too silly for the film. Gladiators were like today's athletes, 2:03:05.960 --> 2:03:09.880 popular figure for product endorsements, and one of the script 2:03:10.000 --> 2:03:14.440 drafts contained a real life detail that Maximus, who is 2:03:14.520 --> 2:03:17.960 then named Narcissus, would have seen himself portrayed in an 2:03:18.000 --> 2:03:22.200 ad for all of Oil, with the copy Narcissus would 2:03:22.320 --> 2:03:27.040 kill for a taste of Golden Pompeii olive oil. Wait, 2:03:27.360 --> 2:03:32.600 is that like actually the extent dead ass? Bro? Wow? 2:03:33.320 --> 2:03:35.160 Take out the fact that I said that. I don't 2:03:35.200 --> 2:03:38.080 know why I responded in that way. Was I going 2:03:38.200 --> 2:03:39.800 to find something a little bit more, a little bit 2:03:39.800 --> 2:03:41.480 more in detail about this live. 2:03:42.640 --> 2:03:44.960 You know, I never really thought of them as being public. 2:03:45.000 --> 2:03:46.640 Well you see them, I mean, you see in the 2:03:46.640 --> 2:03:51.240 film the action figures, which were a real thing. I mean, 2:03:51.280 --> 2:03:55.680 I guess we're splitting hairs over what product placement or 2:03:55.800 --> 2:03:59.280 endorsements actually means, because there would have been mosaics and 2:04:00.480 --> 2:04:05.000 literal advertisements in the day portraying specific gladiators, But if 2:04:05.000 --> 2:04:08.800 there were products associated, they were not They did not 2:04:08.920 --> 2:04:14.600 receive funds from them. So depending on what you're but yes, 2:04:14.760 --> 2:04:19.200 they would they were used in product advertisements. Anyway. 2:04:20.320 --> 2:04:22.560 As filming dragged to a close, there was a bit 2:04:22.560 --> 2:04:25.440 of a pal around the project. In Hollywood, the death 2:04:25.440 --> 2:04:29.040 of Oliver Reed kicked the rumor mill around production into overdrive, 2:04:29.160 --> 2:04:31.360 that it was over budget, that it was at the bacle, 2:04:31.440 --> 2:04:34.680 that it was dead on arrival. Funnily enough, early in 2:04:34.720 --> 2:04:38.280 pre production, Spielberg suggested that the film's producers use a 2:04:38.320 --> 2:04:41.680 fake name will shooting, as he'd offered them with his movies. 2:04:42.160 --> 2:04:45.280 He pitched them the name the hot Rod Project, as 2:04:45.320 --> 2:04:48.040 he was worried that other studios would catch wind and 2:04:48.120 --> 2:04:50.840 rush their own rejiggered Sword and Sandal epics out to 2:04:50.840 --> 2:04:52.800 beat the new studio on the block to the punch. 2:04:53.000 --> 2:04:55.560 Because this was very early in DreamWorks life is probably 2:04:55.600 --> 2:05:00.280 in the first like four years. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The 2:05:00.360 --> 2:05:02.920 rumor mill did turn out to be wrong, but in fun, 2:05:03.080 --> 2:05:07.400 hilarious ways. Screenwriter David Franzoni told Yahoo, a lot of 2:05:07.400 --> 2:05:10.640 people thought we were making Cone in three. They had 2:05:10.680 --> 2:05:13.120 no idea what the hell we were doing. In fact, 2:05:13.240 --> 2:05:16.120 somebody suggested that perhaps we had Schwarzenegger as the big 2:05:16.160 --> 2:05:19.080 gladiator with the tigers. The other level was that we 2:05:19.080 --> 2:05:21.760 were out of our minds and shooting a terrible, horrible 2:05:21.840 --> 2:05:25.560 Sword and Sandals movie that nobody would go see. Franzoni 2:05:25.560 --> 2:05:28.880 also alleges that Russell quote, until he saw the final cut, 2:05:29.320 --> 2:05:32.040 thought it was the end of his career. That's my impression. 2:05:32.360 --> 2:05:35.960 I guarantee you he was really worried. Our beloved Australia 2:05:36.040 --> 2:05:36.840 need not have worried. 2:05:37.000 --> 2:05:39.640 Please don't come to my house, Russell Crowe and explain 2:05:39.720 --> 2:05:40.400 your passions. 2:05:42.320 --> 2:05:44.840 Gladiator was released in the United States and Canada on 2:05:45.040 --> 2:05:48.320 May fifth, two thousand. The film spent a toll of 2:05:48.360 --> 2:05:50.240 ten weeks at the top of the box office and 2:05:50.360 --> 2:05:53.360 was in theaters for over a year, finishing as theatrical 2:05:53.440 --> 2:05:55.840 run on May tenth, two thousand and one, for a 2:05:55.840 --> 2:05:58.640 total gross of one hundred and eighty seven point seven 2:05:58.720 --> 2:06:02.320 million dollars. Released to the rest of the world, Gladiator 2:06:02.360 --> 2:06:05.760 grossed two hundred and seventy two point nine million for 2:06:05.920 --> 2:06:09.240 total worldwide gross a four hundred and sixty point six 2:06:09.320 --> 2:06:11.960 million against the budget of one hundred and three million, 2:06:12.280 --> 2:06:15.640 making it the second highest grossing film worldwide in two thousand, 2:06:16.520 --> 2:06:22.200 behind Mission Impossible Too. I guess big, no, lot first 2:06:22.200 --> 2:06:23.080 one was the first one? 2:06:23.120 --> 2:06:25.480 Was DiPalma? Right? Who did the second one? Oh, that's 2:06:25.480 --> 2:06:27.840 a good question. I don't know. You forget how big 2:06:27.880 --> 2:06:29.800 that movie was that's the one where he's like hanging 2:06:29.840 --> 2:06:33.680 on the cliff, John woomb that's why woh hanging on 2:06:33.720 --> 2:06:38.160 the cliff and Metallica's like, ooh yeah, that's the fuel song. 2:06:38.320 --> 2:06:40.160 Or no it's not no, it's I Disappear. 2:06:40.400 --> 2:06:44.120 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was five years before the 2:06:44.160 --> 2:06:48.280 next one. It was John Moodon Lately not much eo 2:06:48.480 --> 2:06:50.680 ooh yo, this is bad looking. 2:06:50.920 --> 2:06:54.160 Yeah, he remade A he remade A well, he got 2:06:54.200 --> 2:06:56.600 really obsessed with Oh no, that was Angley that got 2:06:56.600 --> 2:06:58.920 really obsessed with sixty frames per second and made that 2:06:59.080 --> 2:07:02.160 bad action movie with Will Smith and cgi younger Will 2:07:02.160 --> 2:07:06.280 Smith against himself, John Wu I think just recently remade 2:07:07.080 --> 2:07:10.840 The Killer for Netflix, but a woke version in which 2:07:10.920 --> 2:07:14.200 Chaiu Fat's role has been usurped by a black woman, 2:07:14.560 --> 2:07:17.320 which I did watch, and it's a perfectly crimulent film. 2:07:17.320 --> 2:07:20.360 It's just it's not the Killer. Nothing will ever be 2:07:20.520 --> 2:07:23.080 The Killer again. Yeah, I don't know, man, he's kind 2:07:23.080 --> 2:07:24.920 of stumbled in Hollywood. I felt bad for him. He 2:07:24.960 --> 2:07:28.920 had a great ron he did Hard Target with JCVD, 2:07:29.640 --> 2:07:32.360 Face Off Am I two and then. 2:07:34.560 --> 2:07:36.280 A lot of the critics, however, really had it in 2:07:36.360 --> 2:07:39.640 for the script. Ian Nathan of Empire magazine called the 2:07:39.680 --> 2:07:44.600 dialogue pompous, overwritten, and prone to plain silliness. Well, Roger 2:07:44.640 --> 2:07:48.440 Ebert said, the script quote employs depression as a substitute 2:07:48.440 --> 2:07:49.400 for personality. 2:07:50.040 --> 2:07:54.760 That's my thing, Roger, come on, Bud and believes that 2:07:54.800 --> 2:07:57.960 if characters are bitter and morose enough, we won't notice 2:07:58.000 --> 2:07:58.880 how dull they are. 2:07:59.200 --> 2:08:03.520 You're not dull, but you know what, Critics be damned. 2:08:03.960 --> 2:08:06.320 It got a decent amount of hardware at the Oscars. 2:08:06.680 --> 2:08:09.120 Yes, Gladiator entered the stacked arena of the two thousand 2:08:09.120 --> 2:08:12.080 and one Oscars with twelve nominations, and it did face 2:08:12.400 --> 2:08:17.360 stiff competition that year. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Almost Famous, Traffic, 2:08:17.520 --> 2:08:21.040 and Aaron Brockovich were all popular Academy picks, and Gladiator 2:08:21.080 --> 2:08:23.400 won five of the twelve awards. It was nominated for 2:08:23.720 --> 2:08:27.680 Best Picture, Best Actor for Crow, Best Visual Effects, Best Sound, 2:08:27.760 --> 2:08:31.720 and Best Costume Design. Ridley Scott lost out on Best Director, 2:08:31.840 --> 2:08:35.040 and Franzoni went away empty handed for Best Original Screenplay 2:08:35.560 --> 2:08:38.960 and Joaquin Phoenix lost Best Supporting Actor. Hans Zimmer lost, 2:08:39.000 --> 2:08:42.440 which is great, and they also lost Best Cinematography, Art Direction, 2:08:42.600 --> 2:08:45.800 and Film Editing. In case you were wondering. Stephen Soderberg 2:08:45.880 --> 2:08:48.960 and Benzio do Toro won Best Director and Best Supporting 2:08:49.000 --> 2:08:52.240 Actor for Traffic. Best Original Screenplay went to Cameron Crow 2:08:52.320 --> 2:08:56.040 for Almost Famous, which is objectively correct, and Best Score 2:08:56.120 --> 2:08:59.720 went to Tan Done for Crouching Tiger. The other Technical 2:08:59.720 --> 2:09:04.440 award we're also given out Ridley's memory. I mean, I 2:09:04.440 --> 2:09:06.200 mean it's such a bummer man, Like they really need 2:09:06.200 --> 2:09:08.440 to give out a stunt oscar first of all. But like, 2:09:08.600 --> 2:09:10.560 even though I'm in ther for this kind of it 2:09:10.680 --> 2:09:13.400 is just so funny that like they literally give the 2:09:13.480 --> 2:09:17.760 technical awards out like a completely different day and broadcast. 2:09:18.840 --> 2:09:21.520 People work their entire lives in Hollywood, create all these 2:09:21.560 --> 2:09:26.040 magnificent technical you know, contributions push the art form forward, 2:09:26.080 --> 2:09:28.320 and they're like, yeah, you get four pm the day 2:09:28.400 --> 2:09:35.560 before and we're not going to televise it. No open bar, yeah, 2:09:35.600 --> 2:09:39.360 cash bar. H Ridley's memory of the night in Variety 2:09:39.560 --> 2:09:42.400 was I was knocked over in the trample so bitter. 2:09:42.760 --> 2:09:46.440 I love it. I mean, maybe justifiably so. I don't know. 2:09:46.760 --> 2:09:48.560 I was knocked over in the trample to get on 2:09:48.640 --> 2:09:50.880 stage because I'd actually given up the right to be 2:09:50.880 --> 2:09:54.160 a producer. Because there's so many producers. I said, oh, 2:09:54.200 --> 2:09:56.600 what the I won't bother and I was run over 2:09:56.680 --> 2:09:58.440 when they all got up on the stage. So I 2:09:58.520 --> 2:10:01.480 just sat down, thinking I'm not gonna do that again. 2:10:02.360 --> 2:10:04.240 Why do people go to bat for him? Man? He 2:10:04.280 --> 2:10:07.640 seems like such an a It's all because of Alien 2:10:07.800 --> 2:10:12.280 and Blade Runner, right, Yeah, I mean, I solid bragging 2:10:12.360 --> 2:10:16.840 rights man. Ridley's story does have a semi happy ending, 2:10:16.960 --> 2:10:20.960 though years later, despite not getting the Best Director trophy, 2:10:21.120 --> 2:10:24.520 he did wind up with a different statue Italian actress 2:10:24.640 --> 2:10:29.360 jen Nino Faccio, who played Maximus's murdered wife. That's nice. 2:10:29.400 --> 2:10:32.800 He just married a lady he met on a film stories. 2:10:32.920 --> 2:10:36.879 Yeah now, yeah, you said people finding love? People finding 2:10:36.960 --> 2:10:42.200 love on movie sets. He checked at House of Gucci. Jesus, 2:10:42.880 --> 2:10:49.600 that film has the most preposterously offensive alive face I 2:10:49.600 --> 2:10:53.600 have ever seen in my life. Yo. Obviously we should 2:10:53.640 --> 2:10:58.520 get to all the sexual misconduct allegations first for Jared Leto, 2:10:58.600 --> 2:11:00.600 but then we need to break a pain or a 2:11:00.640 --> 2:11:03.200 thumb or something for what he does in that movie. 2:11:03.480 --> 2:11:07.920 It is so it's, like I say it, it's like 2:11:07.920 --> 2:11:12.920 an Italian minstrel show. I said, but enough of this, this, 2:11:13.160 --> 2:11:17.280 this preceding two hours has been but a taste, an apport, 2:11:17.760 --> 2:11:21.840 not apperteeve an amused boosh for the real meat of 2:11:21.880 --> 2:11:28.360 this episode, Nick Cave's batch script for Gladiator too. It 2:11:28.440 --> 2:11:29.920 is a well known bit of law at this point 2:11:29.960 --> 2:11:33.160 that Australian vampire crooner and goth icon Nick Cave was 2:11:33.200 --> 2:11:38.520 tapped to write a sequel to Gladiator, And that's basically it. 2:11:38.680 --> 2:11:41.240 We don't know that much about this thing other than 2:11:41.280 --> 2:11:44.400 one interview and Mark bron and like glancing bits of 2:11:44.440 --> 2:11:47.200 commentary from Ridley Scott, but everyone is in love with 2:11:47.240 --> 2:11:50.160 it because of how cool it is. Who tapped him 2:11:50.160 --> 2:11:55.320 to do that? Russell Crowe supposedly Astralia. This is I know, right, 2:11:55.360 --> 2:11:58.240 there's like six of them that have succeeded, right, so they. 2:11:58.120 --> 2:11:59.920 Have to like Peter jacksone's going to Doric. 2:12:00.880 --> 2:12:04.080 No, he's New Zealand doesn't count. It's like ac DC, 2:12:04.360 --> 2:12:07.840 Nick Cave, Russell Crowe. I guess they let in old 2:12:07.840 --> 2:12:12.760 girl now writing it in John No, not her, Barbie 2:12:13.160 --> 2:12:18.080 Macarab obviously Paul Hogan, Oh yes, yeah, And they just 2:12:18.120 --> 2:12:22.480 all get together like the QAnon Cabal and plan things 2:12:22.480 --> 2:12:26.520 for Australia uh. Crow rang me up and asked if 2:12:26.560 --> 2:12:29.920 I wanted to write Gladiator two. Nick Cave told Mark 2:12:29.960 --> 2:12:34.120 Maron on I think twenty fifteen episode of What the 2:12:34.440 --> 2:12:35.720 Mark Marron, I'm gonna. 2:12:35.520 --> 2:12:37.600 Call you, just ask you randomly if you want to 2:12:37.600 --> 2:12:39.920 write Gladiator too. I guess Gobby three. 2:12:39.960 --> 2:12:42.600 Now, yeah, I'll take I'll take a stab at three. 2:12:42.640 --> 2:12:44.040 I just don't know if I could top this. So 2:12:45.320 --> 2:12:47.760 Nickavid previously only written one film script. It was for 2:12:48.040 --> 2:12:51.000 something in the eighties about I think it was about 2:12:51.000 --> 2:12:57.040 Australian I remember. Uh. It was quite an ask. He said, Hey, Russell, 2:12:57.520 --> 2:13:01.640 didn't you die in Gladiator one, which Crow responded, yeah, 2:13:02.240 --> 2:13:08.440 you sort that out. Cave did as follows quote. Maximus 2:13:08.520 --> 2:13:10.920 goes down to purgatory and is sent down by the 2:13:10.920 --> 2:13:14.400 gods who are dying in heaven because there's this one god, 2:13:14.640 --> 2:13:19.000 there's this Christ character down on Earth who is gaining popularity, 2:13:19.360 --> 2:13:21.880 and so the many gods are dying, so they send 2:13:21.920 --> 2:13:28.280 Gladiator Maximus back to kill Christ and his followers. I 2:13:28.320 --> 2:13:32.440 wanted to call it Christ Killer. And in the end 2:13:33.280 --> 2:13:36.000 you find out that the main guy was his son, 2:13:36.560 --> 2:13:39.160 so he has to kill his son and was tricked 2:13:39.200 --> 2:13:42.880 by the gods. He then becomes this eternal warrior, and 2:13:42.920 --> 2:13:46.200 it ends with this twenty minute war scene which follows 2:13:46.240 --> 2:13:49.200 all the wars in history right up to Vietnam and 2:13:49.280 --> 2:13:52.440 all this sort of stuff. And it was wild. It 2:13:52.480 --> 2:13:56.320 was a stone cold masterpiece. I enjoyed writing it very 2:13:56.400 --> 2:13:58.360 much because I knew on every level that it was 2:13:58.400 --> 2:14:02.160 never going to get made. Cave turned this far out 2:14:02.240 --> 2:14:07.320 vision into Crow, who, in Cave's words, responded, don't like it. Mate. 2:14:08.120 --> 2:14:11.360 Cave asked what about the end, to which Crow responded, again, 2:14:11.720 --> 2:14:14.920 don't like it, mate. And I guess this got worked 2:14:14.920 --> 2:14:18.600 out because Scott had said in the intervening time that 2:14:18.720 --> 2:14:21.120 he did actually work on this idea with Crow and Cave. 2:14:21.800 --> 2:14:24.200 We tried to go with Cave's script riddle. Scott told 2:14:24.320 --> 2:14:27.280 Ugo Russell didn't want to let it go obviously because 2:14:27.280 --> 2:14:29.800 it worked very well. And then an all time Ridley 2:14:29.840 --> 2:14:32.880 Scott quote. When I say worked very well, I don't 2:14:32.920 --> 2:14:35.920 refer to success. I mean as a piece it works 2:14:36.040 --> 2:14:40.320 very well storytelling. It works brilliantly. I think Cave enjoyed 2:14:40.360 --> 2:14:41.880 doing it, and I think it was one of those 2:14:41.920 --> 2:14:44.520 things he thought, well, maybe there's a sequel where you 2:14:44.560 --> 2:14:47.200 can adjust the fantasy and bring Maximus back from the dead. 2:14:48.040 --> 2:14:50.640 In an interview just this month, Ridley Scott gave another 2:14:50.720 --> 2:14:53.440 quote it got rich and started to go to time warps, 2:14:53.480 --> 2:14:56.440 which frankly I thought was bloody silly. But the one 2:14:56.520 --> 2:14:59.480 thing I added to it was this great idea of 2:14:59.560 --> 2:15:03.080 opening portal of time in death, and it would have 2:15:03.120 --> 2:15:05.760 come from the dying soul of a dying soldier in 2:15:05.760 --> 2:15:08.840 a battlefield. Isn't that cool. I kept it as a 2:15:08.840 --> 2:15:14.560 little silver bullet, thinking I'll use that again somewhere. I 2:15:14.600 --> 2:15:17.200 hated it, it was silly, we killed it, but my 2:15:17.320 --> 2:15:22.560 addition to it was great and I'm keeping it. Love him. 2:15:23.320 --> 2:15:25.800 Years prior to all that, Nick Cave was sanguine about 2:15:25.800 --> 2:15:29.280 the Project Dissolution. He told Variety, I'm very comfortable my 2:15:29.360 --> 2:15:31.560 day job as a musician. The last thing I ever 2:15:31.560 --> 2:15:34.040 wanted to get involved with was Hollywood. The way it 2:15:34.080 --> 2:15:36.000 works is that people get an idea, you could possibly 2:15:36.000 --> 2:15:38.160 do something, but there's a one and one hundred chance 2:15:38.160 --> 2:15:40.560 that it could get made. It's a waste of time 2:15:40.960 --> 2:15:47.879 and I have a lot to do, like being Nick Cave. Yeah, man, 2:15:48.400 --> 2:15:50.240 all right, that takes us to the end of Gladiator. 2:15:50.280 --> 2:15:51.760 I had this whole idea in here for a bit 2:15:51.800 --> 2:15:54.360 of like, oh, here's my day as a twenty one 2:15:54.480 --> 2:15:56.520 year old gladiator in film. And then this is a 2:15:56.560 --> 2:15:58.680 smash cut of a skull getting caved in with a 2:15:58.760 --> 2:16:05.680 mace TikTok style. But you'll have to imagine that great film. 2:16:05.760 --> 2:16:08.600 Love it, Go watch it with your boys and hit 2:16:08.640 --> 2:16:11.760 each other with sticks, as the spirit of the film intended. 2:16:12.000 --> 2:16:13.400 And don't watch the second one. 2:16:13.520 --> 2:16:15.720 Yeah, and Russell Crowe don't come to my house and 2:16:15.760 --> 2:16:20.840 explain your passions, Ridley, I think I could take So 2:16:21.880 --> 2:16:24.160 if you're an elderly British man who's pissed off that 2:16:24.160 --> 2:16:26.120 I've painted you as a bit of a prick, visit me. 2:16:26.320 --> 2:16:31.000 Let's settle this all over a Reek style. This has 2:16:31.040 --> 2:16:35.440 been too much information. I'm Alex Heigel, thanks for listening, 2:16:35.720 --> 2:16:37.199 and I'm Jordan run Talk. 2:16:37.720 --> 2:16:38.960 We'll catch you next time. 2:16:44.240 --> 2:16:47.360 Too Much Information was a production of iHeartRadio. The show's 2:16:47.400 --> 2:16:50.199 executive producers are Noel Brown and Jordan Runtalk. 2:16:50.400 --> 2:16:53.360 The show's supervising producer is Michael Alder June. 2:16:53.520 --> 2:16:56.360 The show was researched, written, and hosted by Jordan run 2:16:56.440 --> 2:16:57.760 Talk and Alex Heigel. 2:16:57.600 --> 2:17:00.840 With original music by Seth Applebaum and the Ghost Funk Orchestra. 2:17:01.160 --> 2:17:03.200 If you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave 2:17:03.240 --> 2:17:03.760 us a review. 2:17:04.000 --> 2:17:08.359 For more podcasts on iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, 2:17:08.560 --> 2:17:10.280 or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.