The Oscar-winning role Mel Gibson rejected because he was too old: “We were all sort of hoping”
Both in front of and behind the camera, Mel Gibson has shown that he knows his way around a cinematic epic rooted in the past. But he ended up declining the opportunity to headline one of the most influential ever made after deciding that he’d already aged out of the part.
Ridley Scott’s Gladiator was a cultural phenomenon at the turn of the millennium, with the movie’s release in 2000 yielding over $500million at the global box office and overwhelming critical acclaim. Nominated for 12 Academy Awards and winning five, it may have missed out on the trophy for ‘Best Picture,’ but director Ridley Scott and star Russell Crowe nonetheless walked away with victories in their respective categories.
The part of Maximus Decimus Meridius propelled Crowe to the upper reaches of the Hollywood A-list, with the New Zealander turning 35 years old when production was underway in early 1999. At the time, Gibson was 43 years old, but the eight-year difference between the two proved to be a deal-breaker when the Lethal Weapon and Mad Max figurehead was sought for the leading role.
At an Experience With event, the two-time Academy Award winner confirmed that he was in the running to take on Joaquin Phoenix’s scheming Commodus when the screenplay was first being circulated but had deemed himself “too old” to give it serious consideration. Instead, he opted to take top billing in Roland Emmerich’s genre bedfellow The Patriot, which proved to be a decent-sized hit that landed in cinemas just a month after Gladiator.
Co-writer David Franzoni admitted to Yahoo that as much as “Mel Gibson and even Antonio Banderas were mentioned,” Crowe was always viewed by those closest to the developing feature as the number one candidate, with his breakout turn in LA Confidential showcasing the presence and charisma required to anchor a film on the scale of Gladiator.
However, with Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks Pictures involved on the producorial side of the equation, Franzoni noted that there were certain stars that were approached out of respect and courtesy that the scribe quietly wanted to turn it down: “There were a couple of actors that Steven felt he needed to go to because of his relationship with them. And we were all sort of hoping they’d say no.”
With Gallipoli, The Bounty, Braveheart, The Patriot, We Were Soldiers, Apocalypto, and Hacksaw Ridge among his credits as either an actor or director, Gibson evidently isn’t averse to taking on stories set in or around major historical events.
However, Gladiator didn’t mark itself out as something he couldn’t say no to, although it quickly proved to be a landmark for early 21st Century Hollywood after a string of expensive and effects-laden tales, including The Last Samurai, Troy, The Alamo, King Arthur, Alexander, Kingdom of Heaven, Robin Hood, and many more arrived in its wake hoping to reap the same critical and commercial rewards, even if very few did.
