Russell Crowe calls original ‘Gladiator’ script “rubbish”
Actor Russell Crowe has opened up about the initial production of 2000’s Gladiator, criticising the original version of the script that was attached to the film.
“Gladiator is my 20-something-th movie, so I was confident about my abilities as a lead man,” Crowe told Vanity Fair. “What I wasn’t confident about Gladiator was the world that was surrounding me. At the core of what we were doing was a great concept, but the script was rubbish. Absolute rubbish.”
“And it has all these, sort of, strange sequences,” the actor adds. “One of them was about chariots and how famous gladiators – and this is all true, right? – to use certain types of chariots and some famous gladiators had endorsement deals with products for olive oil and like that.”
“And that’s all true, but it’s just not gonna ring right to a modern audience. They’re gonna go, ‘What the fuck is all this?’ The energy around what we were doing was very fractured,” Crowe added. “I did think a couple times, ‘Maybe my best option is just to get on a plane and get out of here’, you know? It was my continued conversations with Ridley [Scott] that sort of gave me faith.”
Crowe won an Oscar for ‘Best Actor’ thanks to his role in the film. Screenwriters David Franzoni, John Logan and William Nicholson were all nominated for ‘Best Original Screenplay’ at the same ceremony. Crowe confirmed that he will not be returning for the upcoming sequel, Gladiator 2.
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