Paul Mescal Bulked Up for ‘Gladiator 2’ but Didn’t Want to Become a Sex Symbol: I Never Wanted to Look ‘More Like an Underwear Model Than a Warrior’
variety.comZack Sharf Digital News Director Paul Mescal revealed to Vanity Fair as part of the first look at “Gladiator II” that he was offered the sequel’s leading role after meeting director Ridley Scott for only a half-hour.
The legendary filmmaker had already become a fan of Mescal’s after he watched the actor’s breakthrough performance in “Normal People.” “We spoke for about 20 to 30 minutes,” Mescal said about his first meeting with Scott. “I wanted to get a flavor from him about what the story was going to be about, so we spent about 15 minutes talking about that, and then we spent another 10 minutes talking about the sport that I played growing up — Gaelic football.
Maybe that was something that helped with it, in that I’m used to being physical in my body. My memory of it is that probably two or three weeks later, the offer came in.” Mescal stars in “Gladiator II” as Lucius, the son of Connie Nielsen’s Lucilla.
The story picks up with Lucius living as a young adult in the northern African region of Numidia, where he was sent by his mother as a child as it was just outside the reach of the Roman Empire.
Read more on variety.com