During FYC season, you not only get opportunities to hear the filmmakers talk about their latest work, but sometimes other equally prominent filmmakers moderate the Q&A.
Christopher Nolan interviewed Ridley Scott after a screening of Gladiator II at the DGA Theater in West Hollywood on Tuesday night. When the Oppenheimer Oscar winner asked about the decades since Scott’s Best Picture winner, Scott credited streaming services with keeping Gladiator viable for a sequel 24 years later.
“Thank God for all the platforms,” Scott said. “I can press a button and see the first film I did 40 years ago. I watched The Duelists tonight. Thanks to the platform, the film evolves a life of its own.”
Hard to believe it’s going on a half-century since 1977’s The Duelists. Streaming also led Scott to his new lead actor. He said he saw Paul Mescal, who plays the long-lost son of Queen Lucilla (Connie Nielsen), in the Hulu series Normal People.
“I need a bedtime story, so I’ll probably go back and watch a movie,” Scott said. “I tend to watch incomers.”
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Scott invited his American Gangster star, Denzel Washington, into the Gladiator world. As Macrinus, Washington gives a flamboyant, Machiavellian performance. Scott said Washington was reacting to the grand scale of the Ancient Rome sets.
“Denzel, funny enough was amazed by the scale of things,” Scott said. “Denzel was actually nervous. From that came something great.”
Like the original Gladiator, that scale came from sets built on location in Matla and Morocco. The production built the Coliseum and palaces, only using CGI to enhance from where the set ended.
“If you build the set and know what you’re doing, it’s cheaper than bluescreen,” Scott said. “Every shot has money in it.”
In Morocco, Scott ended up renting a set from his own previous film. When 20th Century Fox built Jerusalem for 2005’s Kingdom of Heaven, Scott sold the set to the government rather than tearing it down.
“On this Gladiator, I had to rent my own set for a million dollars,” Scott said. “So they got the last laugh.”
Scott’s films have been building practical sets throughout his career. He referenced his Christopher Columbus epic 1492: Conquest of Paradise, for which they built Columbus’ three ships and sailed them across the Atlantic Ocean. Scott joked that he would argue with star Gerard Depardieu over his English pronunciation.
“He’s a big guy, you can’t argue with him,” Scott said. “I said, ‘The world.’ He said, ‘No, no, the vorld.’ ‘No, the world.’”
Nolan inquired how Scott approaches world building in a film like Gladiator II. Scott broke it down as a matter of departments.
“You’re running a corporation that’s 1,200 personnel, 40 HODs [heads of department],” Scott said.
As the CEO of Gladiator II Corp., Scott goes page by page through the script asking if any department has a problem. When they do, it’s usually because they haven’t spoken to the other departments.
“The key is people must talk to each other,” Scott said. “They try and keep it to themselves and fix the problem. All you have to do is ask him, and he’ll tell you.”
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Scott also trusts each department to do their job and largely leaves them alone. He said he would check in with editing and sound mixing on weekends during the shoot.
“I leave them to it,” Scott said. “I separate. That becomes very efficient, which enables me to move on to the next one.”
Nolan also was interested in Scott’s use of up to 11 cameras simultaneously. Since Scott is known for his visuals in such films as Alien and Blade Runner, Nolan wondered how he could maintain a unified vision.
Scott said he drew on his experience directing live television at BBC. With cameras feeding into a video monitor, he can essentially edit in his head by picking each shot as the scene plays. He also takes advantage of lighting from different angles. For example, what is a front light to one camera is a backlight to a camera pointed the opposite way.
“You use the front light,” Scott said. “You move around.”
In his early films, Scott would operate the camera himself. For Alien, he relied on his focus puller, the late Adrian Biddle, whom he promoted to cinematographer of Thelma & Louise and 1492, to hit the walls of the Nostromo before Scott did.
“It was all handheld because the corridors were so narrow,” Scott said. “Adrian became my cushion.”
It isn’t just shooting speed that has increased Scott’s output, though he said he shot Gladiator II in 51 days. But later in his career, Scott learned not to try to develop too many projects.
“When you begin, you want 40 things in development and that’s not smart,” Scott said. “If you can, as you go wiser, you have maybe two or three in development you’re really going to make. Otherwise you spin a lot of wheels and waste a lot of time.”
Nolan did give Scott one direction. When attendees in the back rows complained they could not hear, he showed Scott how to hold the microphone.
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“I’m just going to ask you to change your grip,” Nolan said.
Scott joked Nolan was “telling me what to do already.”
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