LOS ANGELES – It has been 24 years since director Ridley Scott scored one of the biggest hits of his career with Gladiator (2000), a swords-and-sandals epic starring Australian actor Russell Crowe that won the Oscar for Best Picture.

Now 86, Scott still works at a prodigious pace, sometimes even directing two films in the same year.

The English film-maker’s latest is Gladiator II, which picks up two decades after Crowe’s character, Maximus, died heroically in the arena.

In the years since, Lucius (Paul Mescal) – Maximus’ secret son – has been shuttled to North Africa where he, too, has become a capable fighter. But war waged by Roman general Marcus Acacius (Pedro Pascal) will draw Lucius back to his birthplace, where the clever arms dealer Macrinus (Denzel Washington) will try to manipulate the young man to further his own ambitions.

In October, I met Scott at his Los Angeles office, which was decorated with posters of some of his memorable films such as Alien (1979), Blade Runner (1982) and The Martian (2015).

True to form, while gearing up for the release of Gladiator II, he was already deep into pre-production for his next movie – a biopic on British-Australian pop group Bee Gees set to shoot in February – and had even begun storyboarding the one after that (a sci-fi adaptation).

“I feel alive when I’m doing something at this level,” he said. “I don’t call it stress, I call it adrenaline. And a bit of adrenaline is good for you.”

A sequel to Gladiator had been in the works for over two decades, making it by far the longest film you have ever developed. What made you want to see it through?

(The first movie) had a growing success. After it was released, it was pretty good, but the beloved nature of the film grew partly because of the (streaming) platforms.

I love the platforms because instead of a film sitting on a shelf dying after it’s opened, it’s online, and the quality is always superb, as good as when it was released. So, I kept hearing how people loved Gladiator.

I thought, “You know, we better do something.”

The logic was very clear what it should be, because frequently in a sequel you’ve got no survivor, you’ve got no story. But we had a person (Lucius) who had suddenly disappeared out the picture. Where did he go? You begin with where he went to, a boy in constant flight. And that seemed a good start.

How did you know that this new incarnation was right after all those years of false starts?

I became determined to not let it go because the enthusiasm wouldn’t go away. I wanted to honour that and I’d be crazy not to – also financially crazy because if you get it right, it’s a big winner. So I just thought, “I’m going to sit here until we come up with a footprint.”

“I feel alive when I’m doing something at this level,” said Scott of finishing Gladiator II while working on pre-production of his next film. “I don’t call it stress, I call it adrenaline.” PHOTO: NYTIMES

Once you decided to centre Gladiator II on the son of Maximus, it became a leading role that many young men in Hollywood were pursuing. How did you settle on Paul Mescal?

I noticed Paul when I was watching (the 2020 miniseries) Normal People. I thought, “My god, he looks like (the late Irish actor) Richard Harris”.

At this point, I think I have spotted so many first-timers right back to Sigourney (Weaver for Alien), Brad (Pitt for Thelma & Louise). Part of my job is I’m a good caster, and I’m also helped by very good casting directors, so I choose them carefully.

To me, a casting director is as important as a good camera.

Until now, Paul has never made a big studio movie. Did you feel like you had to scale his independent-film sensibility upwards for this?

Paul is very smart, so all he’s got to do is get over the scale of what I’m going to walk him into.

When I walked him onto the set of Rome in Malta, I said, “You’ll get over this in two hours. This is all for you, this is all for me. Let’s go and make this together.”

That was it. Part of my job is to make light of it.

Ridley Scott and Paul Mescal at the global premiere of Gladiator II in London on Nov 13. PHOTO: REUTERS

You previously worked with Denzel Washington on American Gangster (2007). How did you find him to be on this?

Always fractious, always. That is who he is: Denzel, in a funny kind of way, is a Method actor. When he is doing a part, he is in the part all the time, so it is not Denzel daily, even off-camera.

There were reports that the budget for Gladiator II ballooned to over US$300 million (S$402.9 million). Did that have to do with the 2023 Hollywood actors’ and writers’ strike-enforced hiatus?

No, I ended up US$10 million under because I did the whole thing in 51 days. What happened was we began with stop-and-go on the budget because we may have started too quickly. I am a bit of a businessman, so I said, “Wait a minute, how much are we spending? And where has it gone?”

I’ve been doing this 50 years, so inevitably, you become budget-conscious. You have to because the bottom has dropped out of advertising, and it’s got to now reform and reinvent itself. Now, I’m trying to embrace artificial intelligence. I want to do animation.

Somebody once said that in your lifetime, you may have to retrain twice, three times, and it’s rough for the average person. For me, I have to just evolve. I like to think I’m a tennis player and I’ve got to keep bouncing the ball.

What do you remember about the night Gladiator won best picture and several other Oscars, though not the directing trophy – which went to American film-maker Steven Soderbergh for Traffic?

I got run over, trodden on by all the people going up for the Oscar. I always remember it was (American film-maker) Steven (Spielberg) who said, “The film got five Academy Awards. What happened to you?”

But I didn’t care, I’ve got a knighthood. I’ve just been knighted again and I feel so over-rewarded. Actually, my reward is the fact I’m still well enough to do what I do. I touch wood every day. NYTIMES

Gladiator II is showing in Singapore cinemas.