Paramount Pictures France
Macrinus (played by Denzel Washington) is based on Macrinus, a former gladiator who became the first emperor from Caesarian Mauretania.
CINEMA – An unflattering comparison. In Gladiator II by Ridley Scott, Denzel Washington plays Macrinus a former freed gladiator who became a wealthy merchant in Roman society and is inspired by the real Roman Emperor Macrinus. Hungry for power, opportunist…. For the director, there is a bridge between the personality of his character and that of Donald Trump.
Interviewed by The Hollywood Reporter, Ridley Scott thus believes that the attitude of “gangster” of the ambitious merchant makes it “very close to Trump »: “(He’s) a smart gangster. It creates chaos and from chaos it can evolve.”
Especially since the Republican and his numerous financial investments echo the businessman Macrinus in the film: “He became a very wealthy merchant who sold anything to the Roman armies: food, oil, wine, fabric, weapons, everything.”
A role that makes you “crazy”
Ambitious, Denzel Washington’s character even plots to take power in Rome. “He had maybe a million men spread across Europe (…) So he was a billionaire at the time, so why wouldn’t he have (ambitions for the throne)? He must have said to himself: Why not me? »he explains. We know another person who might have said that to himself.
One thing is certain, it is not the actor who will come to contradict the director of Gladiator II. “He tries to use everyone” also confided Denzel Washington to Hollywood Reporter last month, about his role in the film. “He uses his mother, his own children; he has already exhausted his soul, so he has none left. He makes a pact with the devil, he asserted.
However, the actor had no trouble putting himself in the shoes of the merchant. On the contrary, helped by the scale of the filming, he completely immersed himself in the character. “I put on this dress, these rings, and I go crazy,” he then concluded.
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