Russell Crowe has admitted feeling “slightly uncomfortable” about the upcoming Gladiator sequel, despite the Oscar-winning 2000 film’s huge impact on his career.
Crowe starred as Maximus Decimus Meridius in Ridley Scott’s epic, which won him the Best Actor Oscar and propelled him to global fame. However, his character memorably died at the end of the original movie.
The sequel, titled Gladiator 2, will star Paul Mescal as Lucius Verus, the grandson of former Emperor Marcus Aurelius, played by Richard Harris in the first film.
In an interview, Crowe expressed mixed feelings about the project moving forward without his involvement.
“I’m slightly uncomfortable, the fact that they’re making another one, you know? Because of course, I’m dead, and I have no say in what gets done,” Crowe said.
“A couple of things that I’ve heard, I’m like, ‘No, no, no. That’s not in the moral journey of that particular character.’ But you know, I can’t say anything. That’s not my place. I’m six feet under.”
The 60-year-old actor, whose career took off after Gladiator with roles in films like Master and Commander and Les Misérables, admitted to feeling “a tinge of melancholy” and “jealousy” about the sequel.
“I reflect back on the age I was when I made that film and all the things that came after it and the doors that particular movie opened for me,” Crowe said. “So there’s definitely a tinge — and this is just being purely honest — a tinge of melancholy, a tinge of jealousy. Because I remember when I had tendons.”
Despite his aging tendons, Crowe has several films in post-production, including the horror movie The Exorcism, Marvel’s Kraven the Hunter, the Rothko biopic, and the historical drama Nuremberg.
While uncomfortable with revisiting Gladiator, the sequel represents the legacy of a film that transformed Crowe’s career over 20 years ago.