Ridley Scott reckons we're all misunderstanding Gladiator

Gladiator is one of the best movies of the noughties and won five Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Actor for Russell Crowe.

Joaquin Phoenix also received a Best Supporting Actor nomination for his performance as Emperor Commodus, the villainous steward of Rome who betrays Maximus and murders his family at the beginning of the movie.

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Commodus is recognised as a legendary movie villain, but, is he actually a sympathetic character?

Director Sir Ridley Scott reckons Phoenix's character is the MOST sympathetic in the movie - even more than Maximus.

"I saw him as the most sympathetic character of all, in Gladiator," Scott told Deadline.

"He was a product of neglect, total neglect of a father that he adored. Then finally in the film, the father would say, 'I’m going to neglect you even further. You will not be the prince of Rome'. And then the father realizes in his old age that he needs some form of absolute. So he does something fatal. He kneels before the boy asking for forgiveness. That was fatal because the boy has never seen his father ask for that kind of close discussion. So he suffocates him. So from that moment on, I thought Joaquin was the most sympathetic person during the movie. What he did and what followed, what came out of it, the nature of it had been created by his father."

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Gladiator (2000)

Roman general Maximus (Russell Crowe) is sentenced to death by Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix), the evil heir to the throne of Marcus Aurelius (Richard Harris). Maximus narrowly escapes, but his wife and son are brutally murdered. After burying their soulless bodies exhausted, he is found by slave traders who sell him on to the gladiatorial master Proximo (Oliver Reed). Proximo manages to get Maximus to fight in the Colosseum as a gladiator, and soon Maximus begins to realize that this may be the only chance to take revenge on the emperor.

Directed by: Ridley Scott
Stars: Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix and Connie Nielsen

Maximus and Commodus are both victims

At the conclusion of the movie, both Maximus and Commodus die after a battle inside the Colosseum of Rome, and Scott says we are looking at two victims of circumstance, not just one.

"Yes. Maximus and Commodus. Don’t forget, Maximus is the person who didn’t want it. He wanted to go home. Interesting how things evolve when Marcus Aurelius first meets him, he said, 'I want you to be ticked, take over, or to be the prince of Rome, surrogate principal Rome'

'I can’t do that'. Why not? 'Because my home, my wife, our kid'.

'Tell me about your home'. So then he start telling him about it, and what he’s actually talking about is heaven. That’s where he wants to be. And so it all worked backwards and some of it wasn’t planned. Marcus says it sounds like a place worth fighting for.

"And then Marcus is that day assassinated by his son. Then Russell’s character is suddenly told that this has happened and he’s not going to join the club and he knows there’s a problem. His wife and son are then slaughtered and we see where they’re in that avenue of trees where they are coming up to get rid of them. When Russell dies and goes to heaven, we go see the same woman and child; it’s the place he described to Marcus."

Ridley will soon recommence production on Gladiator 2 starring Paul Mescal, who is set to play an older version of Lucius from the original.