Paul Mescal has a "natural nervousness" to impress in ‘Gladiator II’. The 28-year-old actor will be taking over the lead role from Russell Crowe - who played the Roman general Maximus in director Sir Ridley Scott’s 2000 historical epic - and though Mescal has insisted that although he has "a desire to deliver", he is mostly at ease because he has faith that the filmmaker will pull off another cinematic spectacle with the sequel. When Screen Rant asked Mescal if he felt the pressure of fronting the film, he said: "Yes.
Yes and no. "Because it was Ridley at the centre of both of those stories, and he directed the first one with such brilliance that the fact that he was behind the camera on this filled me with confidence. But of course, there's a natural nervousness and a desire to deliver, but that's true of anything regardless of a legacy of a film that's preceded yours.
" The upcoming blockbuster - which also stars Pedro Pascal, Denzel Washington, Joseph Quinn and Connie Nielsen - follows Lucius Verus (Mescal), the former heir to the Roman Empire who is forced into slavery and eventually pushed to fight in the Colosseum in an effort to restore glory to his home. While Mescal is now at ease with the film - which hits cinemas on 15 November - the ‘Normal People’ actor previously admitted he was "s******* himself" on the first day of production before Scott put his nerves to rest. During a Q+A session of the movie following a special screening in Los Angeles earlier thi.