Joaquin Phoenix was not ready to enter the “Gladiator” arena — and Russell Crowe didn’t like it. The movie’s director, Ridley Scott, spoke to The New York Times before the upcoming release of “Gladiator II” and revealed that the first few days of production didn’t go as planned – mainly because Phoenix was overwhelmed and Crowe believed his behavior was “unprofessional.” Phoenix, 50, played the Roman emperor Commodus in the historic flick, opposite Crowe, 60, as Maximus, a general-turned-slave looking for revenge.
“[Joaquin] was in his prince’s outfit saying, ‘I can’t do it,’” Scott recalled to the Times. “I said, ‘What?’ And Russell said, ‘This is terribly unprofessional.’” Scott said he did whatever he could to ease Phoenix’s nerves and keep him around.
“I can act as a big brother or dad. But I’m quite a friend of Joaquin’s. Gladiator was a baptism of fire for both of us in the beginning,” he shared.
Phoenix previously opened up about his hesitation on the movie set. “I absolutely have that nervousness on every movie..
.but I think that probably Gladiator was one of the most intimidating because the first set that I went on was just massive,” the “Joker: Folie à Deux” actor told Collider in 2018. “It looked like it was acres of land, and tons of trucks and trailers and, you know, hundreds of extras, and multiple cameras,” Phoenix explained.
“Suddenly the scale of this hit me and I was overwhelmed by that.