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Although Joaquin Phoenix has been professionally acting since 1982, in 2000, he hit a major milestone in his career with the release of Gladiator, where he played the antagonistic Commodus. That role netted him his first Oscar nomination, and more than two decades later, Gladiator II is just months away from hitting the 2024 release schedule and bringing moviegoers back to this version of the Roman Empire. However, because no one wanted to “spoil” Phoenix’s memorable Gladiator performance, Joseph Quinn, who plays Emperor Geta in the sequel, took notes on some other memorable fictional villains instead.
At this point in history, Quinn’s Geta rules Rome with his brother, Fred Hechinger’s Caracalla, and judging by the Gladiator II trailer, these two are just as despicable as Commodus, if not more so. That said, it was important that these two didn’t come off as carbon copies of Joaquin Phoenix’s character, with Quinn telling Empire:
For obvious reasons, Joaquin Phoenix’s performance was something that was in our minds. It was something we had a reverence for, but we didn’t want to…. soil with some kind of poor rendition.
So with Commodus off the table, Joseph Quinn and Fred Hechinger turned to other villains who are dastardly, unrepentant and, most importantly, audiences love to hate. Examples in the article included Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s Davian from Mission: Impossible III and Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg from The Fifth Element, whom Quinn said has this “relish for being horrible.” Director Ridley Scott also mentioned that in addition to Gladiator II’s Geta and Caracalla being inspired by their historical counterparts, he sees them as the “equivalent of Romulus and Remus” from Roman mythology, who were “bred from the milk of a wolf” and “probably brain damaged.”
Throw all those influences together, and you have a terrific cocktail of villainy to throw at Paul Mescal’s Lucius Verus, Gladiator II’s lead protagonist. Picking up over two decades after the events of Gladiator, the sequel follows Lucius, who was previously being played by Spencer Treat Clark, living in Numidia with his wife and daughter, having given up his claim to the Roman Empire and not seen with his mother, Connie Nielsen’s Lucilla, for roughly 15 years. However, when his town is invaded by Pedro Pascal’s General Marcus Acacius, Lucius is forced into slavery and forced to fight as a gladiator for the amusement of Geta, Caracalla and the rest of Rome’s populace, just like Russell Crowe’s Maximus did long before him (you can stream his story with a Paramount+ subscription).
Gladiator II’s other cast members include Denzel Washington, Derek Jacobi, Tim McInnerny, Alexander Karim and Rory McCann, and David Scarpa wrote the screenplay off a story he crafted with Peter Craig. We’ll get a sense of where Geta and Caracalla fit among the pantheon of cinematic baddies when the sequels arrives on November 22.