Category Archives: gladiator

Paul Mescal Faces Superfan In A Quiz About Himself — And He Doesn’t Exactly Ace It

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A Paul Mescal superfan was given the opportunity to put their knowledge to the test in a quiz about the Normal People star – against the man himself.

And if ever there a moment that proves you should never underestimate stans’ knowledge, this would be it.

In the clip, Paul gets off to a strong start, remembering exactly which bird he and co-star Fred Hechinger went searching in the wild for, and his favourite dinner (which, should you ever find yourself cooking for him, is carbonara).

But as the quiz unfolded, Larissa truly came into her own.

After reminding Paul about his first movie roles and correctly reeling off his middle names, the pair were questioned about which year the Emmy nominee graduated from drama school.

“2015,” Paul answered confidently. “Did you not know this?”

“Well…” Larissa then replied. “It’s… 2017, no?”

“I got my own life wrong there. I lost that comfortably,” Paul then conceded. “And do you know what? I hate losing. But I lost to a better Paul.”

Check out the full quiz for yourself below:

Gladiator II is in cinemas now.

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The Historically Inaccurate Reason That Product Placement Was Removed From The First Gladiator Film

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When you picture the original Gladiator film from 2000, the first thing that likely comes to mind is Russell Crowe as Maximus Decimus Meridius. However, in an interview with Vanity Fair, the actor revealed that he actually almost dropped out of the film entirely as he didn’t like the script, and there were some strange inclusions that he didn’t agree with.

“I was confident about my abilities as a leading man. What I wasn’t confident about with ‘Gladiator’ was the world that was surrounding me.

“At the core of what we were doing was a great concept but the script, it was rubbish, absolute rubbish. And it had all these sorts of strange sequences.”

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Gladiators were the original influencers

One of these ‘strange sequences’ was scenes in which the gladiators rode chariots that had promotions for olive oil and other products on them.

While this may have seemed like an anachronistic choice for the filmmakers, gladiators in the Roman Empire really did take on endorsement and product placement deals.

According to the marketing experts at Banknotes: “The Colosseum was the mecca of entertainment in Ancient Rome, exposing gladiators to thousands of people at once.

“This is why historians have long suggested that Roman Gladiators were arguably the first influencers of purchasing behaviours.”

Russell did actually know this but said that it just wouldn’t resonate with audiences. He exclaimed: “That’s all true but it’s just not going to ring right to a modern audience, they’re going to go, ‘What the fuck is all this?’”

Maybe he was on to something as the film grossed $465.4 million worldwide.

Gladiator 2 is out in cinemas on15 November 2024.