Ridley Scott: The Real Fight Club

Ridley Scott turned Alien, Blade Runner and Thelma & Louise into pop cultural phenomena. With his new romantic sword-and-sandal epic Gladiator, he's made the movie all Young Hollywood wanted to be in and now wants to see.

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Ever since making his visually ravishing directorial debut with The Duellists in 1977, Ridley Scott has been known for stylish, visceral movies that other film-makers admire, study and steal from. He's also been known for his ability to single out Young Hollywood hopefuls the camera is destined to love--Sigourney Weaver (in Alien), Daryl Hannah and Sean Young (in Blade Runner), Tom Cruise (in Legend), Brad Pitt (in Thelma & Louise) and Ryan Phillippe (in White Squall), to name a few.

I meet Scott one mid-morning in the Beverly Hills offices that house just some of the film and TV commercial enterprises he undertakes for the company he runs with his younger brother, the director Tony Scott. Those enterprises have included not just the films he and his brother have directed, but also several films he has produced, including the wry Clay Pigeons featuring Vince Vaughn and Joaquin Phoenix, and HBO's award-winning RKO 281. As one might expect from a director who, in the mid-'60s, worked as a set designer for the 8BC television network and whose movies are famous for striking, visionary design, Scott's lair is a spacious, high-ceilinged, self-designed confluence of exposed wood and classic dark furniture that blends groovy modern with Arts and Crafts. As I'm shown into a large conference room opening on a courtyard, the cigar-puffing Scott grins as he quietly finishes up a phone conversation with producer Dino De Laurentiis about which of two composers might be better to score Hannibal, the sequel to The Silence of the Lambs, which Scott is about to begin shooting with Anthony Hopkins and Julianne Moore. He has already put the finishing touches on the film I'm here to discuss with him, the massively anticipated pre-summer epic Gladiator. The fate of this film, in which Russell Crowe plays a Roman general exiled and sold into slavery by a demonically cruel emperor circa A.D. 180, is now largely out of his hands. The Industry buzz has it high on everyone else's must-see list, though. Beginning with the early teaser commercial shown during the Super Bowl, Gladiator has loomed like the huge, rousing hit that'll whet the moviegoing appetite for everything to follow from Memorial Day on.

STEPHEN REBELLO: Why do you chink Gladiator carries such a big want-to-see factor, especially among people under 30?

RIDLEY SCOTT: I'm definitely aware of that. We've previewed it three times. Before I'd even gotten home from two of them, "reviews" were posted on the Internet, and, fortunately, they were terrific. But you can't count on that necessarily meaning you've got a hit on your hands. The audience will judge. The under-30 audience wasn't something we consciously went after--we had no specific plan in choosing the subject, especially in regard to whether it adds appeal to moviegoers of a certain age. It just seems the time is right for this film.

Q: I understand Gladiator came to you through producer Walter Parkes, who was involved with other huge under-30 movies, like Deep Impact and Men in Black.

A: That's right. He came in with a huge reproduction of a 19th century French romantic painting of a gladiator looking up to the emperor for permission to kill, with a simple legend on it that read: "Those who are about to die salute you." It just felt like the right thing to do right now.

Q: Does "the right thing right now" mean it has something in common with such movies as Fight Club and Any Given Sunday, which unapologetically reclaim male aggression and love of bone-crunching?

A: Honestly, I think it's more that we're in a movie era where we're reexamining everything that's come before. Gladiator is a great adventure story done in pure epic scale. Years ago, when I got s thrashing for Blade Runner, audiences were baffled about the most basic things: "Why was it always night?" "Why was it always raining?" It irritated them. But what I was doing was exploring urban drama. To me, Blade Runner was a kind of medieval drama done in the style of a dark, heavy metal comic strip. I'd discovered humanoid comics, the world of Moebius and the like, during my research for Alien, and it inspired me. Now mainstream movies are reexamining more traditional subjects and the great stylists in that tradition, like David Lean. Lean knew that entertainment is our prime function in doing mainstream movies and he showed in many, many films exactly how to do it. His people were heroes, always larger than life. I think there's a move back to that, even in an era when leisure is a giant industry and an entire generation has been brought up with television, video games and a fascination with the Internet.

Q: You helped launch the careers of Sigourney Weaver in Alien, Daryl Hannah and Sean Young in Blade Runner and Brad Pitt in Thelma & Louise. What can you say about casting from the crop of newer young actors today, many of whom you reportedly saw for Gladiator?

A: It changes and shifts. There are rhythms. Right now the younger generation presents a very interesting bunch of actors. Television no longer stigmatizes one. Instead it's a showcase for interesting talent, a repertory company, almost, that trains people to cross into films. When someone does something extraordinary, it encourages the others because they're all competitive.

Q: But didn't you, as I've heard, have some difficulty casting really good actors who could be convincing in period and look like they could kick butt?

A: [Laughs] I did. Russell [Crowe] was always in the cards, even in our first discussions about the project. We all thought it was a good idea, though he didn't get asked until much later. He has that macho, aggressive masculinity. Could he be a leader? When people see the film, the answer is yes, definitely. He was always our target. If there hadn't been him, there could probably only have been Mel [Gibson]. But Mel had done Braveheart and didn't want to go down that road again. Beyond Russell and Mel, that was it, really.

Q: It's interesting how Australian-bred actors seem to supply qualities we miss in a lot of American actors.

A: They don't do things in half- measures. They're nearly always binge drinkers, big on sport. They look like they've been around and been knocked around. That's pan of the Australian character.

Q: What about those who say that Russell Crowe is a brawler and tough to deal with?

A: He's all chat, but he's worth it. Russell is very experienced. He's done a lot of plays and I think this is about his 20th movie. I've really liked him since Romper Stomper, which is where I first took notice. Very often what you see on-screen is who they are, fundamentally.

Q: I wouldn't mistake him for someone who suffers fools.

A: Right. He's very informed and smart. He doesn't tolerate any daft questions or decisions. You have a lot of... um... open discussions with him. [Laughs] But at the end, the film is better for it. There's a danger some-times in having a very good relationship with actors--when you see the work in the end, you often think, "Well, that's awfully passive." Whereas if it's a constant negotiation, at the end of the day everything is usually better. All in all, Russell and I got on pretty well. He's there.

Q: What inspired you to cast Joaquin Phoenix as your cruel emperor, Commodus?

A: I'd seen Joaquin in a picture that I'd produced called Clay Pigeons and thought he had an interesting face. Then I was shocked by what he pulled off in Return to Paradise--I thought that was as good as it gets. That did it for me. I had a feeling in my bones about him, an intuition, and I couldn't shake it, so I had no other really serious contenders for our prince of darkness. Historically, Commodus was a very physical type. He was something of a loony who, in later years, thought himself the reincarnation of Hercules. He'd sport a lion's head as a helmet with the lion's skin draped down his back. He had 315 camels in the arena with gladiators to slay them. He had thousands of exotic animals slain in the arena. He was a crack shot with a bow and had special arrows built with a fork-like head and, as target practice, he would decapitate ostriches. You name it, he did it. We didn't want to go that exotic with him but, dramatically, we made him a very interesting character. He'd grown up a disappointed and dysfunctional child, and there's nothing more interesting than a sympathetic bad guy.

Q: I'm waiting to hear what's sympathetic about him.

A: Sympathetic in the sense that he's a wounded character. In the beginning of the film, you're com about feeling sympathetically toward him until he starts to show his bad side. When I called Joaquin about wanting him to do it, he thought I was out of my mind. So I asked him if he didn't mind testing. He shouldn't have to test, of course, but if actors aren't sure about something, they should test because they have to know for themselves and have the right to say, "I don't think I'm going to be right for this." He tested and I really respected that he wanted to do that.

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