20 Things You Didn’t Know About Gladiator

Up and coming young actor Joaquin Phoenix was always Ridley Scott's first choice to play Commodus, although at one point Jude Law was in consideration as well.

Phoenix was only 24 at the time and Gladiator was the biggest movie of his career, so he was very nervous. Actually, nervous wasn’t the word - according to Crowe, he would ask to be "roughed up" before going on camera in order to get into the right headspace.

Worried, Crowe asked Sir Richard Harris for advice, who suggested just taking Phoenix out on the beer. Funnily enough, getting drunk with a matey Kiwi and a hellraising legend sheared off some of Phoenix’ jagged edges, and his anxiety was appeased going forward.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a Joaquin Phoenix performance if there weren’t more eyebrow-raising stories from the shoot.

There’s a story that, while checking out the dailies, Ridley Scott thought Phoenix might have put on a little weight during the shoot. Word filtered back to Phoenix that the legendary director thought that he was tubby - which apparently had been a specific choice the actor made to point to Commodus’ debauchery as a corrupt Emperor. Reacting to the criticism, Phoenix starved himself for weeks to take off the weight he’d added.

There’s also the anecdote that he got so emotionally invested in the multiple takes of the patricide scene where Commodus murders Marcus Aurelius that he fainted after the scene wrapped.

Finally, that screamed “am I not merciful?" line was adlibbed, making up for the uncertainty regarding the shooting script. Connie Nielsen (who played Commodus’ sister Lucilla) wasn't expecting it: that startled, scared reaction was real.