20 Things You Didn’t Know About Gladiator

Many of the animals used in the production were lent to them by a Moroccan zoo, because the country’s animal importation rules were so draconian. For the fight between Maximus and Tigris the Gaul, there were five real tigers present (along with a vet with a tranquiliser gun).

Although tigers are very hard to train, these cats acted like seasoned Hollywood pros, getting so used to all the movie-making hullabaloo around them that they’d often fall asleep and need prodding awake. Despite this, Crowe still kept the mandatory fifteen feet away from the stripy nightmares of nature, just in case.

The tigers actually entered the arena via trap doors in the floor, a method the gladiators used at one point as well. Both the elevators used to do this were operated by winch and pulley, just like the original versions would have been used in the Colosseum in Rome.

One other curious little tidbit. Maximus’ pet wolf couldn’t be played by an actual wolf because this part of the shoot was in England, which has hardcore anti-rabies legislation that got in the way - so it was played by Tervuren Belgian Shepherd dog named Kyte.

A veteran of TV and film, Minka Independence Kyte (to give her her full pedigree name) was trained to understand the words ‘action’ and ‘cut’, and was part of an acting dynasty: she was the third dog to play Wellard on long-running British prime time soap opera Eastenders, after her mother and grandmother.