Director Ridley Scott’s 2000 historical epic Gladiator is a stone-cold classic, but it wasn’t without its share of issues. In truth, as was revealed in a recent oral history published by Variety, filming the movie was frequently nothing short of chaos. Russell Crowe, who starred in the movie and played the betrayed Roman general-turned-gladiator Maximus, recalled the strain of working with a script that was still undergoing significant revisions during filming. David Franzoni, the screenwriter for Gladiator, described the filmmaking process as “very 1960s.” He recalls spending days on the set “drinking whiskey and smoking cigars” before remaining up late at night creating fresh scenes. Along with the constantly changing script, Scott also had to deal with uncooperative cast members (Crowe and Joaquin Phoenix, who played the ambitious would-be Emperor Commodus, had to be persuaded to appear), uncooperative tigers (some of the film’s trained animals flat-out refused to attack Crowe during the dramatic Colosseum scenes), and, late in the production, the passing of a cast member who also happened to be a Hollywood legend.
Oliver Reed was well-known for two things: portraying villains and heavyweights expertly, and going on renown drinking binges. How legendary is it exactly? Keith “The Loon” Moon, the drummer for the Who, and actor Sam Reed were frequent drinking companions in the 1970s. By the end of the decade and into the 1980s, journalists and talk show hosts were much more likely to inquire about Reed’s drinking habits than his most recent film project, much to the actor’s perpetual annoyance. Reed was cast in Gladiator as Proximo, a former gladiator and trainer who became a friend and mentor to Crowe’s Maximus, after suffering a major career slump in the 1990s. The movie might have signalled the beginning of the 61-year-late-career old’s resurgence, but it ended up being his last successfully finished project.
Oliver Reed had almost finished his work on Gladiator when he died
Although Reed’s method of suicide sounds like the most absurd urban legend, his dying moments have been well-reported. Variety claims that the actor h onoured his commitment to Scott to abstain from alcohol while filming on location in Malta, only partaking in it on weekends when there was a gap in the schedule. Five sailors on shore leave were also present at the neighbourhood tavern where Reed was holding court one Saturday night. Naturally, the five strong men instantly challenged the notoriously drunk actor to a drinking competition, and Reed promptly out-drank them all, according to some reports downing around eight pints of beer, twelve shots of rum, a half-bottle of whiskey, and some cognac for good measure (via Guide Me Malta). Then, Reed had the bright idea to arm-wrestle all five of his new friends, taking them out one at a time.
The actor passed out shortly after, and it was later discovered that he had suffered a heart attack. The astonished Gladiator cast and crew spent the rest of the filming in grief after Reed passed away on the way to the hospital. However, Reed’s climactic scenes still needed to be finished.
A combination of techniques were used to finish Oliver Reed’s scenes in Gladiator
Two scenes that would wrap up Proximo’s arc were shot after a small change to the constantly changing screenplay. In the first, Proximo visits a jailed Maximus whose Commodus discovered his plan to flee and rejoin his still-faithful armies. This scene required the kind of digital wizardry that is standard today but was essentially unheard of 20 years ago, and it was by far the most challenging to create. During the shot, a stand-in was utilised, and after the fact, a special effects studio The actor’s face was digitally grafted onto the stand-body in’s by The Mill using additional footage of Reed. To make the splice harder to see, the sequence was shot in shadow with bars between the stand-in and the camera. Surprisingly, the scene still looks good today.
In the second scenario, Proximo stands by while Maximus is attacked and slain by the Praetorian Guard. For this sequence, alternate footage of Reed from an earlier moment (in which he tells Maximus, “We mortals are merely shadows and dust”) was digitally manipulated and put into the frame for one segment, and another stand-in was shot from behind for another. With good reason, this scene still appears to be quite seamless today: The patch job, which lasted for about two minutes of the movie, cost $3.2 million, according to the website Legends Revealed.
Oliver Reed’s performance in Gladiator was a glimpse of the future
In contrast to, say, the ravaging dinosaurs of 1993’s Jurassic Park (which were achieved with a huge help from VFX master Stan Winston’s animatronic work), Gladiator employed digital trickery that was meant specifically not to call attention to itself. Gladiator served as an early example of what a powerful tool CGI could be even when used in relatively subtle fashion. The face-swap effect used by The Mill can be viewed as a proof-of-concept for later, more dramatic effects, like the “de-aging” technology frequently used by Marvel Studios, or even the complete recreation of long-deceased actors, like the digital recreation of renowned actor Peter Cushing that was used to bring back Grand Moff Tarkin for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.
One can only hope that before he died away, Reed came to understand what a great endeavour he was associated with. It’s safe to say that Reed had no idea he would be a part of such a complicated and intriguing legacy.
Five Academy Awards were given to Gladiator, including one for Best Picture and another for Crowe for Best Actor. Reed was also posthumously nominated for a BAFTA for his work as Proximo. The movie Gladiator, a unique species of Hollywood epic, is dedicated to the man’s memory because he was a rare type of actor.
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