Multiple actors appearing inGladiator IIhave been criticized for what accents they use for their characters, which are all inherently inaccurate.Gladiator IIpicks up 16 years after Russell Crowe’s Maximus' tragic tale of revenge; Connie Nielsen returns as Lucilla, Paul Mescal plays her now-grown son, and Pedro Pascal is the Roman general who is the new target of the protagonist’s vengeance. Yet Denzel Washington decidedly emerged as thebest performance of the six mainGladiator IIactors, playing the scheming Macrinus.
This is despitecontroversy surrounding Washington’s accent inGladiator II. The actor decided to use his own New York accent, rejecting choosing an African dialect for his character.Washington’s reasoning for this was that there was no way of knowing what the historicalGladiator IIfigure would have actually sounded like,and he worried his speech would simply be awful. However,Washington’s response to thisGladiator 2criticismpoints out some contradictions within the genre of historical fiction itself, which he merely bypassed in his own way.
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Washington’s line of questioning highlights the issue that none of the other characters are British,even though this is what they sound like in the movie. This is largely because many major period pieces taking place in non-English settings tend to use British accents (such asLes Misérables). TheGladiator 2charactersalso wouldn’t speak modern English, a language that doesn’t even exist yet when the movie is taking place.
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For context, the Old English textBeowulfwas written several centuries after thetimeline ofGladiator IIand is still incomprehensible to modern English speakers without extensive study of the language. The spoken language of the Roman Empire was Latin. None of these characters would speak English, none of them would sound British — both are creative choices made for the sake of this movie’s marketability.
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While the accent of choice doesn’t necessarily need to be British, it does make sense for the world-building that some characters have similar speech patterns. Lucilla and the Emperors Geta (Joseph Quinn) and Caracalla (Fred Hechinger) are all from the same background of the Roman nobility and probably all sound the same.Pedro Pascal’s Acacius' upbringing is less certain, but he also plausibly comes from an adjacent upper class and speaks similarly.
Paul Mescal struggles to maintain a British accentand dips into his real Irish accent in some scenes. While this inconsistency is a problem, it is plausible that he would sort of sound like other characters. Had Lucius stayed in Rome past his childhood, he would have sounded more like his mother. In a historical context, he wouldn’t sound Irish, but he would sound like a Roman royal whose speech is affected by elements of other languages due to moving around in Africa for years while still at a young age.
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Macrinus would sound very different from the rest of the cast— his speech likely being cemented as an adult before he was captured and brought to Rome — assuming they are all speaking the same language with accents that come from their native languages. For better or for worse, Denzel Washington made the choice to not attempt the modern form of what would be his character’s voice inGladiator II. However, his New York accent is really only asking for the same suspension of disbelief as is granted to the other characters.
Gladiator II
Cast
Gladiator 2 is the follow-up to Ridley Scott’s award-winning film Gladiator from 2000. Scott returns to direct the sequel, with Paul Mescal staring as Lucius, alongside Denzel Washington and Joseph Quinn as the villain Emperor Geta. Gladiator 2 had been stuck in development hell for years before a script written by David Scarpa finally moved forward.
