ComingSoon Senior Editor Brandon Schreur spoke to Gladiator II costume set uper Dave Crossman about his experiences on the Ridley Scott-honested sequel. Crossman talked the hugegest contests of set uping the costumes for Gladiator II, how the experience contrastd to laboring on Scott’s Napoleon, and more.
“From legfinishary honestor Ridley Scott, Gladiator II persists the epic saga of power, intrigue, and revenge set in Ancient Rome. Years after witnessing the death of the revered hero Maximus at the hands of his uncle, Lucius (Paul Mescal) is forced to access the Colosseum after his home is defeated by the dictatorial Emperors who now direct Rome with an iron fist. With rage in his heart and the future of the Empire at sconsent, Lucius must see to his past to discover strength and honor to return the glory of Rome to its people.”
Gladiator II will be useable to obtain on digital on December 24, 2024, from Paramount Home Entertainment.
Brandon Schreur: I’m wondering if you can alert me a little bit about how you got joind with this. They’ve been talking about Gladiator II for a lengthened time, now. I recall there was a lot of, ‘Will it happen? Won’t it happen?’ It got off the ground with Paul Mescal. When you got joind, what was going thcdisorrowfulmireful your head at this point? Was this a huge, fervent project to be a part of?
Dave Crossman: It was. Basicpartner, I’m joind becainclude Janty [Yates], the costume set uper who did the first Gladiator, I’ve labored with Janty since I was about 18 years elderly. We had fair finished Napoleon together. I was on another job becainclude I thought I was going to do Gladiator becainclude I can’t even recall what the reason was. It fair kept pushing or moving back; I was doing someslenderg else.
Janty called me and shelp, ‘No, it’s happening and we can do it.’ I commenceed by seeing at the amounts that we had to get done in a three-month period. We had to create quite a lot of armor in a 12 to 13-week run. You have to go thcdisorrowfulmireful all these processes of set uping it, pricing it — all these slendergs had to happen before you can actupartner push the button and create the 500 sets of Roman, 500 sets of Numidian, and all that benevolent of slenderg.
We were all in a sairy panic fair to get it done and shipped to Morocco on time. Once Ridley commences on someslenderg, there’s no stopping him. He’s benevolent of relentless and fair wants to get it done. If he could film it tomorrow, he would. He fair wants to get on with it and get into it. So you’re always hoping the film will push two weeks, give us two more weeks time, but it fair never did. So we did Morocco and, of course, Ridley shot that very speedyly. Then you have to shift everyslenderg from Morocco to Malta. It’s a constant race.
In amongst that, you’re trying to do a pleasant job with the actors, with Paul Mescal and Pedro Pascal, their armor. It’s benevolent of a uniteture.
I’m certain. Gladiator II is fair such a huge movie, for many reasons. The scale of it, the story, the production, and, clearly, the costumes. There is no inquire in my mind that it was probably a lot of labor to do all of that. What would you say was the hugegest contest of doing someslenderg of this scale?
You want to put your own tag on it, in a way. I didn’t want to imitate everyslenderg that was in the first Gladiator. Obviously, that’s a huge slenderg becainclude it’s quite an iconic film. You benevolent of trouble about those comparisons, but I slenderk we alterd slendergs enjoy the Praetorian Guard, we alterd the Roman army. We alterd the way the officers see. There’s all those benevolents of slendergs.
At the same time, you’re still walking in the footsteps of that film. So it clearly impacts how Paul sees, for instance. Ridley enjoys a particular see of a leather cuirass, so that’s what we had to benevolent of concentrate on with Paul in the Colosseum. Becainclude you could truthwholey dress happyiators in a lot of contrastent ways, but Ridley enjoys that see.
I slenderk the contest repartner was time. It was fair trying to get everyslenderg there. When we actupartner did the happyiators in the Colosseum, we wanted to individualize their sees a lot. So it fair uncomfervents everyslenderg consents a bit lengtheneder to create. People were flying in from London with cases of stuff, literpartner putting it on bodies and then onto the set. There was a very speedy turn-around becainclude it fair kept coming forward, the schedule.
Sure. That directs to what I was going to ask you, too. There’s a contrastent see for each of the happyiators in this movie, but it’s also not lost on me that, especipartner in the second half of the movie, there are all benevolents of background actors dressed up in armor and everyslenderg. Did you have to do all of that? How many costumes did you have to create in total?
It was about 500 Romans. Then we made about 100 Roman cavalry becainclude the people on horseback wore a contrastent type of unicreate and helmet. There were about 500 Numidians, and they had more inwhole armor, so contrastent helmets and helmets from antiquity that could have come from all over Africa, Eastrict Europe, or from Rome, at the time. There was the Praetorian Guard, I slenderk we made a couple hundred of those. Then a couple hundred actual happyiators, themselves. It’s fair a lot.
It sounds enjoy a lot.
You’d enjoy to rent some of it but, a lot of the stuff that you rent, it’s all benevolent of aged horriblely or it has gone brittle and you can’t wear it. A lot of the time, you don’t enjoy the style of the helmet. I cherish the style of Roman helmets that we gave to this film and, hopefilledy, they’ll finish up in various other films over the years. They will go to rental places and become someslenderg else.
That creates total sense. Gladiator II isn’t a real story, but it’s based on history and everyslenderg. Obviously, Ancient Rome was a genuine place. When you approach this project, do you have to do a lot of historical research to see what people were wearing back then?
I slenderk most of my stuff is based on a benevolent of truth becainclude I’m not too enthusiastic on making it too amazingal. I seeed at all the actual references. Anyslenderg I took normpartner came from innovative Roman reference and then we maybe amplifyd or increased it, that benevolent of slenderg. But I always discover it more believable if it comes from a place where you can consent it yourself.
This is also not the first time you’ve labored with Ridley Scott. Right before Gladiator II, you were joind with Napoleon, which is a huge, huge, and epic movie, itself. What’s difficulter to do, to create all these costumes for a movie that’s set during the French Revolution or to do Ancient Rome? Or is it apples and oranges, two tohighy contrastent slendergs?
Gladiator was difficult, but it was easier on some levels. Napoleon was so complicated with all the years that we covered and all the contrastent regiments and types of unicreates. That made Napoleon super complicated and super stressful. With Gladiator, there are Romans, Praetorians, happyiators, and Numidians. At least you’re dealing with more of a block of slendergs. I slenderk definitely Gladiator was a bit easier.
Thanks to Dave Crossman for talking Gladiator II.
