The mercurial quality of the part was only one of the incentives for Phoenix. "Between the script and the cast that was being put together, I felt the film had a great deal to offer. Talking to Ridley, I could see this was going to be a movie of great spectacle and scope, but also one that allowed for a character-driven story," he notes.
"Commodus is a character I really enjoyed exploring as an actor," Phoenix reflects. "I think the best way to describe him is as a spoiled child. He's 19 years old, but wields an incredible amount of power, so he has all the emotions that go with being that age without having had the guidance he needed to handle that power. He's vulnerable and sad one moment and throwing a tantrum the next. He desperately wants the love of the people, but the irony of the story is that the gladiatorial games he decrees to get the masses to love him are ultimately what bring his nemesis to Rome."
The person closest to Commodus is his sister Lucilla, played by Connie Nielsen. "We spent a long time looking for the right actress to play Lucilla," producer Branko Lustig recalls. "When we saw Connie, we knew we had found her. I had the feeling I was watching a young Sophia Loren in 'The Fall of the Roman Empire.' She is a wonderful actress, and had the presence we needed in Lucilla."
Nielsen offers, "The script completely gripped me. There are colossal elements, like the setting and the battles, and yet the story is very intimate in how it brings you into the personal relationships between people, especially in the case of Lucilla. She is caught between the ambitions of her brother and the will of Maximus, with whom she has a past."
"It's interesting that we generate a lot of history between Maximus and Lucilla without ever really going into it," Scott expounds. "We gather it was a romance that had gone wrong, but I like that exactly what happened between them remains obscure."
Nielsen was also fascinated by her character's ability to operate within the mores of the day "Lucilla lives in a time when women did not have a voice, at least officially" she says. "But she is her father's daughter, and has been raised in the center of much political intrigue, so she is definitely capable of using whatever is at her disposal to survive. She would like to be the moral compass for Commodus, but he won't allow that, so she has to resort to the subtleties she learned growing up. In many ways she loves her brother, but she is also fearful of him and even more afraid of the power he holds over her son Lucius."
The international cast of "Gladiator" also includes several respected veterans of the stage and screen, notably Richard Harris as Emperor Marcus Aurelius, who understands the depths of his failings as a father too late to save his empire from tragedy; Derek Jacobi as Senator Gracchus, who sees the corruption of Commodus' reign; and the late Oliver Reed as the gladiator trainer Proximo.
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