"These actors are of a generation that experienced some of those earlier epics firsthand, particularly Richard," Scott notes. "It was a thrill for me to have an opportunity to work with them, and all the more interesting to revisit the genre with them."
The admiration was mutual. "It's a great gift for an actor to work with a director like Ridley Scott, who is so in command of his craft," Harris says. "It was also a smashing part for me, because I love playing introspective characters. Marcus is a man in crisis, wrestling with demons. He was a scholar and a philosopher, but he spent 16 of his 20 years as emperor fighting battles and spilling blood to expand the empire. Now nearing the end, he has come to the realization that his life was a fraud."
In his last screen role, Oliver Reed plays Proximo, the man who teaches Maximus the advantages of being a gladiator who wins the hearts of the crowd. It is at Proximo's training camp that Maximus also learns important lessons about life and death from another enslaved gladiator, Juba, with whom he develops a strong bond. -
Djimon Hounsou, who plays Juba, says of his character, "Juba knows that being a gladiator means killing or being killed. He is a very skillful fighter, which enables him to stay alive physically but he knows a way to stay alive mentally and spiritually as well. In his mind, he is with his people; his loved ones are there, waiting for him. That ability to find freedom in your mind is something he tries to share with Maximus."
Completing the film's main cast are David Schofield and John Shrapnel as Senators Falco and Gaius respectively who choose different sides in the political machinations of the empire; Tomas Arana as Quintus, who betrays Maximus in order to serve the new emperor; young Spencer Treat Clark as Lucilla's son Lucius; and former bodybuilding champion Raif Moeller, who appears as the imposing gladiator Hagen.
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