Gladiator II’s Connie Nielsen gives history lesson on Russell Crowe and dishes on Paul Mescal and Pedro Pascal

Ridley Scott’s long-awaited Gladiator II takes audiences and star Connie Nielsen back to the Colosseum, and seeks to capitalise on a new generation’s growing fascination with history. From podcasts to social media influencers, younger millennials and gen Z are seeking out history content to satisfy a curiosity about antiquity. Nielsen can relate. The Danish actor played Lucilla in the original Gladiator, opposite Joaquin Phoenix’s Emperor Commodus and Russell Crowe’s Oscar-winning turn as Maximus, and has reprised the role for the sequel, which is set 16 years after the events of the first movie. “You know, my passion is history, and especially ancient civilisations, so for me it’s just basically a joy,” Nielsen tells The Sunday Times of her return to the world of Ancient Rome. More recently Nielsen has been seen as Queen Hippolyta, ruler of the Amazons, in the DC Extended Universe, beginning with 2017’s Wonder Woman. But she’s eager to look a little further into her own past, and relive the experience of her career-defining performance in Scott’s sword-and-sandal epic from 2000, which won five Academy awards, including best picture. “The experience of making the first movie was very special,” she recalls. “(Crowe, Phoenix and I) were three quasi-unknowns; we had done a few things that had put us just enough on the map to get into that kind of film, but me and Joaquin had to screen test multiple times to get those roles. “And so we were just these three young people walking onto an extraordinary set with an extraordinary story to tell, at the hands of a genius director, and it was truly exciting and amazing, and we literally poured our hearts and souls into it.” That film represented a pop cultural moment, with fans still able to quote famous Maximus lines, such as “What we do in life echoes in eternity”, “strength and honour” and “I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next”. Almost 25 years later, the sequel arrives to find the wonders of the ancient world liberated from stuffy history books and communicated to a mass audience via podcasts such as The Rest Is History, which gets 11 million downloads a month. The appetite for this content has also fuelled the rise of influencers like @hot.history, aka the Sydney-based Ainslie Harvey. With more than 326,000 followers on TikTok, Harvey has capitalised on demand. “Social media has taken history out of textbooks and put it in people’s pockets,” she tells The Sunday Times. “You can take a walk around Ancient Rome with VR, download hundreds of bite-sized history lessons on TikTok and uncover never-before-seen pics on the ‘Gram.” And it turns out history influencers are in demand, too, with Harvey being courted by museums around the world. “Since starting my account a little over a year ago, I’ve . . . travelled to Europe three times to see new exhibitions, had the chance to chat with researchers and conservation teams, and even got a sneak peek into the restoration of Notre Dame,” Harvey reveals. With a love for Ancient Rome, Harvey is excited for audiences to see Gladiator II. “Gladiator II brings history to life, and once that door opens there is no turning back,” she says. “Ancient Rome has got more drama than the Real Housewives — you have mad personalities leading huge armies across foreign lands for the ‘glory of Rome’ — it’s basically the real-life Game Of Thrones.” Viewers might watch Scott’s new movie and question the historical accuracy of some of the wild action sequences in the Colosseum, which the production painstakingly re-created in Malta. Nielsen encourages any doubters to do their research. “A lot of these battles actually, truly did happen,” she confirms. “And, in fact, on (the first Gladiator movie), Ridley just didn’t have enough time, nor the technology, nor could he contain the costs it would’ve taken to do the level of spectacle that actually historically did happen. “But now, in 2023 (when the film was made), that became possible because technology evolved just enough for him to be able to re-create the actual spectacles that the Romans did.” It also doesn’t hurt that the new film features two of the internet’s hottest blokes, Normal People star Paul Mescal, who plays the grown-up version of Lucilla’s son, Lucius, from the original; and Pedro Pascal, as her husband, General Acacius. “With Pedro, there’s just so much natural playfulness, and we’ve really used that for our scenes,” Nielsen says. “And Pedro is dashing as General Acacius, he just relishes that. “With Paul, I just remember I was so looking forward to doing those scenes with him because it’s such a profound experience, this thing between mother and son . . . and Paul is an incredible actor.” Gladiator II is in cinemas now.

Gladiator II’s Connie Nielsen gives history lesson on Russell Crowe and dishes on Paul Mescal and Pedro Pascal

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