Paul Mescale was attempting a particularly dangerous equine stunt in “Gladiator II,” which got him and director Sir Ridley Scott into trouble.
Mescal, 28, stars in Scott’s sequel to the swords-and-sandal epic “Gladiator,” which won best picture on Friday. He took over the important mantle from the star of the first film, Russell Crowe.
Like Crowe, Mescale performed most of his own stunts in the action flick. However, there was one stunt in particular that the “Normal People” star clashed with Scott Over, as his personal trainer Tim Blakely told The Post.
“He loved riding horses,” said Blakelythe owner of Physical mediaa company that specializes in helping actors keep their bodies camera-ready.
“And he actually fought Ridley. [Scott] – He had to fight to get a scene [the movie] With a horse where he had to jump on a horse that was running.
According to Blackley, “Ridley wanted him out because he was worried Paul was going to hurt himself.”
Mescal, though, proved unconvincing.
“Paul kind of won the argument and was able to get it,” Blakely recalled.
Meskel’s fight was in line with his general attitude toward stunts in the film—that is, he wanted to do them all.
“He would do anything if he could,” Blakely explained. “He just embraced all the physical aspects of the film.”
It wasn’t just on horseback that Meskel excelled. He also hit in the field.
“Paul was great in his fight scenes,” Blakely said.
And although Meskel had a stunt double, Zach Roberts — whose credits include “House of the Dragon,” “No Time to Die” and “Black Widow” — Roberts spent most of his time assisting. Instead of the actor stepping up for it.
“Zach was almost her mentor on set,” Blakely said. “He’s just picked up so quickly.”
Meskel, who can be seen behind the scenes practicing swordsmanship while on horseback “Gladiator II” featurehas also talked about the battle of doing horse jumping stunts.
He was given the “green light” to prepare to do something. As he told Stephen Colbert Wednesday night on “The Late Show.” But when it came time to film, Scott was reluctant to stunt the star because of an incident on his first picture, 1977’s “The Duelists.” While shooting the final shot of the film, an actor breaks his femur when his horse crashes into a tree.
“We can’t do this,” Meskel remembered Scott telling him two weeks before he jumped on his horse.
“But I can do the stunt right now,” he told Colbert, adding that “every day for two weeks” to film the scene, he would go to Scott and ask, “Can I possibly Can I do horse work?
The answer was consistently “no.” But Mescale stood his ground, and the day before that, he asked the director one last time.
“He goes quiet,” Meskel remembers. “And he goes, if you dismount, you owe me two Bentleys.”
As in, two Bentley cars – starting at around $200,000 MSRP.
“And I was like, “Sure, if I get off the horse, I don’t know how I’m paying for it.” But I didn’t get off the horse and I didn’t have to give him two Bentleys. ” Starr said.
Meskel recently recreated the stunt A video shoot With Hollywood Authentic Magazine.
“It’s a brief moment in the film but I think that’s the kind of stuff I like,” the Irish star said. He told the mag In the profile, “It doesn’t matter how small a moment is; all those things add to the overall texture of the film. You want to see the actors in the film doing what they’re going to do.”
“That was a big day for me, because a lot of work went into it,” he continued. It would have been a very public embarrassment if I had picked it up. Public shaming. And maybe an injury, and then the movie has to stop.
But the show went on. No shame. No injury. And no Bentleys.
“Gladiator II” is in theaters Friday.
Credit : nypost.com
