ComingSoon Senior Editor Brandon Schreur spoke to Gladiator II costume designer Dave Crossman about his experiences on the Ridley Scott-directed sequel. Crossman discussed the biggest challenges of designing the costumes for Gladiator II, how the experience compared to working on Scott’s Napoleon, and more.
“From legendary director Ridley Scott, Gladiator II continues the epic saga of power, intrigue, and vengeance 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 enter the Colosseum after his home is conquered by the tyrannical Emperors who now lead Rome with an iron fist. With rage in his heart and the future of the Empire at stake, Lucius must look to his past to find strength and honor to return the glory of Rome to its people.”
Gladiator II will be available to purchase on digital on December 24, 2024, from Paramount Home Entertainment.
Brandon Schreur: I’m wondering if you can tell me a little bit about how you got involved with this. They’ve been talking about Gladiator II for a long time, now. I remember there was a lot of, ‘Will it happen? Won’t it happen?’ It got off the ground with Paul Mescal. When you got involved, what was going through your head at this point? Was this a big, intense project to be a part of?
Dave Crossman: It was. Basically, I’m involved because Janty [Yates], the costume designer who did the first Gladiator, I’ve worked with Janty since I was about 18 years old. We had just finished Napoleon together. I was on another job because I thought I was going to do Gladiator because I can’t even remember what the reason was. It just kept pushing or moving back; I was doing something else.
Janty called me and said, ‘No, it’s happening and we can do it.’ I started by looking at the amounts that we had to get done in a three-month period. We had to produce quite a lot of armor in a 12 to 13-week run. You have to go through all these processes of designing it, pricing it — all these things had to happen before you can actually push the button and make the 500 sets of Roman, 500 sets of Numidian, and all that kind of thing.
We were all in a slight panic just to get it done and shipped to Morocco on time. Once Ridley starts on something, there’s no stopping him. He’s kind of relentless and just wants to get it done. If he could film it tomorrow, he would. He just 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 just never did. So we did Morocco and, of course, Ridley shot that very quickly. Then you have to move everything from Morocco to Malta. It’s a constant race.
In amongst that, you’re trying to do a nice job with the actors, with Paul Mescal and Pedro Pascal, their armor. It’s kind of a mixture.
I’m sure. Gladiator II is just such a huge movie, for many reasons. The scale of it, the story, the production, and, obviously, the costumes. There is no doubt in my mind that it was probably a lot of work to do all of that. What would you say was the biggest challenge of doing something of this scale?
You want to put your own mark on it, in a way. I didn’t want to copy everything that was in the first Gladiator. Obviously, that’s a big thing because it’s quite an iconic film. You kind of worry about those comparisons, but I think we changed things like the Praetorian Guard, we changed the Roman army. We changed the way the officers look. There’s all those kinds of things.
At the same time, you’re still walking in the footsteps of that film. So it obviously affects how Paul looks, for instance. Ridley likes a particular look of a leather cuirass, so that’s what we had to kind of focus on with Paul in the Colosseum. Because you could honestly dress gladiators in a lot of different ways, but Ridley likes that look.
I think the challenge really was time. It was just trying to get everything there. When we actually did the gladiators in the Colosseum, we wanted to individualize their looks a lot. So it just means everything takes a bit longer to make. People were flying in from London with cases of stuff, literally putting it on bodies and then onto the set. There was a very quick turn-around because it just kept coming forward, the schedule.
Sure. That leads to what I was going to ask you, too. There’s a distinct look for each of the gladiators in this movie, but it’s also not lost on me that, especially in the second half of the movie, there are all kinds of background actors dressed up in armor and everything. Did you have to do all of that? How many costumes did you have to make in total?
It was about 500 Romans. Then we made about 100 Roman cavalry because the people on horseback wore a different type of uniform and helmet. There were about 500 Numidians, and they had more partial armor, so different helmets and helmets from antiquity that could have come from all over Africa, Eastern Europe, or from Rome, at the time. There was the Praetorian Guard, I think we made a couple hundred of those. Then a couple hundred actual gladiators, themselves. It’s just a lot.
It sounds like a lot.
You’d like to rent some of it but, a lot of the stuff that you rent, it’s all kind of aged badly or it has gone brittle and you can’t wear it. A lot of the time, you don’t like the style of the helmet. I love the style of Roman helmets that we gave to this film and, hopefully, they’ll end up in various other films over the years. They will go to rental places and become something else.
That makes total sense. Gladiator II isn’t a true story, but it’s based on history and everything. Obviously, Ancient Rome was a real 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 think most of my stuff is based on a kind of reality because I’m not too keen on making it too fantastical. I looked at all the actual references. Anything I took normally came from original Roman reference and then we maybe exaggerated or enhanced it, that kind of thing. But I always find it more believable if it comes from a place where you can believe it yourself.
This is also not the first time you’ve worked with Ridley Scott. Right before Gladiator II, you were involved with Napoleon, which is a big, huge, and epic movie, itself. What’s harder to do, to make 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 totally different things?
Gladiator was hard, but it was easier on some levels. Napoleon was so complex with all the years that we covered and all the different regiments and types of uniforms. That made Napoleon super complex and super stressful. With Gladiator, there are Romans, Praetorians, gladiators, and Numidians. At least you’re dealing with more of a block of things. I think definitely Gladiator was a bit easier.
Thanks to Dave Crossman for discussing Gladiator II.
