Russell Crowe Called Joaquin Phoenix ‘Unprofessional’ on Gladiator Set

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Moviegoers may not have been able to tell based on the final product, but Joaquin Phoenix wasn’t always comfortable on the set of Gladiator, and according to director Ridley Scott — Russell Crowe wasn’t very happy about it.

Scott, 86, spoke with The New York Times ahead of the November 22 release of Gladiator II, where he recalled the first days of filming the 2000 historical epic. Phoenix, 50, played the Roman emperor Commodus, opposite Crowe’s Maximus, a general-turned-slave who rises through the gladiatorial ranks looking for revenge.

“[Joaquin] was in his prince’s outfit saying, ‘I can’t do it,’” Scott recalled, “I said, ‘What?’ And Russell said, ‘This is terribly unprofessional.’”

From there, Scott did what he had to do to keep Phoenix around, adding, “I can act as a big brother or dad. But I’m quite a friend of Joaquin’s. Gladiator was a baptism of fire for both of us in the beginning.”

Phoenix hasn’t hidden from the truth that he was afraid while shooting Gladiator. He shared his perspective in a 2018 interview with Collider.

“I absolutely have that nervousness on every movie…but I think that probably Gladiator was one of the most intimidating because the first set that I went on was just massive,” Phoenix said. “It looked like it was acres of land, and tons of trucks and trailers and, you know, hundreds of extras, and multiple cameras. Suddenly the scale of this hit me and I was overwhelmed by that. I didn’t think that I was going to be able to make it through that.”

Phoenix recalled Scott’s patience as he dealt with his star’s crisis of confidence.

“I went to [Scott] and said, ‘I don’t know what to do, I just can’t do this. I don’t know what you’re gonna do. This just isn’t gonna be possible,’” Phoenix explained. “And Ridley was really smart. He just shot me for four hours and he didn’t put film in the camera…he wasn’t gonna waste film. He’s like, ‘It’s gonna be hours before this kid f—ing gets anything, if at all, so I’m not gonna waste film.’”

Neither Phoenix nor Crowe will appear in the Gladiator sequel, though Derek Jacobi and Connie Nielsen will reprise their roles as Senator Gracchus and Lucilla, respectively. The film will also star Paul Mescal and Pedro Pascal, and center around Lucius (Mescal), son of Maximus, forced back into the arena like his father after his wife is murdered.

This isn’t the only time Phoenix’s nerves have gotten the best of him. In September, James McAvoy claimed during an episode of the “Happy, Sad, Confused” podcast that Phoenix dropped as the lead role in Split — which eventually went to McAvoy — just a couple of weeks before filming started,

More recently, the Joker star exited Todd Haynes’ upcoming untitled gay romance film five days before filming was set to begin. Phoenix helped Haynes and Jon Raymond develop the screenplay before Variety reported he got “cold feet.” The outlet speculated that if the film cannot be recast, then the production could lose up to seven figures.