Ridley Scott has weighed in on Barry Keoghan’s exit from the forthcoming sword-and-sandals sequel Gladiator II.
Banshees of Inisherin star Keoghan had signed on to play the role of Emperor Caracalla, but dropped out and was replaced by The White Lotus’s Fred Hechinger.
Scott claimed that Keoghan was unable to feature in the project because of his work on the Emerald Fennell-directed satire Saltburn.
“Barry got locked into Saltburn,” the director told The New York Times. “I think that’s maybe the best film I’ve seen this year. Anyway, Barry is one of the good ones, the same level as Joaquin Phoenix and Paul [Mescal].”
Mescal plays the lead role of Lucius in Gladiator II, the son of Russell Crowe’s Maximus in the original Gladiator.
Phoenix, meanwhile, has collaborated with Scott multiple times, appearing in the original Gladiator as well as the recent biopic Napoleon.
Scott doubled down on the comparisons between Keoghan and Phoenix, stating: “Barry is so complex and actually has it under control. I know he’s a bit of a challenge, but it’s worth it. Like deciding on Joaquin, it’s worth it.”
It had previously been reported that Keoghan dropped out of Gladiator II in order to star in Bird, the latest film from acclaimed British director Andrea Arnold.
Speaking to IndieWire earlier this year, Keoghan also stated that his non-involvement in Scott’s film was due to scheduling conflicts.
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“Conflicts, schedule conflicts,” he said. “I am a massive fan of Gladiator and a massive fan of that cast. It’s a shame you can’t do both. But that happens in this game. You can’t do both.”
In a four-star review of Bird for The Independent, critic Clarisse Loughrey wrote: “Bird is for every lost child who wishes someone would have stood up and defended them. It’s a fragile but beautiful vision, and marks the strongest blend yet of Andrea Arnold’s primary directives as a filmmaker.
“There have been her stories of young, working-class women in search of their own liberation, such as Mia in her 2009 breakout Fish Tank or Star in her US-set 2016 film American Honey. And there have been stories about the dignity and inner life bestowed on all creatures, as exemplified by her 2022 documentary Cow, shot over the course of four years on an industrial dairy farm. Bird fuses both.”
Bird is out in cinemas now. Gladiator II is released on 15 November in the UK.
