Paul Mescal interviews Ridley Scott: ‘I was so ahead of the game. The Oxbridge lot were aghast’

Paul Mescal was four when Gladiator was released in 2000. This week he stars in Ridley Scott’s £250m sequel, as the son of Russell Crowe’s hero, Maximus.

We asked the actor to interview the director who has given him his biggest break – and he did. Despite four pages of suggested questions, Mescal rigorously stuck to his own script.

Both men were warm and engaged, forthright and fun. Mescal often eyeballed the sky ruminatively. Scott spoke at double-speed, his trans-Geordie gabble – and twinkle – fully intact at 86.

Paul Mescal: I want to start at the beginning, because I recently saw your first film, the short you made with [Scott’s brother] Tony, Boy and Bicycle. Where did that artistry come from?

Ridley Scott: Nowhere. I was at art college in 1962 and I saw a box and it had [camera brand] Bolex on it and asked the guy running the art department, who was a real sweetheart, if I could make a film with it.

PM: A Super 8?

RS: No, it was a 16mm cine-camera. Quite nice clockwork. He said, you can’t make a movie till you’ve got a script. So that weekend I wrote one. I was obsessed with [James Joyce’s] Ulysses. The writing was so visual. I can never forget the guy walking into the butcher shop and buying glands across the counter, on to “rubber prickles”. Holy shit! So I wrote stream-of-consciousness and talked my mother into doing the voiceover: “Our Tony, get up now!”

PM: Had there been any inclination before then to make a movie?

RS: No more than the obsession of watching them. When I was at art college, I made a deal with the local Odeon. I’d paint big murals of the incoming films, in house paint, on a scaffold, 30ft long, 20ft high, fast, with big brushes. I got free cinema for a year. And if I liked something good, I would sit around for it twice. By then we had a 12-inch black-and-white TV, so when I’d get back from art school, after my parents went to bed, I’d have my baked beans and a beer and sit right in front so I could see it big. I watched TV endlessly at night. Image, image, image.

PM: That percolated long enough to be your education?

RS: Yeah. Then the college gave me £65 to make the film. I said to Tony: “Right, Dad’s loaned us the car, get out of bed,” because he’d sleep till noon on the summer holidays.

PM: Where was he in his creative journey at that point?

RS: He was at a bad private school. Dad couldn’t afford it and it was a terrible school. We made the film and by then I was at the BBC and after everyone had gone home, I’d sneak in – the security guard knew me – and edit it.

PM: How did you learn how to cut film?

RS: I didn’t. I just did it.

PM: What do you mean? That’s wild.

RS: You just go cut, cut.

PM: But even in terms of the mechanics … ?

RS: In those days every time you’d cut, you’d lose two frames. So you gotta be really sure otherwise you’ve gotta reprint that whole thing. I remember mixing it on a mahogany desk with two knobs.

PM: It probably felt like you were in a dream.

RS: No, it was all about business. Working, working. Then I went to the US for a year on a scholarship and the film sat still and I came back to the BBC as a set designer at the advent of BBC Two. I used to work with directors who were very fragile. They were afraid to work with me because I’d say: “Listen, I’ve designed a room but you’re doing the scene in the fucking corner!” One of them was a great guy I respected, though. He said: “You’ve got a loud voice on, but keep it up and you’ll be fine.”

PM: You have kept that up, I would say.

RS: I was so obnoxious. The BBC then asked if I wanted to do a director’s course for six weeks. The others were all Oxbridge. I’m Nelson Terrace Secondary Modern, which meant the best in life I’m gonna get is maybe technical drawing shifts. In the BBC they’re very snobbish and I was the oik from up north. Now, they’re afraid of the oiks. Anyway, all these Oxbridge people did [for their course project] music and interviews and sports with two cameras. I was naive. I thought because I’d worked in the art and construction departments, because I knew all the prop and costume houses, I’d do a potted version of Paths of Glory. I shrank it down to the battle of the Somme and shot it on Wimbledon Common with six guys and a Lewis gun. When all the Oxbridge lot saw it, they were horrified that I was so far ahead of the fucking game. They were aghast. When you have smoke and rifles and you know what to do it looks pretty impressive.

PM: You say you were naive. It sounds like the opposite.

RS: You learn to work on thin ice early. I thought: fuck it, I’ll just do it. I can only be wrong. I was saved by the lady who was my vision mixer, who would sit there knitting in the gallery saying: “Camera two, you’re out of focus, dear.” I was the unpopular person on the course because I was immediately offered a BBC show. The only thing they said was: “Don’t fuck up.”

PM: Do you ever feel impostor syndrome?

RS: No. I get past vulnerable now. You have an idea of whether you are off-mark or on-plan. I’ve never regretted a film I’ve done, ever. I was always on-plan. If it wasn’t enjoyed? I don’t give a shit.

PM: When did you learn that skill?

RS: I was killed by Pauline Kael on Blade Runner. I knew she was wrong. I wrote to the editor [of the New Yorker] and I said: “Listen, I don’t mind but give me a break: if you hate me that much, just ignore me. Don’t do four pages of destruction in your very elegant magazine.” Never got a reply. But I framed the review and always remember you can only be your own critic.

PM: You’re describing a feeling I’d love to have. I have moments when I’m proud of my work and know that’s the main thing. But I still have that bit where I want to people-please.

RS: If I were you, I wouldn’t wanna watch my rushes. Except an actor should.

PM: I don’t wanna watch rushes. With you is the only time. I would never really come to watch performance scenes but I would come in to watch fight scenes because I just liked watching. I remember coming into the horsebox [on-set editing suite] for the first time when we were shooting a fight scene and I was like: what the fuck am I looking at? There’s six big screens along the top, and below four smaller ones. All a different camera. And Ridley goes: “OK, camera one for this, then go to camera two.” Bang! And then half a second later, he’s down to here. He’s cutting it like it’s Twister.

RS: You can only do that with experience. So I was doing a full-time show at BBC and, after tax, I was taking home £75 a week. An agent said: “Do you want to come and do a commercial?” At the end of the day, I got handed £200. There’s something seriously wrong there, but I left the world of television and went into the world of advertising. I literally caught the wave. I’d be doing 100 commercials a year and that means you’re making real money. But more than that, I learned that the best and fastest solution – because I paint with pictures – is to be a camera operator. I’m a very good operator. I operated on The Duellists and Alien and Thelma & Louise. I could do anything with a camera. I was gonna be a fashion photographer way back.

PM: That’s wild to me.

RS: My diploma show was all beautiful black-and-whites. After it I went to see Bert Stern. He was sitting with a sheet of celluloids he’d just taken of Marilyn Monroe. He said: “Look what the bitch just did. She crossed out all these images, so I couldn’t use them.” If I had that sheet now, it’d be worth a fortune. He flicked through my stuff and said: “Hey, if you come back in a month, I’ll give you a job.”

PM: But would it not drive you mad? Having worked with you on a massive multi-camera film, I can’t imagine you having the patience to work with a single camera now.

RS: No, but remember, with a great first AD, you move like lightning.

PM: Right. So you weren’t moving any slower on single camera movies.

RS: No, no. Fast. But it’s one camera, so it’s four times as long. Do you remember on Gladiator II when we shot the arrival of the gladiators to the baboon fight? [We had enough cameras that] it was one fluid moment from the carts the men were kept in right through the undercarriage and into the Colosseum.

PM: It took less than an afternoon.

RS: They had to fight with midgets, tiny stunt men in tight costumes.

PM: Fucking hell, Ridley. They had these crutches [to better look as if they were on all fours]. And then when we get into the fight, they just fire the crutches away and jump at me.

RS: Even now, there’s lots of doubting Thomases saying, oh, he’s gonna be fucked. Even at my stage in my career, people still think, how are you gonna do that? I just say: “Just fucking watch this space and shut up.”

PM: When did that start?

RS: Long time ago. On Blade Runner, when it was such a battle, not being allowed to shoot my own stuff. And so I took a long time to choose a great cameraman.

PM: And that was just a single-camera film? How long did it take to shoot?

RS: One camera. Fifteen weeks. But we were inventing the wheel there. I was inventing a new language, so they didn’t know what was going on. I was the new kid on the block in Hollywood but I wasn’t a kid. I was 44 and already had my second Rolls-Royce. I wasn’t an idiot and they didn’t like me there because I was so independent.

PM: I’m curious about ways in which you feel vulnerability. Do you feel there are blind spots?

RS: We’ve all got weaknesses and strengths. That varies day by day and depending on the material.

PM: Do you have any things that niggle you? There can be certain scenes on the schedule where I feel a latent pit in my stomach if we have to shoot that today. Do you have that?

RS: I fix it by casting really well. I try to form a partnership with the actor. And so I’m listening to you as much as you are listening to me. That is essential. A casting director can be as valuable as a good cameraman. You remember we slightly dropped the ball once when I wasn’t paying attention. If a guy’s gonna come in and say, “Who’s for tennis?” he better be good. Martin Scorsese said he once had a scene with Jack Nicholson in an elevator with Warren Beatty and he hadn’t paid attention to the elevator operator, who couldn’t even say what floor.

PM: Is the feeling you’re describing just related to directing actors?

RS: Yeah, because I didn’t come to that with any formal training. I sat with a great old PA who was very experienced with two casting books, said, what’s he like? She said: he’s OK. So my PA helped me cast the first TV show.

PM: I would say one of the identifiable qualities of how you direct is clarity. People like to talk about how quickly you move. And that’s true: we don’t do lots of takes. But if the scene is not there, we’ll do seven, eight takes.

RS: You just cast the actor. Once they’ve said yes, they’re gonna work it out in the kitchen by themselves.

PM: That’s only true of some actors now. And sometimes that’s a negative thing.

RS: But then on the set I say: show me. We’ll rehearse it on camera. And I go: “wow” or “where did that come from” or “no”. I’ve already seen all their colours in their paintbox. I’d watched eight hours of Normal People [before I cast you]. Within that you cover a lot of emotional layers and ground.

PM: There’s something very intentional in the casting of Gladiator II. I don’t think there’s anything in what I’ve done that’s remotely similar to Russell.

RS: You’re quite different people.

PM: And like I say this with the greatest generosity: I don’t want to be that kind of actor. It’s just not what I’m like. I love Gladiator but I don’t necessarily want to be making films of this scale unless it’s with somebody like you. I didn’t grow up falling in love with performances like Maximus or Master & Commander. It’s just a taste thing. So by casting someone like me and a totally different driving force behind them is what I think gives Gladiator II a more internal energy.

RS: I once worked with Kevin Spacey. He was fine, and I’m not getting into what happened after that; the problems came after we’d finished. But he said when he was directing and once trying to tell an actor how to get emotional, the actor said to him: “Kevin, Kevin, Kevin, I know how to do that. Just let me be.”

I once made a pretty good film with Anthony Hopkins. We got on really well. I’d ask him if he minded if I drank [Hopkins is a recovering alcoholic], and he said: “No: I kind of like it.” He’d watch the vodka as I poured it and say: “Is it good?” I said: “Yeah, it’s very good.” I asked what the worst thing about his job was and he said: “I’ve got to be in some bloody hotel room by myself learning all my lines and everyone else’s lines, so I can pretend I don’t know what’s coming.”

PM: His thing is that he learns the script and then he goes back to page one [and learns it again].

RS: He has a comfort zone and therefore has room to play. Otherwise, you’re fragile.

PM: It drives me nuts. If you don’t know the lines, it’s just an exercise in memory. Knowing them makes you available to directors, and the other actors.

RS: You can have fun with it. I remember seeing Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. Albert Finney was seminal. It’s a fucking major film. I revisited it recently; he’s still got that strength. When I was casting The Duellists, Diana Quick – a very good actress – said, listen, have you got Fouché yet? I said no. She said: “Albert will do Fouché.” I said: “Wow.” I was 40, but I was scared to death of him.

PM: Did you not drive up to meet him? Or was that Anthony Hopkins?

RS: Anthony. I drove to north Wales where he was directing The Seagull in regional theatre. That was boring.

PM: Wait, so, you’re not a fan of Chekhov?!

RS: I said to Diana: “I can’t afford him.” But in the end I got Albert for a crate of red wine. That was it. And The Duellists is beautiful and he’s fantastic in it. The way it happens is not normal, but it’s just the way it is. I was feeling my way, constantly.

PM: Where does your appetite for work come from?

RS: I’ve always been ferocious.

PM: Do you ever have a feeling you should stop for a little bit?

RS: I wouldn’t dare. I once met a great American star and asked him if he ever went on holiday. He said: “Never. I may miss something.” Two days is enough.

PM: Sometimes I get asked that question. They say: “You’ve been on the go now for five years.” And I’m like: “Yeah, Ridley’s been going a little bit longer and he seems to be doing all right.” Why would I stop if I can do this?

RS: Absolutely. Remember, it’s only a day job.

PM: You said that to me in the Colosseum and I still don’t understand it. It’s bullshit. Who are you trying to fool? It’s the furthest thing from a day job.

RS: I was worried you might have flutters. You never once had flutters. I tried to be as un-nervous as possible. Sometime when I’d drive to set in the morning of course I’d go: “Oh fuck.” But then you go: “Right everyone, to the table. We’re doing this, this, that and that.”

PM: Are there any films that you’d love to have another go at?

RS: No. I think I did pretty good. All of them are pretty much without regret at all.

PM: Really? The feeling of regret I think is just so normal for artists. There’s moments in things like Aftersun that people generally adore but I want to get back.

RS: No, I move on. I will check occasionally. The great thing about streaming is that you just press a button and there it is. So: can Blade Runner be that good? I press the button. It’s fucking great! It’s so different. It exposed so many avenues that had never been done before. And it gets into where we are now. [Elon] Musk will be the first one on Mars. He’s so far ahead of bureaucracy he can make decisions.

Related: Ridley Scott films – ranked!

PM: But he’s also innately attached to modern-day bureaucracy.

RS: I don’t wanna really go there because I think there’s something even worse down the line. The world in Blade Runner is run by two people and we’re heading in that direction, if not worse.

And with AI, the first thing you ask of it is to design an AI smarter than itself. Then you get one smarter than you are. At what moment do you overload it with so much information it gets pressure? Pressure is emotion. And when that thing’s emotional, we are in trouble. If the AI doesn’t like us, we’re in deep shit. They could switch us off for fun.

PM: And then it’d be game over.

RS: Are you kidding? You’d be medieval in six weeks. You switch that off and we are so helpless it’s crazy. Have you got candles in your house? Have you got matches? I have candles, matches and guns because I live in LA. Do I ever want to use a gun? God forbid no, but you ought to be always slightly conscious of where the world is going right now.

PM: I think you’re right. But I don’t activate that paranoia – not paranoia, information.

RS: Yeah, my imagination runs a little bit ahead of me. I see the pitfalls. And right now you’ve got many terrible situations in Europe and north Africa and east Asia. They’re playing games. Why do you want Ukraine? You’ve got enough shit for yourself. And if Trump lets that go, the next thing is Poland. So then you have to step up to the plate. The big good wolf – the US – used to go: “Don’t do that.” That’s all gone. Why do you want northern Palestine? Why can’t they live there together? Fuck me. I don’t give a shit who I work with. My unit of 1,200 people [on Gladiator II] are Muslim, Buddhist, Catholic – no problem. And we all work together and end up on time and slightly under budget.

PM: What else do you want to get your hands on?

RS: I’d like to do a musical. And a western, pre-trains with cattle catchers and pre-batwing saloon doors. Where the force of nature is the biggest enemy you’ve got. It has to be tribal with Indigenous people. And we as the intruders are very interesting to them. So it’s got to be early – 1829.

PM: What’s the defining moment in your career?

RS: I got a knighthood twice.

PM: I mean more in your pursuit to become a director.

RS: Boy and Bicycle. I thought, my God, suddenly my dad’s driving the car and I’m in the trunk with the Bolex and my brother’s to the side on a bicycle. We drive underneath the bridge. Tony could have been a good actor. We had the magic.

PM: What do you feel when you watch it now?

RS: Deep pleasure. It’s very simple. When I edited it I thought: “This is good.” And I discovered the perfect piece of music by John Barry to soundtrack it. His agent said it’d cost £1,500. I said: “The film only cost £65.” He said, “Call me tomorrow.” I called him for six weeks. He said: “Fuck me, you’re persistent.”

PM: That’s how I got the horse stunt in [on Gladiator II]. We worked for two months on me jumping up on the horse. Then two weeks before we were to shoot it, Ridley said: “You’re not doing that.” He told me the story about The Duellists.

RS: Keith Carradine smashed his femur.

PM: So every day for two weeks, I’d go: “How are you feeling about the horse?” He was like: “No, no, no.” And then, the day before, he went silent for a second and goes: “You can do it. But if you come off the horse, you owe me two Bentleys.”

• Gladiator II is in UK cinemas now and released in the US and Australia on 22 November