The 23-year-old Maridueña confessed he only saw the first film a few days ago. “I had to watch it for this,” he said. “So I’m fresh. That’s the way to do it, honestly! All these flicks that have reprisals years later, you gotta [watch the original] right before.” A fan of Ridley Scott (who he calls “the master of scope”), the actor was curious to see how advances in technology would aid the master filmmaker’s storytelling. “The CGI’s gonna be crazy!”
Still, like most people in the room, Maridueña lit up most at the mention of the film’s star. “Paul Mescal is a fantastic actor of my generation, so any chance to see him in action is a blessing,” he said. “Normal People, come on! I saw it during the pandemic not once, not twice—I cried maybe three times.”
The fashion designer Kim Shui—a touch winded but still glamorous—had a particularly memorable story about making her way to the screening. “So the plane broke halfway through, while I was coming [back to New York] from L.A.,” she said, through nervous laughter. “There was not enough oxygen so the masks came down, the alarms went off—it was a nightmare. But I’m alive! I’m here now. That’s what it took me to get here.” (With a small bottle of Cartier champagne in hand, she said with a laugh: “We gotta celebrate life!”)
On the way into the screening room, I caught New York City councilman Chi Ossé red-handed with an arm full of snacks. “I have popcorn,” he sheepishly confessed. “I have those really fruity little berries—and I’m not talking about myself. I have the bourbon drink with the gold leaf. I got some M&Ms to mix in with the popcorn…. I’m a snacker!” Ossé doesn’t remember for sure if he saw the first Gladiator as a kid but does remember the iconic line from the film. “‘Are you not entertained?’ That sounds the alarm… That’s a diva moment! That’s some RuPaul-ass shit.”
As the crowd sat down for the screening, Welch gave Mescal and his co-stars Connie Nielsen and Fred Hechinger an opportunity to introduce the film.
“This was a movie that was meant to be seen on a big screen—that’s part of why we were so excited to make it,” Hechhinger said, with palpable excitement. “I have no smart takeaway to lead you here. Just sit back and enjoy!”
“I also would just like to add that no CGI animals were hurt in this film,” Nielsen cracked, before telling the crowd that her eldest biological son—who was 10 years old during the first Gladiator—was sitting front row tonight, 24 years later. “It must be a little weird for him,” she said. “But for him and for me, Gladiator I and Gladiator II have just had an outsized sort of role in our lives.”
At the end of the Q&A, Mescal tipped his hat to their director: “This is ‘a Ridley Scott film’—that means the same to me as it did 10 years ago, as it did 20 years ago, as it did before I was born,” he said. “I think because Ridley makes so many films, we shouldn’t sleep on the fact that he is one of the greatest living filmmakers working today—no question, period.”
