Joseph Quinn felt "incredibly grateful" to work with Sir Ridley Scott on 'Gladiator 2'.
The 30-year-old actor is part of the cast for the sequel to the Oscar-winning 2000 original and he revealed the 86-year-old director is still full of "vigour" and "thirst for life" despite the long and "brutal" days on set.
He told Men's Health magazine: "Watching him negotiate these brutal shoot days … he’s not 32 anymore. But he conducts himself with such a vigour, and thirst, for life and also filmmaking, still - he just loves it, and that is very infectious. Working with him … I was never expecting to do that, obviously, and so I was incredibly grateful. "
Quinn added: "I just tried, like we all did, to be as present as we could, and to understand that this was a very rare thing. Outside of making the film itself, it was a very rare experience as a human being to bare witness to ancient Rome. He built ancient Rome! Not a lot of people can do that - Ridley Scott can."
He also confessed he's been a fan of Scott's work since he was a child: "He is a world builder.
"He creates these films that utterly transport you, and that is a very rare thing to be able to do. I, like you, was a massive fan of his films: I remember watching 'Blade Runner' as a kind of rite-of-passage with my Dad when I was younger; 'Gladiator' was a really seminal film for me ... There’s such a variety in that body of work that indicates the caliber of director that he is, and the kind of creativity that he’s able to harness and weaponise."
Quinn stars in the new film alongside Paul Mescal, Denzel Washington, Pedro Pascal and Connie Nielsen. Russell Crowe starred in the first film, but he's not returning for the sequel.
He added of the second film: "We certainly we were aware of the legacy of the first film, so we wanted to pay homage to that, and understand that it’s one of those films that a lot of people get misty-eyed about, myself included.
"Going back near that world felt a little daunting, but also utterly thrilling. Yes, I play one of the emperors in it, and it was a truly incredible experience. And that’s all I can say."
