News About Gladiator Sequel Casting Brings Out the Fight in Timothée Chalamet

Timothée Chalamet’s agent came out fighting after The Hollywood Reporter claimed that director Ridley Scott passed on him in favor of actor Paul Mescal for his upcoming Gladiator sequel.

Chalamet’s agent Brian Swardstrom denied the report tweeting: “I know one of these actors was shooting a film in the Middle East for the past several months and he hasn’t auditioned for anything in more than 7 years.”

According to THR: Ridley Scott is readying his long-gestating Gladiator sequel, with Normal People star Paul Mescal in negotiations for the film’s lead role. A follow-up to Scott’s best picture-winning 2000 feature, which followed Maximus Decimus Meridius (Russell Crowe), a former general who is forced into being a common gladiator under the rule of Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix), a patricidal self-appointed Emperor of Rome. According to previous report, the sequel’s story will center on Lucius, the son of Lucilla, played by Connie Nielsen, and the nephew of Phoenix’s Commodus.

Gladiator marks a signifigant milestone for Mescal, who first broke out in the Hulu series Normal People, earning a BAFTA award and an Emmy nomination for his role. Gladiator 2 would be Mescal’s first time leading a major studio production. After Normal People, the actor landed roles in a string of festival stand-outs, including Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Lost Daughter and Charlotte Wells’ Cannes entry Aftersun.

As one person humorously noted on twitter, “that was his last straw, 2000 rumors about him going around but losing an audition to Paul Mescal was too much misinformation..”

oomf said I’m braver than the marines because I’d let timothée chalamet give me chlamydia 3 times

— miss timothée (@tchalamet69) July 30, 2018

Social media has been swirling with rumors about the actor, primarily that after a year at Columbia University, Chalamet dropped out and then resurfaced for a semester or two at New York University in 2015-2016 where the buzz on campus was not about his acting skills but about him starting a chlamydia outbreak.