Denzel was miscast
And I'm a fan of his.
shareI loved his performance, I was so riveted by it. Hoping Ridley does a third one.
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MovieChat Forums > Gladiator II (2024) Discussion > Denzel was miscast
I think he could have done better. He’s a gifted actor. But here, he just seemed to phone it in. He didn’t act like a legit character from ancient history. He seemed to be Denzel from 2024
shareOr Denzel from 2001's Training Day.
Look, he's an excellent actor and so of course was good in this. It's just that I couldn't get past "yep . .that's Denzel doing his Denzel thing."
I know what you mean. His acting was good but there was something missing - he did seem maybe a little bit 'going through the motions'. I think that was more due to a poor script, imo. Sometimes poor scripts can somewhat deflate performances, irrespective of the skill of said actor/actress.
shareI think he did the best performance in this movie.
shareInteresting take - I thought the movie was mediocre overall but that Denzel was the best part.
shareForced DEI casting tends to have that effect on you. A black roman emperor is like a white Dalai Lama. It's ridiculous.
shareDenzel was an emperor? Hm, I must have missed that.
shareThe character he was based on was actually Emperor of Rome for 1 year before being executed, and was born in modern day Algeria in the Maghreb, so he likely had NORTH African ancestry. Granted it's hard to find an A-list Berber actor these days, but there's a few who would look the part a lot more than Denzel Washington. Also granted that Northwest Africa doesn't produce a lot of international stars, but there's a few who would have worked but not had the mass-appeal, such as this guy:
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0255362/?ref_=ls_i_6
or this guy:
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1272540/?ref_=ls_i_12
So Scott I think did a deal with the Devil and had to shoe-horn in some diversity and cast a few Africans (much like the first movie) but then put in American / British actors of subsaharan ancestry (like Peter Mensah) or mixed ancestry like Denzel, when they seemed way off, to both fit the quota and inject some star-power into the cast. It might have worked a little better had Denzel worked harder to make his delivery seem less contemporary and lightened his American accent a little, but it overall did not.
Interesting. We’ll have to agree to disagree on his performance. I enjoyed it.
shareWhat forced DEI casting?
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