Gladiator....

[tlclark]

Hi

There are noteable exceptions... American Stephen Boyd played Romans in both Ben Hur and Fall of the Roman Empire (which also featured Canadian Christopher Plummer as Commodus)

Stephen Boyd was Irish!

Really!! Imagine a Roman with an Irish accent!

On Stephen boyd, He really was a fine actor. loathsome in Ben Hur, inspiring in FOTRE. Had the physique too. Those men were real men I tell you.

My biggest beef with Roman movies is that they all use british actors.
Romans did not speak in shakesperean english.

Charlton Heston said that because they perfomed Shakespeare it made the Brits the best actors in the world. Peter Ustinov however said that Americans were more like the ancient Romans in Character.

I think it's possible both could be true. That could be insulting to the Americans or the British depending on which aspects of the romans you emphasize, their blood-thirstiness or their virtues. Actually, this is an old meme from the enlightenment where the British preferred to think of themselves as the New Greeks, and the originators of all our culture, which was only a mere shadow of their own. Of course that was a bigoted way of looking at Romans too.

One of my favourites is Remington Olmstead who played the centurion in Ben-Hur "No water for him!!"

GREAT scene, and not a bad musculata either, but the pteruges as usual, are aenemic.

Ben -Hur nevertheless started some sort of tradition for having the Brits as Romans and the supposed good guys(depends on your point of view, I always rooted for the Romano British myself) played by Americans, see also Masada. Mel Gibson's Roman thugs, shaven headed in 'The Passion', looked almost the same as the shaven headed English executioners in 'Braveheart'. I expect that if ever he does make 'Boudicca' then the Roman bad guys who flog Boudicca and assault her daughters will look much the same and probably Boudicca will be played by an American!

Graham.

[/quote]

I think we have Shakespeare to thank for the belief that Romans spoke Shakesperean english! All those Romano-phile plays of his. As far as British actors playing bad guys, well c'mon, imagine a super arch villian with say Bill Clinton's or Bush's accent? Would you be intimidated?

Also you're forgetting "The Patriot" which makes the Brits looks absolutely thuggish. Anyway, Mel Gibson has a penchant for violence and torture scenes.

More importantly, why hasn't someone hired YOU as a costume designer/consultant?!

Thanks again.

Travis