Gladiator 2: After Jay Z's song, Denzel Washington at the heart of a controversy

This summer, Paramount finally unveiled the first trailer for Gladiator 2, the sequel to Ridley Scott's 2000 film. This trailer revealed new images of the characters played by Paul Mescal, Pedro Pascal and Denzel Washington. In addition to the controversy surrounding the musical choice to punctuate this trailer, the American Gangster actor also found himself at the heart of another controversy.

The trailer for Gladiator 2 pinned because of a song

Indeed, the trailer for Gladiator 2 did not exactly delight all Internet users. For good reason: the choice of a song by Jay Z and Kanye West entitled No Church in the Wildto illustrate a peplum that doesn't go down well. One of the comments that sums up the criticism well is that of this Internet user who writes: “The producers: We have Denzel, let's add a rap song to emphasize the Roman Empire“.

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But the other controversy concerns Denzel Washington who will be on the bill for the sequel to this cult film by Ridley Scott. He will play a wealthy businessman named Macrinus, or Macrinus, who supplies food, wine, oil, and weapons to European armies. He also has a stable of gladiators. When the trailer was released, the Oscar-winning actor was criticized by many commentators for choosing to keep his own accentto embody his character. In Ridley Scott's film released in 2000, all the actors in the cast adopted the British accent, even the Australian actor Russell Crowe and the American Joaquin Phoenix. For the sequel, the Irishman Paul Mescal will do the same. Except Denzel Washington who preferred to keep his native New York accent.

Denzel Washington explains his retained accent

The actor recently spoke in the columns of the latest issue of Empire magazine and decided to come back and respond to criticism regarding his accent in the film. For Washington, if he chose to keep his natural accent to bring his character, whose North African origin is unknown, to life on screen, it was to avoid falling into the trap of a bad imitation:

The problem is: where are we? Who is this? What does it look like, anyway? You'll end up imitating someone and end up with a bad African accent.

And you, do you understand Denzel Washington's logic in his choice to keep his accent? In the meantime, the actor will be alongside Pedro Pascal, Joseph Quinn who will play the role of evil Emperor Greta, Fred Hechinger as well as Connie Nielsen and Derek Jacobi who will reprise their respective roles of Lucilla and Senator Gracchus in the original film.

Gladiator 2 will be released in French theaters on November 13.