Napoleon almost never saw the light of day. At least, Ridley Scott’s ambitious film. During an interview with Empire magazine, the director confided in the existential crisis that Joaquin Phoenix suffered two weeks before the start of filming. In this new biopic, the Oscar-winning actor plays the main role. But a few days before the first turns of the crank, the actor would have panicked.
Ridley Scott says the comedian walked into his office and said, “I don’t know what to do.” The filmmaker reportedly replied, “Oh my God. Alright, come sit down.” And to add: “We sat down for ten days, and all day we were doing everything, scene after scene. It was kind of a rehearsal. We took it all down to the smallest detail.” Together, they dissected the life of Napoleon and in particular his relationship with Joséphine de Beauharnais.
According to the director, these two weeks were not limited to rehearsals. In an interview from December 2022, the filmmaker had already confided that he had to resume the script. “With Joaquin, we can rewrite the film because he’s uncomfortable. This is what happened with Napoleon, he said then. We dusted off the screenplay to help it focus on Bonaparte’s identity. I had to respect that, because what was being said was incredibly constructive.”
The actor confided for his part to Empire that he was “rather nostalgic at the idea of working a second time with Ridley Scott”. He does not fail to recall his experience on the set of Gladiator, in which he played the Emperor Commodus. At the very least, a very Hollywood version of the last of the Antonins. “It was my first big production. I wanted to relive a similar experience. He had me. He approached me several times but I wasn’t interested. I really liked the idea of getting involved with Ridley in this kind of project”.
The biopic on Bonaparte traces the life of the emperor from his great battles to his relationship with his wife Joséphine de Beauharnais through his ascension and his coronation. In a film that wants to be much closer to historical reality. Check it out when it hits theaters on November 22.
