Joaquin Phoenix’s Unscripted Manic Move in ‘Gladiator’ Could Make Any Actor Tremble But Not Connie Nielsen

Gladiator is undoubtedly one of the greatest movies in the history of cinema, thanks to its timeless brutal combat scenes, an impressive cast of characters, and their complex relationships. Each cast member came with their own uniqueness, and among them, Joaquin Phoenix’s Commodus was always unpredictable, both to the audience and the rest of the cast.

Phoenix shared some of the best scenes with Connie Nielsen, his onscreen sister Lucilla, in the movie. Their interactions built unspoken threats and tension that eventually led to one of the most famous and horrifying lines in the movie.

Joaquin Phoenix’s Unexpected Scream Was Well Received by Connie Nielsen

The ‘Am I not merciful?’ scream by Joaquin Phoenix in Gladiator has gone down in cinematic history as one of the most famous scenes, but not many know that this entire scene was improvised. Phoenix is anyway known for his improvisation and he took the creative liberty to uplift already an intense confrontation into an unforgettable moment.

In the scene, Phoenix’s Emperor Commodus gently gets close to Connie Nielsen’s character Lucilla’s face before suddenly exploding with the question, “Am I not merciful?” It was unexpected not only for the viewers, Nielsen herself was caught off-guard when he screamed.

In an interview on Jake’s Takes, Nielsen said that she had no idea that Phoenix would suddenly scream like that, and because of that, her reaction to the scene seemed natural. But what was far more remarkable was how Nielsen handled the scene. She said,

I was being Marcus Aurelius’ daughter. I was being stoic. I was absolutely refusing to look at him. That was not scripted but I was refusing to look at him the whole scene. So I would not give him my attention. No matter what I was not going to give him my eyes.

So I think that’s why he leaned in and screamed it at my face because I think he was like ‘she is not impressed with my power to scare her’. So that’s why he went in and only after that then I said, ‘you think I’m scared of you’ and then I looked him straight in the eyes.

It was not just the scream but the reaction to that unexpected situation that made the scene iconic. Nielsen managed to stick to her initial plan and maintained character throughout the scene without getting scared. However, she also said that such creative risks were made possible by Ridley Scott’s setting. 

Connie Nielsen’s First Impression of the Gladiator Team

Nielsens’ journey to getting the role in Gladiator started after she got rejected for the role in a romantic comedy film, French Kiss. The film’s director Lawrence Kasdan advised her to go to America, and the rest is history.

The first table read of Gladiator gave everyone a good idea of what lay ahead. In a conversation with The Sydney Morning Herald, Nielsen referred to the meeting as “creative tension.”

Nielsen revealed that Oliver Reed was reading his lines in a “bombastic style,” whereas Russell Crowe tried to read each line in a different accent and “was poking a lot of fun” as there were some disagreements about the accent of his character.

Phoenix, who later gave one of the film’s most explosive moments, was much different during the read-through. Nielsen said,

Joaquin Phoenix was sitting almost invisible and speaking the lines as if he was reading them word by word, putting absolutely no acting into it.

It was all a bit wild for Nielsen initially. She wondered, “How Ridley was going to deal with an entire cast of crazy people?” However, she realized that Scott “feeds off that extraordinary amount of passion” and his interpretation and everyone’s common love for acting ultimately made Gladiator a classic.