'Gladiator II' costume designer on creating thirst-inducing

David Crossman and Janty Yates, the costume designers for Gladiator II, managed a colossal feat — dressing up hundreds of period-specific soldiers as well as the film’s ultra-popular stars.

Yates worked on the original 2000 Ridley Scott film and tapped Crossman to join her for the sequel. Two decades ago, she had also asked him to join her on set, but he told Yahoo Entertainment he “wasn’t bothered, to be honest.” He was working on something else, though he couldn’t recall what it was.

Crossman didn’t think he’d work on the second one, either, because the dates kept shifting, but she convinced him to sign on. The rest is history.

He spoke to Yahoo Entertainment about the issue of historical accuracy, references to the original Gladiator film and the potential to induce thirst.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

I wrote in November about how the press tour for this movie was very much centered on thirst for Paul Mescal and Pedro Pascal. Was there ever a point where you thought, “I need to make sure I’m showing these guys off!”

Paul’s costumes, they’re muscly all the way. He wears this basic tunic shirt at the beginning, then he’s in his armor, so you see his legs. Me and Paul were always making his skirts shorter. Ridley [Scott] always wanted them longer. We wanted them shorter because they would have been shorter in the Roman Empire! In the original Gladiator, they were longer. But we were always bringing Paul’s skirt up, so you’re always seeing his legs and his arms. There’d be certain days he’d say, “I’m going to do this bare-chested,” too. For Pedro, he’s got a very handsome face, he’s got good shoulders, he’s got good arms. Once again, he’s got good legs. So to me, there’s a lot of exposed male flesh on view for this film. It’s fine, isn’t it? It’s OK!

I read that in ancient Rome, people in the military would actually be wearing less clothing than we think.

I think the mistake we make is we overdress sometimes. To the modern eye, you always want to add a bit more. You’d be surprised — when you see the mosaics and pictures of the time, it’s all really short.

Was there ever a point when you said, “OK, in Rome they would have done one thing, but I want to do something else.”

I always want to do the real thing. I think most of the time, in films, the real thing is more amazing than anything you could think up. People maybe haven’t seen enough of it over the years because [in other movies] they’re always busy trying to outdo an original look, but actually most of the stuff we did would have already existed in some form. I’m always arguing for the side of reality. I’m railing against, whereas Ridley would just say, “No one knows, just do it!” He’s right, it’s cinema, it’s the movies. There are mini compromises. As an example — for Paul Mescal, when he’s a gladiator in the Colosseum, he and Maximus [the main character in the 2000 Gladiator, played by Russell Crowe] would never have worn a leather cuirass. They probably would have just been bare-chested all the time and had more basic pieces of armor. It’s the language of Gladiator, though, and that’s why we carried on with that in the second movie.

There’s this big moment in Gladiator II when Mescal’s character, Lucius, puts on Maximus’s breastplate. Is that the one from the first movie?

We found the real one! We remade it in a slightly different process with a real leather base, then we scanned the original and made all the pieces individually. Paul was very excited the day he put it on. He was walking around showing everybody.

Like many people, I was absolutely floored by the sheer number of costumes in this film. How did you manage to outfit that many people?

You have to have a brilliant team working with you. You draw on all your experiences over the years and what’s going to take a long time to make, and where to get fabrics from. All of it has to move so quickly. Once you get the green light, you have about a 12- to 13-week period to get all of the armor, get it to Morocco, get it fitted, get it aged, get it ready for the camera so it looks good. By the time you’re at a finished set of armor, you say, “Yes, love it! Do 300 sets of those.” Then the production just takes what it takes. We were making armor in New Zealand, Budapest, London, Poland, all over the place. We had it split so that not one place was making everything because then you’d be in trouble.

Gladiator II is in theaters now and starts streaming on Dec. 24.

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