Paul Mescal & Denzel Washington Talk Gladiator II, Life Advice & “Making It”

What's the most unusual thing

you ever done to prepare for a role?

Listen to the director.

[both laughing]

Yeah.

I'm Paul, I'm here with Denzel.

I'm Denzel. Yep.

And we're gonna play In Conversation With.

Should we go?

You first. Lemme go first.

All right.

Describe your job in three words.

I'm unemployed now.

Tell us about the first time you both met.

So the first time I met Denzel,

I was in Morocco shooting,

the first day that Denzel was on set.

I was like, Okay, I'm gonna go up and say hello. [laughs]

I have no shame in admitting this,

but I was a little bit scared.

And then I waited at the bottom of the stair

'cause they're like up in this balcony,

I waited at the bottom of the stairs.

And I was like, two, three minutes passed.

And I was like, I'll do this tomorrow.

So I bailed and then I met you the second day.

So where did we actually meet then?

The second day.

I remember this so clearly.

You put your hand out, we shook hands,

and you go, whacked me on the shoulder.

And you go, Stop working out, man.

Oh yeah, I was pissed off? Yeah.

So that's my part of the story.

All right, have you learned anything

from each other whilst working on this film?

Absolutely not.

What a waste of time hanging around you.

I don't know. Yeah, exactly.

I learned that I'll never wanna do it again.

What's your name by the way?

Peter. And you're famous for?

For being in a film with you.

I learned about humility from you.

Really?

Humble man.

Good man. That's very kind.

Good, humble, hardworking.

Didn't need to get thrown around as much as you did.

But I enjoyed it.

But a good man, I mean it.

I appreciate that.

The thing that I learned,

that I found so leveling, was that regardless of

what you've achieved, that the idol that you are to some,

you came with a desire to do nothing else but work.

And I think for any young actor, I think it's important

to remind people that regardless of where you get to,

that doesn't exist unless you have an appetite to work.

And I learned that from you, and also from Ridley.

Which, I have a question.

Which side of your back would you like to be patted on?

[Paul laughing]

I prefer this side right here.

Yeah, great. There you go.

All right.

What's the biggest challenge of your career so far?

There's no one thing.

There's never...

It's cumulative, right? Yeah, it's cumulative.

It's cumulative.

For me, the biggest challenge is like

navigating having a life outside of work,

because I love work.

You know, I dunno whether you have a thought on that,

or whether it's just something

that you find a way to navigate

as those priorities shift.

I can tell you, 50 years of experience,

I've learned to put it down and go home.

My happiness doesn't come from the roles I play,

or the accolades people have given me.

And was that always true?

No, absolutely not.

You know, I can, I'm telling you

from 70 years of experience.

Don't listen to them.

Listen to yourself. Yeah.

Spend quiet time.

Five minutes every morning, just be quiet.

Hard to do.

I'm talking to everybody in this room.

Very hard to do.

Five minutes of quiet.

Don't reach for it.

Don't think about it, which is impossible.

Don't reach for it.

You know what I'm talking about, your devices.

If you could've played the lead

in any film in history, what would it be?

I played the lead in every film.

[both laughing]

It's historic because somebody else made it historic.

Yeah, if you wanna do it,

that's the reason to leave it alone.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Which actor in history do you most admire?

All right, we're gonna show, I'm changing the game.

Three actors. Three actors, yeah.

Three... That you admire.

And I'm not one of 'em.

There you go.

All right, two actors.

I would've, exactly.

All right, two actors. No.

I love Michelle Williams.

Bette Davis, Sidney.

Meryl Streep. Meryl Streep.

Marlon Brando, James Dean, Al Pacino.

[Paul laughing]

Oh, what advice would you give your 18-year-old self?

In other words, what were you thinking when Covid started?

18-year-old self.

Never be the person in the room

who hasn't done the most amount of work.

Mm.

I would tell my 18-year-old self,

it's okay to not know what you wanna do

with the rest of your life.

When I was 18, I was scared

'cause I was like, okay, I'll be a doctor.

So I was pre-med.

And I had a course called chordate morphogenesis.

What is that? I don't know.

I still don't know what that is.

But I played a doctor on TV.

[Paul laughing]

That's the main thing.

[Denzel] That's the main thing.

What was your first I've made it moment?

What was the first-

What was your first I've made it moment?

Like was there a moment where-

When that happens, I'll tell you.

Really, you still feel that?

Made what?

Made it, like that you've got...

I felt that the first time somebody paid me

to be an actor, because I never thought

when I went to drama school.

I think people maybe misconstrued that it's like,

oh, suddenly when you walk onto a big film,

or you walk into like your opening on Broadway,

or you walk into like a big paycheck,

that that's what actors think is the I've made a moment.

[Denzel] Mm, mm.

But I think when I went to drama school for three years,

I was like, there's still no guarantee

that somebody's gonna turn around to be like,

Hey, we deem you worthy enough to be an actor.

So when I, for me, when I was cast

in a play for the first time,

I was like, not that I've made it,

like there's a destination, but that I was like...

I still save canned foods.

You never know.

Yeah. You think.

No, I remember keeping cans of food

and stuff, so maybe whenever I stopped-

[Paul] You stopped doing that.

Hoarding cans of food, I knew I made it.

Okay, I got one for you. Great.

If you had to fill in the back of this,

what would you write down?

What would I fill it in with?

What is the thing that keeps you up at night?

Only the mistakes have been mine.

Yeah, that's fucking brilliant.

If you were 20 years older than you are now,

you'd be 20 years older.

Just to clarify, Denzel is reading nothing.

I'm reading nothing. [Paul laughing]

My mother said to me one time,

she used to say, You, boy,

the older you get, the older you get.

Like no wiser, just older.

Oh, I tell you a moment.

I thought I was hot stuff.

I came in, I came home.

I was early on in my career or something.

And I knew I was a movie star.

And I came to, my mother owned a beauty shop.

And I said, Ma, did you ever think

it was gonna be like this,

and that I was gonna make it?

She said, What did you say?

I knew I was in trouble when she said, What did you say?

Lemme tell you something.

So she started calling me Superstar.

She said, Oh, you're a superstar, huh?

I tell you what, Superstar, go in the back, Superstar,

get that bucket, and that squeegee,

and some soap and water and hit those windows, Superstar.

And when you finish, Superstar,

grab the mop, and mop the floor down.

Wipe it all the way down.

Superstar, have you finished wiping it down?

Are you in the back, Superstar?

Yeah, the Coke bottles.

They have roaches in them, don't they?

Right.

Turn 'em over, get the roaches.

And this is a true story.

Get the roaches out.

Clean all the bottles.

I got the message.

I've heard you say something like this before.

You're like, when people talk about

what's the hardest thing about being an actor?

And you say, This isn't hard.

Picking up garbage is hard.

I was a garbage man.

Yeah, that's right.

Now, here's a question for you all.

What would you do with five minutes of silence?

I pray for your generation,

because we did not have to deal with

what you've had to deal with.

And it's our fault for putting it in your hands.

There were no 9 million opinions of-

No, totally.

[Denzel] Every moment of my day.

No documentation.

People that like you, and then suddenly

they hate you, and you don't

understand why. It's gross.

And I never had, oh, what do,

I don't even know what you call it, an Instagram account.

Never had one.

Link, what's the other name, Link?

LinkedIn. What is it?

I don't have any of those things.

You don't have a LinkedIn?

No, no.

I have a Cadillac. [Paul laughing]

And on that note, we're out!

Very good.