Due to the intensity of Gladiator 2, Pedro Pascal has a pretty spot-on nickname for his co-star, Paul Mescal.

In the upcoming Ridley Scott film, Mescal plays Lucius Verus, the son of Lucilla (Connie Nielson) and nephew of Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix) from the original 2000 movie. Meanwhile, Pascal is playing Marcus Acacius, a Roman general.

The lead actors have to battle it out. So, what else is one to do but give a nickname to a fellow co-star?

Pedro Pascal's nickname for Paul Mescal in Gladiator

In a recent Vanity Fair interview with the new movie stars, things were so intense in a battle scene between Verus and Acacius that it created a nickname.

“It's brutal, man. I call him Brick Wall Paul,” Pascal said of Mescal. “He got so strong. I would rather be thrown from a building than have to fight him again.”

“To go up against somebody that fit and that talented and that much younger…Outside of Ridley being a total genius, Paul is a big reason as to why I would put my poor body through that experience,” he added.

Meanwhile, Mescal stated that his training centered on choreography for fighting rather than bulking him up. He didn't go for a sex symbol look, just a warrior who could take a beating.

“I just wanted to be big and strong and look like somebody who can cause a bit of damage when shit hits the fan,” Mescal said. “I think also, sometimes, one could, in striving for that perfect look, end up looking more like an underwear model than a warrior.”

He added, “Muscles start to grow, and that can be deemed aesthetic in certain capacities, but there is something about feeling strong in your body that elicits just a different feeling. You carry yourself differently. It has an impact on you psychologically in a way that is useful for the film.”

About his character, Mescal stated that Lucius wants to change things and make them better.

“He wants nothing to do with the image of Rome,” the star said. “He wants nothing to do with it other than to tear it apart initially. The Romans were some savage, savage individuals. They would go from continent to continent and just destroy communities and nations. The film doesn't shy away from the kind of corrupted power that he can see through. There's a wonderful clarity to him. He's unafraid of the establishment in a way that makes him dangerous to the establishment.”

The new sequel sounds just as intense as the first. Scott was nominated for an Academy Award for the first Russell Crowe movie. Gladiator 2 picks up where the original left off—just a few decades later.

“I thought the [first] film was, as it were, completely satisfactory, creatively complete, so why muck with it, right?” Scoot told Deadline. “But these cycles keeps going on and on, they repeat globally for the last 20 years. It started to spell itself out as an obvious thing to do, and that's how it evolved.”

Check out Gladiator 2 when it hits theaters on November 22, 2024.