The actor says he “ate a lot of chicken” to get Colosseum-ready for the Nov. 22 epic
says it was “fun” getting ripped to play Lucius, the former heir to the Roman empire, in the upcoming historical epic,.
“I ate a lot of chicken and lifted heavy things,” Mescal, 28, joked during an Oct. 25 appearance on .
While preparing to play the ex-royal who was forced into slavery, the Kildare, Ireland, native worked “with a trainer who circled me like a shark and said, ‘There is a canvas to work with.’ “
Mescal got so muscular that his costar gave him a clever nickname. “I call him … He got so strong. I would rather be thrown from a building than have to fight him again,” Pascal, 49, told in July.
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Mescal told Norton his trainer “went to town, and I saw him every day. It was fun.”
However, the star admits to having some caveats when it came to his fitness regimen. “I did everything he asked, but I like to drink, and I like to smoke, so I drew a line in the sand where those were concerned.”
Mescal showed off his abs — and then some — in the, where he fights a rhino, among others, in the famed Roman Colosseum.
But another of Norton’s guests profoundly disagreed with Mescal’s assessment of working out being “fun”: — who recently underwent his own physical transformation, getting shredded to play an assassin in the Peacock series .
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“I profoundly disagree with Paul – it was not fun, it was horrendous,” the alum, 42, said. “You read a scene in the script that says, ‘He is topless, sinuous and ripped,’ and you think, ‘Oh f—, here comes the chicken diet.’ “
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and — who also stars in — appeared on the episode as well. Mescal admitted that he was intimidated meeting the legendary Washington, 69.
“It was a big day in my life – it was amazing,” he recalled. “I spent the first day thinking, ‘I must go introduce myself to him’ and I stood there for several minutes before I decide, ‘Not today.’ The next day I decided to be a brave boy!”
The hotly anticipated sequel to the epic comes 24 years after the original 2000 film — which won .
Gladiator II opens in theaters on Nov. 22.
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