What did Ridley Scott do?

Ridley Scott Rewrote Napoleon Script for Joaquin Phoenix

Joaquin Phoenix (The Joker) portrays Napoleon Bonaparte in Ridley Scott’s Napoleon (2023). The historical drama focuses on the French military leader’s life in stunningly vivid detail. It depicts Bonaparte’s rise to Emperor, including his often turbulent marriage to Marie Josèphe Rose Tascher de La Pagerie.

Two weeks before the filming of Napoleon, Phoenix came to Scott with a problem. Scott told Empire Magazine during an interview:

He’ll come in, and you’re…two weeks out, and he’ll say, ‘I don’t know what to do’. I’ll say, ‘What?!’ ‘I don’t know what to do.’ Oh God, I said, ‘Come in, sit down.’ We sat for ten days, all day, talking scene by scene. In a sense, we rehearsed. Absolutely detail by detail.

Phoenix and Scott worked together on another historical epic alongside Russel Crowe in Gladiator (2000). Both director and actor have noted their enjoyment working together on the first film. Phoenix tells Empire:

The truth is, there was just a very nostalgic idea of working with Ridley again. I had such an incredible experience working with Ridley on Gladiator, and I was so young. It was my first big production. I really yearned for that experience again, or something similar.

Phoenix placed a strong focus on the development of Bonaparte’s character. He became so in tune with Napoleon that Scott let him change some of the script to coincide with Phoenix’s vision. Scott said the following in a second interview with Empire:

“Joaquin is about as far from conventional as you can get…With Joaquin, we can rewrite the damn film because he’s uncomfortable. And that kind of happened with Napoleon. We unpicked the film to help him focus on who Bonaparte was. I had to respect that, because what was being said was incredibly constructive. It made it all grow bigger and better.

In the official movie trailer, Phoenix’s dynamic acting brings history to life. The trailer begins with the execution of Marie Antoinette and spirals through a series of thrilling scenes. Bonaparte’s introduction to his future wife, Josephine, and his successful destruction of enemies on a lake during the Battle of Austerlitz in 1805 are a few worth noting.

Napoleon is set to release on November 22, 2023.