Gladiator 2 ushers in a new age of Hollywood’s leading men – and it’s better-David Roskin-Entertainment – Metro

Paul Mescal (l) and Pedro Pascal are giving Hollywood’s leading men a new look (Picture: Paramount Pictures, AP)

Despite coming out 24 years after its predecessor, Gladiator II has remained one of the most hotly anticipated releases of the year, not just due to returning director Sir Ridley Scott, but for the draw of its two leading men. 

Paul Mescal and Pedro Pascal are arguably two of the biggest names of this decade.

We’re in a shifting landscape of the visual medium – Netflix is now synonymous with cancelling your favourite show a few weeks after the first season airs and streaming has reduced them to a measly eight episodes every two years, leaving us unwilling and unable to get excited about series we may have once devoted a great portion of time to. We seem to have pivoted back to the big screen, freer of the burden of cancellations and are ready to champion the releases we’re excited to see.

And now we have two names ‘new’ to this level of limelight, coming in with a film with a to-scale model of the Colosseum featuring mock naval battles – what more could audiences want? According to X user @atotalposer it’s bold ‘to assume audiences are watching Gladiator for its historical accuracy and not for Pedro Pascal fighting people in a miniskirt’, meanwhile @zoerosebryant posted ‘respectfully i’m not going to see Gladiator 2 for historical accuracy. I’m going because Paul Mescal is hot’.

Both Mescal’s and Pascal’s virality offer a host of free marketing from those besotted with them online, a Reddit post from three years ago saw potential in Pascal claiming he ‘has the perfect ingredients to be a major movie star’, similarly a two-year-old post sparks discussion claiming Mescal is the greatest actor under 30.

Mescal quickly became a household name as Normal People became one of the first must-sees of the pandemic, with the thin chain he dons fast becoming a staple of menswear. He brought short shorts back to the masses and proved his talent in 2022’s Aftersun, an elegantly simple and devastating portrayal of a young father and his infrequently seen daughter spending a holiday together in Turkey, earning $9.7million (£7.6million) globally, and yet again in the (similarly devastating) All of Us Strangers earlier this year, bringing in $20m (£15.6m) globally. 

Pascal has been no stranger to the small screen, with a minor role in Buffy The Vampire Slayer in 1999 being many’s first introduction to the man who would later become a fan favourite portraying Oberyn Martell in the fourth season of Game of Thrones. Soon after he led Netflix’s Narcos alongside Boyd Holbrook, joined the Star Wars universe as the titular character in The Mandalorian and more recently as Joel Miller in the critically acclaimed HBO adaptation of The Last of Us.

On the big screen, he’s played opposite Nicholas Cage in The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, and more recently voiced Fink the Fox in The Wild Robot, earning $29m (£22.7m) and $292m (£229m) (so far), respectively. 

Rebecca Damico, Gen Z Public Relations Expert at Kronus Communications, believes their willingness to transfer genres seamlessly for both actors is bringing them widescreen success, taking them to new audiences in quick succession. Damico also believes attractiveness plays a part: ‘They’re not our typical “white boys of the month”. Pedro Pascal brings this older (frankly, dilfy) vibe, that isn’t always around in Hollywood and Mescal is the scruffy, kind of secretly sexy guy and I think people are enjoying that a lot.’

Mescal has enjoyed unprecedented fame since his breakout role in Normal People (Picture: WireImage)

Pedro is loving his new heartthrob status (Picture: WireImage)

And their attractiveness isn’t limited to their physicality. Aisling says: ‘As an Irish woman, Paul Mescal really represents the very best of Irish men – charming, gracious and so full of heart. Despite intense talent, it really is his heart, empathy and love for those he works with that really makes him an underappreciated gem of Hollywood for me. A true Irish gentleman who I firmly believe I could talk into the wee hours about the deepest elements of life, make me the best cup of tea and make me laugh until I cry.’

Meredith Levine, a ‘fanthropologist’ studying the behaviour of fandoms for media companies, says Pascal ‘embodies a soft masculinity of caretaking and kindness while being handsome in a way that has global appeal. He embodies the idea of a ‘man written by a woman’ because he is goofy, vulnerable, and in touch with his feelings and experiences. I think a lot of the changing faces of Hollywood today align with the values that women want to see in the men in their lives.’

Mescal and Pascal both represent a different form of masculinity in the limelight than seen before, even if in subtle ways compared to the spectrum of masculinity, however vastly different to the forms of masculinity fed to us by Hollywood.

Jasper Wilkins, a Senior Producer at the BBC, shares this sentiment: ‘The old guard of macho movie stars like Dwayne Johnson and Tom Cruise may have dominated the 2010s, but Hollywood’s new pantheon of Chalamets, Hollands, and Butlers are more vulnerable, more flamboyant, and just as likely to appear on fashion style lists as they are awards nominations. Biceps are out, cheekbones and charm are in. 

Filmmaker Sir Ridley Scott moulding his two leading men on the Gladiator 2 set (Picture: Paramount Pictures, AP)

‘Are you ready to be entertained’… by Paul and Pedro? (Picture: Paramount Pictures, AP)

‘Social media has driven a fresh emphasis on authenticity. Whether that’s Mescal’s bashful flirting on Chicken Shop Date or Pascal’s cheery dadcore aesthetic, we want our stars to feel like real people. It seems like Hollywood has finally caught up to that.’

Authenticity sells now, much more than it once did. The rise of the original highly polished and edited YouTube stars, later replaced by TikTokers unafraid to showcase real life. We once posted heavily edited Instagram posts (toaster filters all over) and now are more likely to post a ‘photo dump’, taking a selection of photos from our camera roll and uploading them without much thought or ceremony.

Twenty years ago our exposure to celebrities was much more limited, and some of us expected less of them, less accessibility to their daily lives, to their views on topics and otherwise. However, they were hounded in differing manners by paparazzi and faced intense media scrutiny of their daily lives simply for their career path, as seen with many major stars. 

We’re attracted to trailblazers and to those who we individually deem have earned their success, especially with the rising discussion around Hollywood’s ‘nepo baby’ issues. Pascal and Mescal have both walked unexplored paths to success, Mescal especially, with his Covid trajectory.

Both have never shied from who they are, despite not fitting the traditional Hollywood mould, and both have remained outspoken when they wish to be and have dressed for themselves (Pascal would never be caught at the Met Gala in a black tux, for example). They aren’t extreme examples of breaking stereotypes, but with the long history of Hollywood conformity, the two are a breath of fresh air at these echelons of success, and possibly a sign of what’s to come.

There are great bounds to go in Hollywood, and there will be for a long time to come, but Mescal and Pascal’s meteoric rise to success shows that maybe we’re making the right people famous, and we’re headed into a more dynamic, less cookie-cutter arena in film.

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