Pedro Pascal Talks Getting In Shape For 'Gladiator II,' Reveals He Didn't Have To & Why He Did It

Pedro Pascal is dishing on training for his upcoming movie Gladiator II!

The 49-year-old actor is starring as Marcus Acacius in the film, which continues the saga several years after the original.

In a new interview, Pedro talked about not needing to train for the role, but doing it anyway so he would be able to certain things more easily.

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When ET‘s Nischelle Turner told him his co-star Paul Mescal said training was fun, Pedro responded, “Yeah, I bet it was. I bet it was fun for him. Maybe it would’ve been fun for me too, if I was 20 years younger.”

“I was in no single directive from the movie to get in any kind of shape, but I did. Mainly so that I wouldn’t get hurt, and it didn’t work. I got hurt anyway,” he said. “I got stronger than I’ve ever been just so that I can play the character, really.”

“I’m definitely getting to the point where I can’t just wake up and do stuff like that, so I got ready for that,” Pedro added about the different elements that went into filming. “I used to be able to wake up and do that stuff, but things have changed and so I knew I wanted to be able to do those things.”

“I trained, and rehearsed obviously, a lot, to be able to do it.”

Gladiator II is set to go head-to-head with Wicked on November 22nd. Check out the trailer here!