Neil Marshall’s Centurion has me excited. Big Roman crazy action from the man who essentially redefined the pastiche with Doomsday and who got some impressive mayhem past the MPAA? Yes, I’m there.
To the right is the first picture of leading lady Olga Kurylenko in costume for the film. She’s playing a savage, mute Pict warrior. The Picts, of course, were the paleolithic tribes who lived in Scotland before the Romans came. You can still see aspects of debased Pict blood in Scottish people when they drink, cheer for sports teams, talk to women, get into fights… well, in everything they do.
Anyway, Olga’s Pict, Etain, has a real hate on for the Romans. “Etain is kind of revenge incarnate,” says the writer/director,
speaking to Empire exclusively on set. “Her family were butchered by
the Romans, she had her tongue cut out by the Romans, she’s had a hell
of a time and she’s out for Roman blood.”
That’s bad for Michael Fassbender, a Roman Centurion trapped amidst the Pict hordes. Fassbender has some period action experience* playing Stelios in 300, but it’s Steve McQueen’s brilliant Hunger that proves this motherfucker can act. I hope Centurion brings both halves of Fassbender – action hero and thespian – together. As for Olga: after seeing her in Quantum of Solace, I think Marshall was right to cast her as a mute.
See a bigger picture and read more about Centurion at Empire.
*man, that sounds dirty.