'The Caesars' News: Martin Scorsese and Michael Hirst Team Up For New Series Featuring A Young Julius Caesar
"Goodfellas" director Martin Scorsese and "Vikings" creator Michael Hirst are working together to bring the tales of a young Julius Caesar in a new television series called "The Caesars."
The show, which the two envision to last several seasons, will follow early rulers of ancient Rome while ultimately focusing on Julius Caesar's rise to power. "The Caesars" pilot is already written, and the duo already has a good solid idea of what the rest of the first season will look like. Filming is set to begin next year in Italy.
In an interview with The Guardian, Hirst revealed that he and Scorsese hatched the idea for the series with their love for the Roman history. The former said that the Hollywood director is "totally passionate about the Romans" and has been "desperate" to make a project centered on them.
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Hirst believes that focusing on a young Julius Caesar will set "The Caesars" apart, seeing that films and TV shows centered on him were usually set in his later years where he is portrayed as "a middle-aged guy, struggling with political complexities."
He believes that he was "fantastically interesting and ambitious when he was younger," something the brand new series hopes to demonstrate.
Hirst goes on to explain, "A lot of the Caesars came to power when they were young, and we've never really seen that on screen. It's the energy, the vitality, the excess of a young culture that's being driven by young people. There is something astonishing about the rise of a relatively small kingdom to world power within a very short space of time. It couldn't have been done by tired old politicos and faded warriors."
Despite the time period the show is set in, "The Caesars" will be "resonant and relevant" to people today because to Hirst, the past and the present are "virtually the same."
Another main thing about the show is the historical accuracy. Hirst, as per The Guardian, tends to "sex up" history, making an example out of "The Tudors," which featured a young Henry VIII that looked nothing like his famous Holbein portrait, but Scorsese is all about authenticity, as he pointed out.
Hirst argued that there is a ton of information to pull from such as contemporary accounts, but he believes they are not entirely accurate, explaining, "If you and I saw the same event, we would report them differently. Every account is partial. There is no pure history."
Hirst said that they will be casting a lot of young actors for "The Caesars."
