Ridley Scott: 'Napoleonic history is the beginning of modern history'

Starring Joaquin Phoenix, 49, as the titular leader, and Vanessa Kirby, 35, as Josephine, Scott’s portrait of the Corsican-born Frenchman tells his story from his rise to power to his bold military strategy, his battlefield spectacles to the intricacies of his psychology.

Intertwining the historic highlights of Napoleon’s legacy with the intimacy of his relationship with Josephine, Napoleon offers a unique study of one of history’s most recognisable figures.

“Apart from him being an incredible strategist, a marvellous, intuitive – and merciless – politician … I was fascinated with how a man like this – who’s on his way to take Moscow – could be obsessed with what his wife is doing back in Paris,” says Scott, 85.

“I think one of the reasons people are still fascinated by Napoleon is because he was so complicated. There is no easy way to define his life. You can read a biography to know what happened, but what interests me as a filmmaker is his character – going beyond the history and into the mind.” Casting an actor to play the man himself could have been an arduous endeavour, had Scott not built a contact book of extraordinary talent over nearly five decades of filmmaking.

After seeing Joaquin Phoenix’s performance in 2019’s Joker, Scott was reminded of working with the actor on his 2000 historical epic Gladiator – in which Phoenix played Commodus, the power-hungry son of Marcus Aurelius – and knew he had his Napoleon.

“I saw him and it all came flooding back – how we worked on Gladiator, and what journey he went on with that character, and I thought, ‘God damn, there’s Napoleon’,” he says. “He’s the only actor where we talk for weeks beforehand, just chatting and arguing in an office over aspects of the character. At the end, we are on the same page.

“Physically, he’s perfect for the role – some of his facial features are strikingly similar to Napoleon’s.” 

Finding the right Josephine was just as important: someone suited to her tenacity and ambition, and who could go head-to-head with Phoenix to generate the electric chemistry of the historic couple. The casting, Scott says, was an intuitive process, one which landed him the talented Vanessa Kirby.

“Vanessa played the role with confidence and sensuality, but what’s great is her humour,” says the director. “She’s got a great sense of humour and a very natural intuitive sense of timing that set her apart and made an interesting, striking match opposite Joaquin.”

 The combination of the two actors’ performances and character studies created a fascinating portrait of the man we think we understand, the tyrannical leader who led some of history’s greatest battles but also had great, visceral, passionate love for his wife.

“He ends up snivelling in tears – the man we have seen command his way to the throne of Europe, the tactical genius, turned into this little helpless man, who is completely in love with the woman next to him on his couch, admitting he is nothing without her,” says Scott of Napoleon’s arc through fervent love.

“His letters to her are comically rude and juvenile, overly romantic, and even quite dirty. He was absolutely enchanted by her. And after they parted for the last time, she never even read them. When she died, they were all in a drawer by her bedside table.” 

Kirby’s approach to understanding her role involved hitting the books and immersing herself in French history.

“I knew nothing about French history – I was actually quite astonished that I knew so little,” says the actress. “So it was a pleasure: I locked myself away and just read every book I could, about her and about him. We also went to Paris, to the Napoleon Museum, to Malmaison. I even went to Josephine’s tomb. It was a deep immersion in that history and that period, and it was such a privilege to learn about her.”

 However, playing the role was “painful and uncomfortable”, Kirby adds: Josephine’s story involves tragedy, including the annulment of her marriage to Napoleon because she did not bear him children.

“It is the story of so many women,” Kirby says. “I had so much compassion for her, because she wasn’t allowed to have a voice even though she had an incredibly strong, potent energy.

 “She was an outsider, just like he was,” she adds, talking of Josephine’s upbringing on Martinique before marrying into aristocracy and almost following her aristocratic first husband to the guillotine during the Reign of Terror. “Joaquin and I always felt like it was something where they just understood each other. She was not a person anyone wanted to marry – she was a widow with two children and six years older than he was.

“But she captivated him. There was something that they had in common – they identify, and they feel recognised, and they understand each other as outliers. When she marries Napoleon, she has to adapt, to change completely, in order to survive,” Kirby adds. “She has to become a better wife, the wife he wants.” 

Naturally, the story of Napoleon lends itself to some truly epic scenes – from glimpses of Revolution-era France to sprawling battlefields with impressive action set pieces. As Ridley Scott fans will know, the director is no stranger to executing some spectacular battle scenes, and his offering in Napoleon is no exception.

Scott recreates some of Napoleon’s most famous battles – Toulon, Austerlitz, Waterloo and more – utilising a huge cast of actors who learned how to fight like the soldiers of the time in armies crafted by an expert military adviser.

At the heart of it all, though, is that fascinating leader, the portrait of whom Scott and Phoenix worked tirelessly to craft.

“We talked incessantly about who and what he might be, with Joaquin focusing on how he walks, how he talks, how he sits,” says Scott. “We kept looking at portraits, which are fantastic. They are, in essence, photographs of the period. They are hardly flattering – you can stare at the man and know that an ego is coming to play.” 

• Napoleon is in cinemas now