‘Caesar’: A Look at the Man Behind the Icon

It isn’t easy to do a period piece set way back in the days of ancient Rome without it looking silly or tacky. Such was the challenge facing the filmmakers of TNT’s new four-hour biopic “Caesar,” premiering in two parts Sunday and Monday.

“On the set we did the ‘Monty Python’ test,” says director Uli Edel (“The Mists of Avalon”), referring to the genre spoofs performed by the famed British comedy troupe, particularly “Life of Brian,” set in biblical times.

“Did it look like something from ‘Monty Python’? If it did then something must be wrong.”

Happily, Edel reports, “Caesar” passed the “Monty Python” test with flying colors. All the actors -- Jeremy Sisto (“Jesus,” “Six Feet Under”) as Julius Caesar as well as Chris Noth, the late Richard Harris and Christopher Walken -- are believable wearing togas, skirts and sandals, and the dialogue is serious without being pompous.

“I tried to be as truthful as possible and also find something new to say about Julius Caesar,” says Edel, who shot the film in Malta and Bulgaria last summer in just 27 days.

“What do we know about Caesar? We know about Caesar and Cleopatra -- the world-famous love story. But that is the old Caesar. He was over 50 when he met Cleopatra, and nobody has done anything about how he became that person. How did this man come from obscurity and become the most powerful man in the known world at the time?”

Edel, who grew up in Germany, had long been a fan of Caesar. “I had nine years of Latin,” he says. “When you are 10 years old, you have to learn Latin and you translate Julius Caesar when you are 11. So he is around with you in your early age, torturing you! Actually he wrote very clear, very simple. I felt I was the right guy to do this. You can call it a dream project.”

The Julius Caesar presented in the miniseries is vastly different from the older, established leader of Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” or Shaw’s “Caesar and Cleopatra.” At the outset, Caesar is a young man opposed to the dictatorship of Sulla (Harris). Caesar, who is a frail epileptic, goes so far as to refuse Sulla’s request that Caesar divorce his wife, Cornelia, who has ties to the faction that opposes Sulla. Caesar is forced to flee Rome to escape Sulla’s wrath.

After Sulla’s death, Caesar returns to Rome and becomes allies with Pompey (Noth), who is the head of the Popular Party. Pompey marries Caesar’s beloved daughter Julia, but the two men begin to clash politically, and after Julia dies during childbirth they become rivals. Pompey even turns the senate against Caesar when the latter refuses to turn over the troops he lead in his conquests in Gaul.

When civil war breaks out, Pompey flees to Egypt and is assassinated. Caesar returns to Rome and becomes dictator for life. But many in the senate believe that Caesar has abused his power and plot his assassination.

Edel decided to cast a young actor to play Caesar throughout the miniseries; Sisto was 27 during production. “I didn’t want to change the actor,” he says. “He could really show us in the beginning a very young, very idealistic Caesar and how he gets corrupted by power.”

Sisto discovered during his research for the role that as Caesar “got older he got much more confused and much more angry. That is what I tried to play more than anything else -- just the emotion. He was tired, too. He was angry, frustrated and exhausted. It was not like playing an old age kind of thing, but there was a challenge of trying to pull it off and having people buy me as someone in their 50s.”

Michael Wright, TNT’s senior vice president of movies and miniseries, believes “Caesar” successfully takes an iconic figure and transforms him into a real human being. “They made him a man who feels betrayal, who feels love, feels insecurity and feels anger,” Wright says. “Sometimes movies like this turn me off because it seems as if they purposely craft the character as larger than life -- not human. I think in this case they went the opposite direction.”

“Caesar” was made shortly before Harris’ death last fall of Hodgkin’s disease. Though he’s only briefly in the miniseries, the legendary Irish actor steals every scene he’s in. “He had great energy,” recalls Sisto. “When he came onto the set, he demanded these long rehearsals. Working with him was great.”

“Isn’t he great?” Edel agrees. “As you can see, he commands his scenes and he was into it. He didn’t show any signs of weakness. He was very vital.”

“Caesar” airs Sunday and Monday at 8 and 10 p.m. and midnight on TNT. The network has rated it TV-14-V (may be unsuitable for children under 14, with an advisory for violence).

Cover: Chris Noth, left, and Jeremy Sisto. Photograph by Julian Broad.