What makes Game of Thrones so addictive? Its storyline? Indeed. But also the characters whose passing away stunned us mostly. One of those characters was the husband of Sansa, Joffrey Baratheon, a name we hated to the core.
We always felt that the young one picked up his traits from his mother, Cersei Lannister, powerfully portrayed by Lena Headey. But what won’t come as a shock is that his character was actually built upon that of Commodus, again powerfully portrayed by Joaquin Phoenix.
The very fierce Commodus, for whom we had the same emotions in Ridley Scott’s first instalment of Gladiator. As read in the Trivia section of the aforementioned movie, on IMDb,
Jack Gleeson modelled his character Joffrey Baratheon in Game of Thrones (2011) after Emperor Commodus.
It doesn’t seem so shocking; after all, they both had the very same traits on screen and made our guts wrench whenever they showed up in a scene. Gladiator also starred Russell Crowe, Connie Nielsen, Richard Harris, Oliver Reed, Djimon Hounsou, and others.
Traits Similar in Joffrey Baratheon and Commodus
Once his father is killed, the throne is his. This goes for both the characters.
You don’t need to hide it within yourself that, as much as you hated Joffrey Baratheon’s character, you had respect for Jack Gleeson for his portrayal. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, back in April 2014, Gleeson stated,
Joaquin Phoenix’s Commodus in Gladiator certainly for my characterization of Joffrey, that had a big impact, the smirk.
Indeed, the GOT character reminds us of the antagonist from the movie, which went on to become one of the most renowned entries in the history of cinema. They both had a hunger for power, and gold complemented their image well.
While Joffrey was mostly under the influence of his mother’s words, Phoenix’s Commundus was under the whispers of greed and the status he sought to maintain as a King. Next, they both were pure evil, so much so that Gleeson’s Baratheon even shocked the cruel Cersei at one point.
Commodus and Joffrey both invented ways of torture, with one from the 2000 film forcing men on huge grounds of the Colosseum, and Joffrey venting it out on Sansa. Most importantly, their end was sudden. No one actually expected Joffrey to die while being surrounded by everyone, a very similar death to the one Commodus met at the hands of Maximus.
Was Commodus a Victim in Gladiator?
What the young Baratheon didn’t seek was his father’s acceptance.
Marcus Aurelius, who is also regarded as Caesar, dies at the very beginning of the Ridley Scott movie, leaving behind a grand Roman kingdom for Phoenix’s Commodus. But did he actually wish for his son to take the throne?
Shedding light on Commodus’ character, Scott, in an interview with Deadline—around the release of his other entry with the Eddington star, Napoleon—stated,
I saw him as the most sympathetic character of all, in Gladiator. He was a product of neglect, total neglect of a father that he adored. Then finally in the film, the father would say, I’m going to neglect you even further. You will not be the prince of Rome.
And then the father realizes in his old age that he needs some form of absolute. So he does something fatal. He kneels before the boy asking for forgiveness. That was fatal because the boy has never seen his father ask for that kind of close discussion. So he suffocates him.
A second installment of Gladiator was released in November 2024, having yet another grand cast, including Pedro Pascal, Denzel Washington, Paul Mescal, and Joseph Quinn, as well as Connie Nielsen reprising her character of Lucilla.
You can watch Game of Thrones on HBO Max.
