Uli Edel
b class="detailheader">A Conversation With Uli Edel
(Director)

Q: What drew you to this film?
A: I knew a lot about Julius Caesar, so this was really a dream project for me - to get my hands in it and turn it into a television miniseries.

Q: Who do you think Julius Caesar was?
A: There are a lot of opinions about who this man really was. He was one of the most famous men in Western history, alongside Alexander the Great and Napoleon. The world after Caesar was completely changed because of his actions. The whole of Europe was Romanized by him. What I think is most fascinating about Julius Caesar is that he was really a frail character. He was epileptic, but he overcame his physical weaknesses to become one of the greatest leaders the world has ever known.

Q: What is different about this film than other movies about Caesar?
A: A lot of what we know about Caesar is from Shakespeare's plays. In this movie, however, we're talking about the early Caesar, too. This film begins when he is about 18 to 20 years old, and Sulla has overtaken Rome as dictator. Caesar was one of the few men in Rome who refused to obey Sulla. So Caesar had to escape from Rome in order to survive.

Q: What did you do to make the set believable?
A: In order to tell this story, we had to physically recreate this whole empire at the time of Julius Caesar. We had to recreate Rome, and we tried to be historically true. We were very much into details and did a lot of research. I spent months researching this movie in detail and some great craftsmen finally built this set here in Malta. I had fantastic people from Rome who helped me to recreate all these costumes, the weapons, the battles and all the details you see on the set.

Q: You also filmed in Bulgaria?
A: In Bulgaria we recreated Gaul. Regarding the battle scenes, I got some great experience working on The Mists of Avalon, where we also recreated battles.

Q: How do you feel about Jeremy Sisto in the role of Caesar?
A: Jeremy was very into this role and knows a lot about Julius Caesar now. He did an enormous amount of research. I was very happy to have him, and he can play this range from the young Caesar to the older Caesar, which is important because we have this epic span of his life to cover.