HBO hopes to give viewers authentic 'Rome'
"Most Roman dramas, I think, to a degree are historical pastiche," said executive producer/writer Bruno Heller. "They take elements from a lot of different periods so they're not really being specific. We wanted to do this in the same way you would do a show, say, about America today. We have to be very specific about what was going on and not just make it a kind of melange of Americana.
"This is a pre-imperial period. It's Republic. It's about the people of Rome, so it was very important to get the fine detail right so that you felt that you were in a real world and not in a costume drama."
Thus the massive production surrounding the series, which shot from March 2004 through July of this year on the largest standing set in the world — five acres of back lot and six soundstages in Rome — as well as other locations throughout history. With a primary cast of dozens and thousands of extras, "Rome" is on a scale rarely seen on either the large or small screen.
Set in the year 52 B.C., the plot centers on the machinations surrounding Gaius Julius Caesar's return to Rome after eight years away conquering Gaul. And the Rome that we see isn't a city of cool white marble, as is so often portrayed on film — it's a metropolis of a million people that's colorful, dirty, crowded, loud and suffering from a serious chasm between the rich and the poor.
The internecine warfare is almost incomprehensible as Caesar (Ciaran Hinds), Pompey Magnus (Kenneth Cranham), Atia of the Julii (Polly Walker), Mark Antony (James Purefoy), Marcus Junius Brutus (Tobias Menzies), Servilia of the Junii (Lindsay Duncan), Gaius Octavian (Max Pirkis), Octavia (Kerry Condon), Porcius Cato (Karl Johnson), Marcus Tullius Cicero (David Bamber), Timon (Lee Boardman), Quintus Pompey (Rick Warden) and others plot and connive and back stab and maneuver.
"Rome" is at its best when it focuses on two fictional characters — soldiers Lucius Vorenus (Kevin McKidd) and Titus Pullo (Ray Stevenson), who are thrown together in the premiere when they are ordered to search for Caesar's stolen standard, a gold eagle that's the unifying symbol for his legions.
"From my point of view, it was two people that were thrown together in a friendship in spite of themselves — in one sense flip sides of the same coin," Stevenson said. "Their weaknesses are sort of complemented by the strengths of the other one and vice-versa. They don't accept this. They don't recognize it. But it's the subtext of their relationship."
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