Spartacus Season 1 Google Drive
Tamsyn
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I truly believe there is a false dichotomy to the belief that great leaders are born or made or both. In fact, I will argue that great leaders actually don't intentionally lead at all as is commonly thought. It is not as paradoxical as it sounds if you think deeply about it, but before explaining myself, I want to talk about a TV drama series called "Spartacus" that was shown on the Starz network from 2010 - 2013 running four seasons. It was in the first season titled "Blood and Sand" and in a scene where Spartacus obtains that moment of epiphany and all the subsequent actions to the last heroic scene where he dies the gruesome, yet glorious death that exemplifies the example of a leader that does not lead.
Why I bring this up is that at this moment, he loses his wife, is enslaved and forced to fight as a gladiator and realizes that he can do nothing about the fate that has befallen him. It is at this moment that he gets the infamous quote that starts this article that he realizes he must accept his fate or be destroyed by it. He accepts it duly and is driven by the sole focus to kill everyone that had a hand in the fate he was dealt including the whole of Roman society if it were humanly possible! But if that were all it was about (though I have to admit my initial attraction to the show was its violent action and nudity... call it a guy thing!), there wouldn't be much point in this tale in relation to an article about leadership, or I should say anti-leadership.
As the show progresses, his initial thrust for blood and vengeance transforms into a higher purpose. That higher purpose is for people to have the freedom of choice and individual liberty from the totalitarian Roman empire. This drives his decisions and strategies such that he takes a longer view and decides things not just to satisfy an urge for vengeance, but to keep his band of gladiatorial warriors as a cohesive whole and focused. This relentless and ruthless adherence to a higher purpose and vision compels and inspires those who follow him to believe in his vision and to even die for it.
Though loosely based on the real Spartacus character that lived in ancient times and seems to have lived by such an example, this is a fictional tale, but what I find interesting is that if you compare this to infamous stories of great leaders such as Gandhi, Mandela, Lincoln and even in the business world with the often worshiped and idealized characterization of Steve Jobs, you find very similar undercurrents and historical patterns of how they became leaders. In almost all cases, there was no intention of leading anyone, but rather a compelling vision and grand mission that they believed in deeply with all their convictions and were in many cases, willing to die for to achieve.
And that is the point. REAL leaders don't have to lead, for they JUST lead by their actions that is driven by something far bigger than themselves that inspire and compel all those around them to follow. Paradoxically, those who try intentionally try to accomplish such a feat with no real compelling vision and mission drive people towards the opposite direction which is the infamous "emperor with no clothes" syndrome. People will see that it is all a dog and pony show with no substantive value and no higher purpose.
Problem is that in the business world, many managers have a false sense of themselves and their leadership quotient, without the realization that the only reason people follow them is because of where they sit in the organizational hierarchy rather than because they have that visionary purpose thing. Ironically, when they don't get the results from their direct reports they expect, they take a few leadership seminars and push harder to "lead" people that makes people want to run away. It's like forcing two sides of a magnet that repel each other to stick together when all that will result is for them to keep repelling each other (This is a perfect example of insanity: "doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result!")
So a note to those who think they lead: Ask yourself with deep conviction, abiding honesty and most important of all what truly drives you, why people should follow you? Are you leading because you want to be called a leader, or do you have a higher purpose and compelling vision that you want to share and that others could benefit from. The latter is what you need and if that purpose and vision is great, people will just follow. It's that simple.
A good example is John Hannah from season one. His portrayal of Batiatus really brought something fantastic to the show. But for the story to continue, Spartacus needed to kill him for that season to have its closure and to feel like the hero had a major victory in moving forward in his story. So for that reason, a really fantastic character and a fantastic actor had to go.
I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the decision as far as how things played out with Lucretia, and whether or not Lucy Lawless will be around at all, like maybe in a flashback capacity or something in [the next] season, or is she completely gone from the show?
What can we expect from just the next season, like with the first episode, because in the season two, it was a pretty big bang in my opinion, especially with you know, traveling through a whorehouse and someone gets stabbed in the back of the neck. How are you going to like, try to top that again with season three?
You mentioned sort of the ambiguity as far as you know, what Caesar was doing, and his sort of role in that sort of allows you to play some with Crassus, but how much do you use the historical accounts to influence the personalities of the characters themselves?
Quite a bit, quite a bit. And you know, sometimes of course we have to tweak that. One of the liberating things on the Spartacus side is that there is nothing known about any of them and their characters. The fragments that are left from the third servile war tell very little about the emotional state or the relationships of Crixus, of Spartacus, of Gannicus, so you know, we were able to construct that.
How are you going to form that, because you have one who wants to become a great general, and you have one a few things which has been kind of agreed upon about Caesar, is he really from a young age wanted to go to the higher power. And (unintelligible) Crassus was also a much richer man than Caesar at that time.
So basically, these two come together because Crassus has the money but not the name and Caesar has the name but not the money, and together they think they can actually do something great. And historically, Crassus did in fact fund Caesar and help him out quite a bit financially. So they don't always see eye-to-eye, and historically, you know, they had a very rocky relationship. They weren't, you know, like tight brothers, so I definitely want to play with that too.
The trickiest thing on this show is when we kill off somebody is resisting bringing back a character that takes that place. We had this discussion moving into Vengeance, about you know, it would really be nice to have a Batiatus type character, a guy who talks like that and acts like that. My ultimate feeling was if you try to bring in a Batiatus substitute, the audience will smell that a mile away.
So there are new female characters. They will not be the same type of characters. They will have different stories and different strengths and different weaknesses. But I definitely, definitely want to, you know - do not wipe out all the female characters. And it was a discussion we had that having killed a lot of people in the finale, half of them were important female characters, and we definitely want to bring more in, but of a very different type.
Right. Well, the main ones are of course Crassus and Caesar, and we have several others that are popping up. I can't give details because it would ruin what's going to happen, but some very interesting characters that Spartacus comes across, and also on the Roman side some very interesting characters. I can throw out one Roman side.
We will see Crassus' son Publius. He will be part of the story line. Historically, Publius was actually Crassus' stepson, since Crassus' brother, also named Publius, died, and Crassus married his brother's wife, which was very common at the time, not a love thing. It was to keep the money in the family and the holdings in the family.
For our story it became incredibly convoluted and difficult to explain the backstory without a two-page exposition piece. So we have simplified it, that it is Crassus' son Publius. And he will play a major role in this next season.
Regarding both the female characters, the new ones, and the new male characters, have all the casting decisions been made or are you still looking for additional actors for Spartacus in season three?
But the question does rise, how do you define victory? When is it enough? And this is something that will really haunt Spartacus through most of this season, is you know, what is the end point? Is it to overthrow Rome, and then what happens? Which goes into a deeper sense of war, and you know, when is a war over? And is it ever over for people like Spartacus?
But the challenges were just monumental. It really was one big experiment of can you do something like that, can you take the visual concepts and aesthetic that (Zach Snyder) so brilliantly pioneered in 300, and apply that to a television show where the time restrictions and the money restrictions are just massive? So it was really a learn-as-you-go compounded by - the problem compounded by the fact that we went straight to 13 episodes.
Everything is just a little off, as we figured it out, and it took us a couple of episodes to really dial in the whole feel of the show. So yes, I mean, every single thing was a challenge from the costuming where everything had to be built for the show, to the sets, to the visual effects, especially on this show where literally every single thing you see on the screen was built specially for the show, the weapons, the furniture, everything.
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