Napoleon's Ridley Scott on Criticism and Cinema's 'Buttaches'

Image source, Sony Pictures/Apple Original Films

By Katie RazzallCulture and Media Editor

Sir Ridley Scott is renowned for his frankness.

The director of famous films including Gladiator, Alien, Thelma & Louise and Blade Runner certainly says what he thinks.

< p class="ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10">Does he ask for advice? Asking someone what they think a “disaster” is, they tell me.

What about his lack of a Best Director Oscar - despite helming some of the most memorable films of the four last decades?

"I don't care."

And as for the historians who suggested that his latest film, Napoleon, is factually inaccurate: "Do you really want me to answer that?... there will be a beep in it."

We meet at a luxury hotel in central London.

Scott had recently arrived from Paris, where the film - which stars Joaquin Phoenix as the French soldier turned emperor, and Vanessa Kirby as his wife (and obsession) Joséphine - h...