Proximo

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Proximo, a character in the 2000 movie Gladiator, was played by Oliver Reed, who died during the production of the movie.

Proximo was a gladiator who was freed by Marcus Aurelius. Afterward, he became a gladiator trainer himself, in the southern province of Zucchabar. In his slave market, Proximo bought Maximus, and trained him as a gladiator. After a few gladiatorial games, Proximo took his best gladiators to Rome. Maximus and his fellow gladiators win a seemingly impossible match in the arena, and Maximus himself defeats the only undefeated gladiator in Roman history, Tigrus of Gaul. Proximo was then asked to join in a plot to smuggle Maximus out of the city, so that he could return with a Roman Legion and overthrow Commodus. However, Lucilla revealed the plan to Commodus after he threatened Lucius. The Praetorian Guard were sent to seize Maximus by force.

Because Oliver Reed died toward the end of the filming of the movie, the final plot for Proximo had to be changed. Proximo's end is now that he is punished for having been defiant to the Praetorians by refusing to let them in his gate, the soliders stab him to death in his room.

The scene as they stab Proximo is actually an insertion of the earlier clip of Oliver Reed plilosophying to Maximus before he enters the Colloseum, Proximo telling Maximus that men are all "shadows and dust".