Diksha Sundriyal
Peacock’s ‘Those About to Die’ presents Rome as dangerous, especially for foreigners. One mistake can lead you to be arrested and turned into a slave. While for some, this means being sent to work for a wealthy family, for others, it marks a death sentence as they are sent to become gladiators, where only the toughest can survive. Kwame meets the same fate after he is arrested by Roman guards while trying to help his sisters. Forced to become a gladiator, he learns how to survive and his friendship with another gladiator, Viggo. They form an unlikely friendship, which helps both of them. Considering that the show is based on real historical events, what does it say about the two gladiators in the Peacock series?
Fictional Viggo and Kwame Have Historical Grounds
Played by Moe Hashim and Johannes Haukur Johannesson, Kwame, and Viggo are fictional characters in a show that otherwise heavily relies on real-life people to draw its major characters. The show is based on Daniel Mannix’s book, published in 1958, which, not surprisingly, also served as a point of reference for Ridley Scott’s ‘Gladiator.’ Many characters were pulled from history, but to maintain dramatic effect and tone down the number of characters, the writers either concocted fictional characters or created composites.
With Kwame and Viggo, the writers used historical references and details about the kind of people who were sent to become gladiators, most of whom were slaves brought in from other countries. In the show, Kwame is Numidian and is sent to Rome against his will. In real life, Numidia was a country on the North African coast, parts of which are now in Algeria. The eastern part of Numidia became the Roman province of Africa Nova in 46 BC, and the western part joined it in 40 BC. This was years before the events in the show took place.
Numidia underwent another transformation a few years later but remained a Roman province. Due to this, its people were brought into the Roman army through separate cavalry units, and their services were employed in fighting and winning important wars like the Battle of Utica and Caesar’s Civil War. Kwame mentions that his father fought in the latter, which gives us a reference point for the character and his place in history.
The Actors Drew Upon Their Own Friendship to Portray the Bond Between Kwame and Viggo
Because their characters were made up, the actors had to rely on their own intuition to play the roles. Being in the same boat allowed them to develop their characters and friendships to give emotional weight to it. Johannesson read Mannix’s ‘Those About to Die’ and made startling discoveries about the Roman Empire and what life was like for gladiators like Viggo. This was a great reference point for him and Hashim to bring Viggo and Kwame to life.
For Hashim, it was an interesting opportunity to present the story of a Numidian, something that is not often talked about in reference to the Roman Empire. For him, playing to Kwame’s emotional side and presenting the humanity and conflict within him became more important in the context of the character being a slave and forced to kill others for the pleasure of the public.
The actors also underwent rigorous training to learn to handle different kinds of weapons. Despite his experience on shows like ‘Vikings: Valhalla,’ Jóhannesson found that the training for ‘Those About to Die’ offered something entirely new, and he welcomed the challenge. Training together, the actors developed a close friendship, which worked well for their characters on screen, making the audience all the more sympathetic to their plight.
Read More: Those About to Die: Is Iwan Rheon’s Tenax Based on a Real Person? Was the Gold Faction Real?
