John Hannah's run as Quintus Batiatus is coming to an end. Seriously. We mean it this time.
"I believe that Batiatus does actually have a twin brother who we get to meet later on," Hannah said.
He was kidding. We think.
Anyway, there are only two episodes left in the six-part series Spartacus: Gods of the Arena, which is airing Sunday nights across Canada on The Movie Network and Movie Central.
Spartacus: Gods of the Arena, which originates on the U.S. cable network Starz, is a prequel to the first season of Spartacus: Blood and Sand. And as anyone who watched that season back in early 2010 knows, things didn't turn out too well for Batiatus at the end, with his head basically being cut off.
Ouch.
In other words, Batiatus won't be around when the second season of Spartacus: Blood and Sand airs. However, his wife Lucretia, played by Lucy Lawless, apparently did survive the brutal attack from rebellious gladiators and will be part of season two.
For Quintus Batiatus, though, it's best that we enjoy him while we can. Batiatus arguably has been the most interesting character, a true mixture of light and dark.
"I know we all sort of deal in the black hat and the white hat, but I tried not to do that," Hannah said.
"Personally, I went through a lot of debate within myself. Is it where you come from? Are you bad to start with? Are you bad because of what you do? Or do you do what you do because you are bad?
"And then you get the script, and you just do that. That's it, for me, anyway."
Hannah is selling himself short, of course.
The sex and violence dominated opinions and stories about the Spartacus franchise in its early days, but had it been only about that, viewers would have yawned fairly quickly.
"I do know what you mean, yeah, if it simply had been a flash-bang-wallop kind of thing, it would have become tiring," Hannah said. "But we always felt we had a chance, given that everybody who was reading the scripts was loving them."
While the viewing public's fascination with Hannah's character and Lawless' character made the prequel attractive theoretically, there were more factors at play than cynically squeezing the last drop of blood out of a severed head, so to speak.
What eventually became Spartacus: Gods of the Arena initially was conceived merely as a flashback sequence to be part of the second season of Spartacus: Blood and Sand. But when the actor playing Spartacus, Andy Whitfield, was diagnosed with cancer and filming had to be delayed, a decision was made to flesh out the flashback to six prequel episodes, to help keep the franchise in the public consciousness.
Whitfield subsequently has been replaced for the second season of Blood and Sand, so we'll be seeing more of Spartacus. But Batiatus? Not so much.
"It wasn't that bad," said Hannah of Batiatus' almost completely severed head. "I could survive."
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