Spartacus was a landmark television series for both Starz and fans of swords-and-sandals epics. The historical drama by Steven S. DeKnight premiered in 2010, and quickly earned a loyal fanbase which would follow the series through a prequel season, two sequel seasons concluding Spartacus’ journey. Now, 13 years later, an unexpected twist has occurred. Ashur, the traitorous henchman of Batiatus is back from the dead in an alternate reality that has him rise from slave to Dominus.
Nick E. Tarabay returns in Spartacus: House of Ashur to showcase another side of the man we all loved to hate as Ashur takes on the challenge of building his legacy and bringing honour to his gladiators. Ashur’s first big leap of faith is bringing a woman to the arena. Enter Achillia (Tenika Davis), a force to be reckoned with and Ashur’s best bet to success.
I had the honour of speaking with Tarabay and showrunner DeKnight who discusses getting back into the world and language of Spartacus and who they would like to see get the spinoff treatment.
Watch the full interview with Nick E. Tarabay and Steven S. Deknight below:
Spartacus: House of Ashur comes to us 13 years after the conclusion of Spartacus’ story in Spartacus: War of the Damned. Ashur met his fate on Mount Vesuvius but by the gods’ design, he has returned to the land of the living, as a Dominus. I wanted to know why we are getting a new Spartacus season now, and why Ashur was the focus.
Steven S. DeKnight shared, “Well, Starz and Lionsgate had been reaching out over the past decade asking me if I would like to do more Spartacus, and I was always too busy with other projects, or, quite frankly, those first couple of years I was recovering from doing the original series. So, the last time they reached out to me, I said, ‘Yeah! My schedule is kind of open. Let me think about it.’ And then I kicked around the usual suspects, Caesar, the Triumvirate, Antony and Cleopatra. But there was something that always stuck with me from the original series. At the end of Vengeance, Ashur has this line where he says, ‘And this is the rise of the House of Ashur.’ He says it to Lucy Lawless’ character, Lucretia, and then later he gets his head chopped off, so he never gets to realize that dream. And I thought, Wow, that sounds like a really fun show to work on. So I pitched the idea, and they liked it. I called Nick. He was available, and here we are. And for me, the interesting thing is to take a character like Ashur, and he wants to be a better person, but can he be a better person with Roman society keeping him down? And plus, I was really interested in how does Ashur being alive change history, which you’ll see is that history veers off from its course that everybody knows about because he’s alive.”
Nick E. Tarabay’s performance as Ashur was truly a treat. The complex, lyrical language of DeKnight’s writing felt natural to him, and despite teh horrible things he did, there was always a secret joy felt when he came onto the screen. Needless to say, I am very happy with this turn of events and am excited to see how Ashur stands on his own now that he has tasted an inkling of power. I asked him what it was like to get back into the character’s persona and reliving the language.
Tarabay told me, “It’s very, very challenging. The language on its own is very challenging. So just working on that it’s quite challenging on its own. Now add to it, you know, brilliant writing that backs that up. So it really demands a lot out of you. It’s a show that demands so much out of you. You have to be present completely, physically and emotionally, and you have to be very focused. So going back to this, it was, it was great. It was, it was scary. I was very scared, because any actor would approach this good work, there’s always a fear of like, ‘Oh, am I going to mess this up?’
You know, I’m saying there’s that fear, but that fear, thankfully, always pushes me to work harder. So as I start moving hard, moving forward with it, it’s a weird thing that happens as you’re doing it, sometimes you’re questioning yourself, can I do this? Can I do this? Can I do this? Can I do this? And before we know it, you’ve done it, and you’ve already became a better person for it, and you’ve grown since. The downside is, after working on work such as this, on working with Steven, it’s very hard to compete to find something as good afterwards. So there’s upsides and there’s downsides to it, but it’s an extremely demanding show.”
Finally, now that House of Ashur has come to fruition, I asked them to shout a name of a character from the series or history that they would like to see get their own spin-off. While I was intrigued by DeKnight mentioning he thought about bringing Antony and Cleopatra to the universe, I was not in the least bit surprised to hear that he and Tarabay would like to see Gannicus take centre stage again.
DeKnight said, “I’d love to see Gannicus in a spin-off. That’s your rock star, and I loved working with Dustin.”
Tarabay echoed the same sentiments and said, “I agree. I would say Gannicus.”
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