STELLAN: "You have to be choreographed and you have to be very precise or you will kill somebody. It's not only about waving swords, but it's like doing a three-minute heavyweight boxing round and you have to do it maybe ten times a day... And I'm chain smoking and I'm middle-aged. I'm not the person to do things like this."     

DIRECTOR ANTOINE FUQUA: "Stellan’s a great actor and he’s really particular about what he does. And he’s a smart man and a pretty amazing actor. I had to put in several phone calls to Stellan myself and get on the phone with him for a while and talk to him about playing the character because he didn’t want to be the stereo-typical barbarian. He’s just too smart for that... We talked a lot about it and he put his trust in me to play around the character with him a little bit and make it interesting for him and for me. That’s how I got him to do the film. We talked a lot about who he was and what his character was. He said, 'He's going to be quiet and almost bored because he’s done so much killing. He can’t be excited every day about going around raping and pillaging.' We wanted to give him more dignity than that, so that’s the character you see on the screen. Pretty vicious, though."

PRODUCER JERRY BRUCKHEIMER: "He's [Cerdic] imposing but he brings this intelligence as well. There's a brutality to him and a gentleness. And yet he frightens you the way he talks, the way he carries himself, just his body language. It's frightening." 

CO-STAR KEIRA KNIGHTLEY: "He [Stellan] was amazing. He'd come in every single day and practice with the guys just to get it perfect because he chose very specific movements he wanted to use and as soon as he became the character, you would just see him walking a different way. He was absolutely terrifying. I wouldn't go near him on the set."