Gladiators stars talk backstage secrets – 'rivalries', outfit swaps and banned events

Gladiators ran for eight seasons and became a staple in households every Saturday night.

Running from 1992 to 2000, the hit ITV show saw super-fit contenders take on the ultimate challenge as they went up against the Gladiators in several gruelling events.

Presented by Ulrika Jonsson and John Fashanu, the show quickly became iconic and raked it millions of viewers each week.

READ MORE: Gladiators’ Wolf, 69, ‘would return’ to show as he could complete events ‘blindfolded’

Michael Van Wijk and Michael Lewis, better known as Wolf and Saracen, shot to fame after appearing on every series across the eight years.

In an exclusive chat with Daily Star, the bodybuilding duo revealed things that went on behind the scenes which those at home didn’t get the chance to see.

‘Rivalries’

By the time series seven of Gladiators hit the silver screen, The Wolf Man was everyone’s favourite bad guy.

Therefore it came as a surprise when the Australian Gladiators’ resident bad man, Vulcan, appeared on the show in 1998 and began giving Wolf a run for his money.

The pair would go at each other regularly, breaking out into brawls and striking up a fearsome rivalry for the penultimate series of the show.

Michael Van Wijk, 69, revealed however that their on-screen clashes went no further than that, admitting that Vulcan, whose real name is John Seru, was actually a “really nice guy.”

He said: “When we went to Australia and all went out the first night, he came up to me and was asking for advice on how to be bad.

“We’d hang out all the time in Australia, he’s a really nice guy. Then when he came to England, we’d just make it up as we went along. They brought him in just to spice it up a little bit.”

Banned events

The contenders were pit against the Gladiators in six gruelling events per episode.

The first series typically had six events in the same order, but this was adapted as time went on as new events were added into the mix.

Breakthrough & Conquer and Cyclotron were two events that never made it onto the televised show, while others like Pole-Axe and Pyramid were known for causing injuries.

Pole-Axe was introduced in series three and featured two 36-foot poles that contenders and gladiators had to climb, however was removed two years later because of injuries.

Speaking about the danger of the event, Michael Lewis, 58, explained: “Win or lose that game, you have to fall 40 feet to the floor and land on a crash matt and a lot of people got injured from that.”

While the majority of the show was filmed in the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham, it was occasionally filmed elsewhere which led to problems housing this specific event

Saracen added: “No one wanted to insure Pole-Axe so if we ever went to a different arena, we couldn’t do it because they refused to insure because everyone kept getting injured, so they didn’t want that on their hands.”

The event returned one year later and precautions were taken as the King of Hang Tough explained: “That’s why when you see it later on, we wore harnesses so it meant no one had to fall 40ft to the floor.”

Breaking character

When the Gladiators stepped out into the arena in front of the camera, they never snapped out of character and this was especially the case for Wolf who became known and loved for his ‘bad’ role.

However, the 69-year-old admitted that because of the role he played, he was forced to interact with the contenders backstage as his normal self, despite producers trying to keep them apart.

He explained: “Producers had this thing about the Gladiators not talking to contenders because they wanted to keep that air of mystery, but because of my character, I had to talk to them.”

So I’d go into their meeting with all of them and say ‘Look, you know what I do and you know who I am. If you want more air time and you want a bit of fun then I will do that’.”

The gym owner went on to say that he informed them he would never do anything that would affect their scores, but merely wanted to know if they were up for some fun on screen.

“Some would be like ‘No don’t do anything to me’ and then the others would be well up for it,” Wolf continued.

He added: “So I would say I’ll say ‘Okay guys, you won’t know when it’s gonna happen but whatever happens always let me finish on top. Let me have the last push so the crowd turns on me and loves you.”

Outfit changes

Filming of an entire series of Gladiators was completed in one month, with two shows typically filmed in one day.

However, Saracen revealed that what the public saw on screen wasn’t always how it worked behind the scenes, disclosing that things weren’t always filmed chronologically when it came to presenters Ulrika Jonsson and John Fashanu.

The former firefighter explained: “So we started filming two shows in one day, but things weren’t always done in the same order.

For more of the latest showbiz and TV news from the Daily Star, make sure you sign up to one of our newsletters here.

“So for certain events like The Wall, we’d film the first set of male contenders then the presenters would go backstage, change, come back out and then we’d film the next set of contenders for the next show.”

He added that while this was typically done to save time, it didn’t always work out like that, saying: “Well it was a way to save time but also, we would be stood out there waiting for them to come back so it worked out that it wasn’t always the biggest time saver.”

READ MORE:

Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk