The new Spartacus

Liam McIntyre has been cast as the new lead role as “Spartacus” for Spartacus Blood and Sand Season 2

On Monday Liam McIntyre received some of the most exciting news of his career, and some of the most difficult: he learned that he had just been cast in the title role in a cable series — but as the replacement for Andy Whitfield in “Spartacus: Blood and Sand.”

“It’s been the toughest thing,” Mr. McIntyre said in a telephone interview from his home in Melbourne, Australia. “Every actor dreams of getting a big break, a big opportunity. Andy’s such a wonderful actor. I don’t want to follow that guy, and everybody hurts that he’s had to give up the role, myself included.”

But the casting of Mr. McIntyre, a little-known Australian actor who will soon be carrying the second season of “Spartacus,” was necessitated after it was announced in the fall that Mr. Whitfield, who created the lead character in that hit Starz series about the Roman gladiator who eventually leads a slave rebellion, had had a recurrence of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Mr. Whitfield announced his original diagnosis last March, and Starz said in May that it was producing a prequel series, “Spartacus: Gods of the Arena,” that would not feature his character, a strategy partly intended to give Mr. Whitfield time to recover.

But after Mr. Whitfield learned his cancer had returned, Starz was faced with a difficult decision. “Either we close down the show permanently,” said Steven S. DeKnight, the creator and producer of both “Spartacus” series, “and have one season and a prequel stand as a testament to what we had done, or look to find another actor to step into the role of Spartacus.”

Mr. DeKnight and his Starz colleagues were particularly encouraged to proceed with recasting the show after receiving an e-mail from Mr. Whitfield that said he wanted to see “Spartacus” continue.

After a few frenzied months of searching, the “Spartacus” producers discovered Mr. McIntyre on an audition tape in which he looked thin and haggard, and hardly seemed to possess the build of a gladiator.

“We needed someone that not only had that gravity and that manliness that the hero requires,” Mr. DeKnight said, “but he also had to have a sympathy and a compassion that just radiates.”

“The way he delivered everything was spot on,” Mr. DeKnight said of Mr. McIntyre, “but he looked like Christian Bale from ‘The Fighter.’ ”

In fact Mr. McIntyre had been working on a thriller called “Frozen Moments” for which the director had asked him to lose a significant amount of weight. (Invoking a different Christian Bale movie, Mr. McIntyre recalled: “When I got this role back in January, the director rung me up, he said: ‘Congratulations. Now, have you seen “The Machinist?” ’ I was a rake.”)

So Mr. DeKnight assigned Mr. McIntyre to a rigorous exercise and workout regime (“gladiator-camp hell, plus 10,” as Mr. DeKnight described it) and looked at photographs of the actor’s progress every two weeks before the commitment was made this week to hire Mr. McIntyre for the role.

Mr. McIntyre said it is not his intention to try to duplicate Mr. Whitfield’s performance when Season 2 of “Spartacus: Blood and Sand,” begins production in Auckland, New Zealand, in the spring.

“As an actor, you never try to be someone else,” Mr. McIntyre said. “You can’t. I honestly think the reason I’ve got this far and now have got the role — I’d like to think I have the same soul as Spartacus, that Andy brought to it. But I guess it remains to be seen.”

Mr. McIntyre added: “Beyond that, Andy’s Spartacus is always going to be Andy’s Spartacus, and I would never try and emulate that. Or try to be him. I think that should stand alone as his legacy.”

Though he and Mr. Whitfield share an agent in Australia, Mr. McIntyre said he had not reached out to his predecessor. “Obviously I’d love to speak to Andy,” Mr. McIntyre said. “But he’s going through a lot. I don’t want to get in the way of that. Whatever it takes to get him well is more important. I send him my love, and I wish him well.”

While he keeps Mr. Whitfield in his thoughts, Mr. McIntyre is also slowly starting to think about what the future will hold for him, and what the responsibility of being Spartacus entails.

“All I know is my foreseeable future is living in the gym,” Mr. McIntyre said, adding, “they’ll tell me when I can start doing the lines and doing the performance. There’ll be some acting there eventually, I’m sure.”

This is one of my favorite show's.
I loved Andy Whitfield in this role and will miss his contribution to it.
Have too say tho, the new guy looks promising and I have high hopes the show won't crash and burn.
Never the less, I wish Andy a speedy recovery and hopefully see him perform again.

Ulf