Napoleon cut a scene of the emperor suffering from piles as it was "too distracting" (2024)

Napoleon director Ridley Scott has revealed that they cut an explicit scene of the infamous French director suffering from piles as it became "too distracting" from the overall story.

Napoleon will release on Apple TV+ later this year and stars Joker actor Joaquin Phoenix as the iconic historical figure. The movie is directed by Scott, who returns to the historical epic genre after previous success with Gladiator.

In a recent interview with Empire discussing the movie, which Digital Spy has seen, Scott opened up about the interesting deleted scene.

Related: First trailer for Joaquin Phoenix and Vanessa Kirby's new movie Napoleon

"We sense history might have been different had Napoleon not had a very bad attack of piles on the day of Waterloo," Scott explained, referencing the Battle of Waterloo.

"So I had him at Waterloo... sitting on the loo, and it's pouring with rain outside, and he does his business. He gets up, looks in the loo, there is blood. Then he does the day in battle, sweating and in agony with the piles."

Scott continued: "David [Scarpa, the screenwriter] said, 'Isn't this rather undignified?' I said, 'Maybe, but it's accurate.' But we took it out of the movie because it became too distracting."

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The movie will release in cinemas on November 22 this year before it hits Apple TV+. Vanessa Kirby stars in the movie as Joséphine de Beauharnais, a role originally occupied by Jodie Comer.

However, Kirby took over the role and filming for the epic sounds interesting, to say the least. Kirby recently explained why Phoenix slapped her while filming one particular scene.

"We were using the real words from their divorce in the church. When that happens, you can faithfully go through an archival re-enactment of it and read out the lines and then go home. But we always wanted to surprise each other," she said.

"It's the greatest thing when you have a creative partner and you say, 'Right, everything's safe. I'm with you. And we're gonna go to the dark places together.'"

Napoleon is scheduled to hit cinemas on November 22. It will stream on Apple TV+ following its theatrical release.