Paul Mescal was intimidated when he met Denzel Washington for the first time – so he got cold feet and fled.

The Gladiator II costars appeared on The Graham Norton Show together on Friday, where they revealed the awkward details of their first meeting.

“The first day I actually worked with Denzel, he was in the box and I was rolling around fighting some monkeys or something,” Mescal recalls. “At the end of the day I thought, ‘I have to go up and introduce myself to Denzel.'”

Mescal said he tried to pump himself up to meet the two-time Oscar winner. “I was standing at the bottom of the stairs, and I stood there for a few minutes, and I said, ‘Not today,'” said the Nazon star remembered. “So I jumped out and ran to my dressing room, and said, ‘Tomorrow I’ll be a brave boy.’”

The two actors eventually crossed paths the next day. “The second day I was waiting at the bottom of the stairs and I thought, ‘I just have to stay put,’” Mescal said. “And Denzel walked down, and it was like, ‘Oh God, here we go.’ And he shook my hand, and it just felt extraordinary.”

Washington then teased Mescal and gave him some sage advice. “He looked at me for ages and said, ‘Stop training, man,’” Mescal said.

Elsewhere in the interview, Washington sang his young co-star’s praises. “Let me say this: This kid delivers,” he said of Mescal. “I’m a pretty good actor. I’m serious, believe me. I saw it when Russell (Crowe, star of Gladiator) did it – he delivered. This boy gave birth.”

Gladiator II increases almost twenty years after 2000 Gladiatorfollowing an adult Lucius (Mescal), who was sent away as a child for his protection after the events of the first film. In the sequel, Lucius returns to Rome as a gladiator after a marauding Roman army captures him, and he must fight to survive the horrors of the arena and the city’s dirty politics.

In a new interview with Entertainment weeklyMescal said that despite his positive experiences working on his first blockbuster – with legends Washington and director Ridley Scott, no less – he doesn’t want or expect Gladiator II be the highlight of his career. “No, I would say I am ambitious so that there is no end point,” he said. “There is never ‘making it.’ It’s not the way I made it Gladiator II and I said, ‘Okay, put your feet up, relax.’ I have so much more I want to do. As long as people continue to have me, I’m sure the ceiling will continue to move to different places in the house.”

Washington also teased his character in the sword-and-sandals epic for EW. “All he had to do is sit there and know that he’s the best in the world at everything, and he thinks so, and that’s nice,” Washington said of his wealthy, ruthless arms dealer and gladiator fighter Macrinus. ‘He really didn’t have to do any heavy lifting. The boys are down there fighting and being chased by rhinos. I just sit up in this tent and spin my cup. That is pleasure.”

Although his character is not as physically imposing as Mescal’s (apparently he didn’t have to train as much either), Washington noted that he had to train for the role differently. “(I didn’t have) a ton of fighting training, but I had to learn to hold my cup and lift my skirt when I stepped over things,” he told EW. “I had to learn to walk around with a dress on. I had to learn to walk with sandals on. I stumbled a few times at first, but I became one with my peers.”

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Gladiator II can be seen in cinemas from November 22.