Inside the ‘Spartacus: House of Ashur’ Battle for Glory (VIDEO)

In the first 10 minutes of Spartacus: House of Ashur, Starz’s sexy, gory resurrection of the epic historical franchise, cunning gladiator and former slave Ashur (Nick E. Tarabay) is freed from death in the gloomy underworld, awakens with no memory of his demise (but with two lusty, beautiful women in his bed!), and brutally slaughters a man twice his size. It’s an assault on the senses, in a good way, and the chariot-race pace never slows.

“It’s a blessing to come back to this role. It was one of the most delicious I’ve done,” says Tarabay, who played the fighter in three previous iterations from showrunner and writer Steven S. DeKnight. In the 2012 finale of the series Spartacus: Vengeance, Ashur’s head was lopped off by Naevia, a slave on the side of the titular rebel leader.

Now, these 10 bloody episodes explore an alternate history. Fate gives the 1st century B.C. scrapper a new path in which Ashur killed Spartacus. That act made him a friend to the Roman Republic. He now owns his former master’s villa and gladiator school, where he’s trying to get rich by turning infighting hunks into arena celebrities.

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“He’s more complex, dynamic. Ashur’s playing with the big dogs, the Romans, trying to fit in,” says Tarabay, who teases that his character still fights hard. In his most challenging scene, Ashur battles with one sword in each hand. “He’s a loyal guy, but he’s never gotten an opportunity to prove his loyalty. He’s a sensitive dude on top of it. He gets carried away in certain situations and snaps.”

After his short temper spurs a gory gladiator-school incident, Ashur is suddenly on the hunt for a new superstar. He finds one in ferocious Achillia (Tenika Davis), whom he first encounters as she’s kicking some Roman soldiers’ butts in order to escape a slave market. “Ashur sees something of himself in her,” Tarabay says. He contains her frenzy and, with the soldiers’ blessing, takes her, protesting, back to the school, where he hopes to make her a gladiatrix.

Davis, a taekwondo champion, insists that her character is “not a victim. She’s a strong female warrior fighting for survival. That is what this show’s about. We do what we have to do to survive.” What Achillia does to protect herself from a hostile classmate is not for the squeamish, but she finds a friend in brash, equally deadly Tarchon (Jordi Webber).

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Another survivor is the school’s trainer, ex-gladiator and formerly enslaved Korris (Graham McTavish). “I won my freedom through killing everybody I fought,” McTavish says of his character. “Ashur’s demanding, but they have mutual respect. We share an ambition to further ourselves to achieve status.”

McTavish says the preparation boot camp was “by far the hardest” he’s done — and he played a Highland warrior on Outlander. It’s no easier on set: “Between takes, I was on the ground, covered in dust, mud, blood after fighting multiple assailants. I thought, ‘This is ridiculous.’ I was 63!”

“The energy of 300 extras beating the floor, yelling, is so exciting,” Davis says of her first time in the arena on the New Zealand soundstage. “It’s also terrifying. That’s what Achillia goes through when she realizes just how big a beast she’s about to fight.”

Ashur particularly wants her to impress the snobby Roman aristocrat Cossutia (Claudia Black) and her senator husband Gabinius (Andrew McFarlane), whose pure-hearted widowed daughter Viridia (India Shaw-Smith) takes Ashur’s breath away. It’s mutual. “Suddenly she can imagine a different life for herself, not as a gladiator but as an unconstrained woman,” Shaw-Smith says. “The mother-daughter dynamic is challenged because Cossutia represents the old ways.”

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Notes Black, “It’s interesting to watch Cossutia attempt to tear them apart.” The romance also gets booed by Ashur’s slave and bedmate, Hilara (Jamaica Vaughan), who’s deeply in love with him. “She’s got fight in her. She props him up and keeps it real,” says Vaughan. They’re sometimes joined by a third, demure Messia (Ivana Baquero), who has secret desires.

As Ashur steers his unruly gladiators toward success, he becomes enmeshed in Roman politics with Julius Caesar (Jackson Gallagher) and his wife Cornelia (Jaime Slater). Slater says of the couple’s passion, “On a scale of one to 10, they’re a 15. They’re opulent and love a good time at the expense of other people.”

That includes the feisty gladiator-school master. Adds Slater, “We make Ashur’s life a living hell.”

No doubt Ashur’s used to that; “to hell and back” would be a suitable motto.

Spartacus: House of Ashur, Fridays, 9/8c, Starz