Spartacus: House of Ashur is set to premiere on Friday, December 5, 2025, with two episodes. In this alternate version of the story, Ashur does not perish; instead, he is rewarded with his own gladiator school, known as a ludus.Integral to this universe are the 'elites' as they have been described - Cossutia (Claudia Black) and Viridia (India Shaw-Smith). Both actors gave Sportskeeda an insightful look into the Sparatus: House of Ashur world in an exclusive interview.Claudia Black even wishes that she could bring the architecture of Spartacus: House of Ashur to the present day:"For me, it’s the architecture. We lived in these sets that were built to scale and I felt that I was truly in that environment and there’s something glorious, there are many things glorious to me about the symmetry, the design of these places that is really special."The Spartacus: House of Ashur star continued:"And so, I kept walking around our villa everyday thinking – God, I just want to move in here."India Shaw-Smith, who plays virtuous Viridia in the series, the lone 'good' character surrounded by a nest of snakes, agreed with her on-screen mother's assessment:"I completely agree. The scale of the sets and the world and also how much that informs your choices and how you feel in the world and feel about each other and particularly, the scenes when we were in the arena, the scale of it. The architecture and the opulence and yeah, that world." View this post on Instagram Instagram PostMastering the language of Spartacus: House of AshurFans familiar with the franchise must be aware of the way the Ancient Romans speak on the show. Claudia Black mentioned how showrunner Steven S. DeKnight went the extra mile to perfect this:"There’s a rhythm. Steven consulted with experts in archaic language. The tension and pressure of having to be word perfect was an interesting one. It’s hard to relax into a performance when there’s a tension knowing that it literally has to be letter perfect."In fact, Black had to use a certain memorization technique in preparation for Spartacus: House of Ashur. She said:"There’s a lot of actors talking online about memorization techniques and I actually had to bring in some new ones to help me to meet this challenge. And they thankfully worked. But I really wanted to do it justice and it was ever-present tension for me."For India Shaw-Smith, the language was just as operatic as the world itself:"That was certainly something I drew on was my…I come from a theater background. I come from sort of like classical training. The training in Shakespeare’s work really fueled my preparation for playing Viridia. And I think that’s something…it’s such a treat for an actor to get to play such richly developed and nuanced characters in this world that is so larger than life and operatic in style."Catch the first two episodes of Spartacus: House of Ashur this Friday on the Starz app and all Starz streaming platforms!