Turner is a Renaissance man – Clondalkin actor cast as Leonardo
By Hayden Moore
What do you get when you cross the ‘X-Files’, the Renaissance and a Clondalkin man?
Aidan Turner, who was a student in St Mac Dara’s Community School, has been cast as Leonardo DaVinci in a new series that has the working title ‘Leonardo’.
Clondalkin#s Aidan Turner
Being brought to life by producer and X-Files writer Frank Spotnitz and Steve Thompson of ‘Sherlock’ fame, the eight-part series is expected to follow the world-renowned Renaissance artist and his endeavours in a range of fields that he is known for such as engineering, architecture and sculpting.
Turner recently wrapped his role as Ross Poldark in the BBC drama ‘Poldark’, which finished after five seasons.
But since the finale of the series, Aidan is not straying away from period dramas after he was announced to be playing DaVinci just weeks after he was cast in director Terrence Malick’s latest flick.
Also broken by Deadline, Turner will apparently be playing Apostle Peter in the life of Christ movie ‘The Last Planet’, which will also be starring Mark Rylance and Ben Kingsley and is currently filming in Italy.
For those unfamiliar with Turner’s work, he shot to fame when he was cast by Peter Jackson to play Kíli in The Hobbit Trilogy and also played Boatman in experimental animated film ‘Loving Vincent’ about the life of Vincent Van Gogh.
Daniel Percival is directing ‘Leonardo’, after recently collaborating with Spotnitz on Amazon series ‘The Man in the High Castle’.
The announcement was recently made during Rome Film Festival with Spotnitz saying: “Capturing the character of Leonardo has been one of the most fascinating and exciting challenges of my career.
“It’s hard to fathom that a man this extraordinary could even have existed, let alone the human impulses that drove him to achieve such extraordinary things.
“It’s been enormously rewarding and an absolute joy collaborating with Steve Thompson, Daniel Percival and our partners at Lux Vide and RAI to bring Leonardo to life.”
Production of the series is expected to get underway by the end of the year.
