AIDAN TURNER TO PLAY LEONARDO DA VINCI

^*big new production

Are they going to straight-wash him, yet again?

Everyone knows Leonardo was a raging pussy hound. Just watch my show if you don't believe me.

I just want Miss Goyer should not be near this project

I don't think he has what it takes to convey genius convincingly.

R2, he took on (very) young misfits as students and might have been into barely pubescent boys. Just like Michelangelo (who, aged 64, wrote ‘sexy’ poems about sharing a bed with a boy aged barely 12-16).

Many people fucked (very) young kids back then. But who would “enjoy” watching a film about potential Medieval Pederasty? Most audiences would prefer not to contemplate such cringy practices from the past. And it runs the risk of conflating homosexuality with pederasty.

r6 Age those fuckers up, then.

R5 - Why not? Turner got very good reviews for his performances in the West End as the Lieutenant of Inishmore. He's a decent, well-trained actor - at least as decent as Charlton "From This Cold Dead Hand" Heston. If Heston could play Leonardo, Turner certainly can.

Except for playing Kylie the Dwarf in Peter Jackson's "Hobbit" trilogy, Turner's big-screen moments have tended to flicker out unsuccessfully (although in fairness there's only been one apart from "The Hobbit"). Television is where he's had his big successes.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

One must assume Turner at least familiarsed himself with how to hold a brush and pencil in "Desperate Romantics" and look as if he knew how to use them. He was delightfully obnoxious in DR as well as incredibly hot.

And he did sardonic quite well in the remake of "And Then There Were None".

But, I agree, where Leonardo is concerned, there's an issue: not so much genius, but enormous breadth of spirit - Leonardo wasn't just about paint. Has Turner got the chops for that, is the question, and to subdue his considerable hetero sexual appeal into the persona of a man channeling that into his work, not his conquests.

[quote]But who would “enjoy” watching a film about potential Medieval Pederasty?

R7 guys like R6 are invested in the Leonardo was bi narrative.

R10, how does potentially grooming 10-year-olds make one “bi”?

Please provide links to sources to support your belief that he was fucking 10 year olds R11.

I always think of the British guy Aiden Turner from All My Children when I see stuff about this Aiden.

R7, but what’s the point of taking a potentially pederastic artist and passing that of as gay? They did that with Lolita (who is barely 12 in the novel, they tried upping her age to 15-16) - and that still doesn’t go down well with modern audiences. Especially with all the Catholic / Hollywood / Jerry Sandusky scandals happening recently. Lolita barely passed muster in the 50s, and it causes all kinds of problems in 2019.

R12, da Vinci’s closest confidante & servant was a young boy, Salai. Da Vinci met him when he was pushing 40 and the kid was 10. Da Vinci basically raised him from that age. The kid doodled multiple erect cocks-entering-holes in Da Vinci’s notebooks. This is the closest to a relationship we have for Da Vinci. I doubt anyone besides N*MBLA wants to watch that cringefest potential scenario onscreen.

From VARIETY:

“Poldark” star Aidan Turner will play Leonardo da Vinci in the new series by Frank Spotnitz that aims to provide an original take on the Renaissance genius. Each of the eight episodes of the show, which has the working title “Leonardo,” will center on one of his masterful achievements in various fields, not only including art.'

I dunno, my heart always sinks when I see the phrase "original take on".

It means they're going to make shit up so it will sell better.

And from Screen Daily:

Spotnitz (Medici, The Man In The High Castle, The X-Files) is co-writing the drama with UK writer Steve Thompson, whose credits include Sherlock, Vienna Blood, Deep State.

"The ambitious production will attempt to build a picture of the Italian Renaissance genius whose many creative talents included painting, sculpture, architecture, science, mathematics and engineering, starting from when he was a young man.

Lux Vide CEO Luca Bernabei said the drama would give “life to a young Leonardo and not the old man with a beard we all are used to see. He too had a first job, he too had a master… he too had frustrations and failures.” [hence, the casting of Turner]"

Aidan Turner already played an artist, he played Dante Gabriel Rosetti in Desperate Romantics 10 years ago. I don't think he'll have trouble portraying the many facets of Leonardo.

R16 - Mentioned above re DR, but DR wasn't a serious take in the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and the programme's bawdiness led one of its creator cheerfully to refer to it as "Art for Arses' Sake" (one of the reasons it was thoroughly enjoyable) and Rosetti was no Da Vinci.

From what I've read, the Da Vinci programme will make use of Turner's erotic charisma by focusing on the young Da Vinci, not the bearded elder we are accustomed to seeing in drawings and other representations. So I suspect the Da Vinci portrayal will fall prey somewhat to the same Let's Not Let Serious Art History Get In The Way Of Fun Programming - Get An Eyeful of This Da Vinci! underpinning that DR gave us of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in Victorian England. (The rest of the cast of DR were splendid, as well, by the way, but Turner was clearly the Glamour Boy in it.)

This isn't to diss Turner - he's quite capable, even if he isn't Ben Whishaw. But I am doubtful of a producer/director resisting the temptation to use one of Turner's most salient positives, his physical appeal, to sell a show.

I saw Turner early in his career in the very poignant "Hattie", a fictionalised drama of a few years in comedienne Hattie Jacque's life in her forties, in which he played the gorgeous young stud who ruined Jacques' marriage and eventually her life - in that, he was able to use his appeal to underscore the character's shallowness and narcissism, which was something of a feat. It could have been mere beefcake, but he managed to avoid that.

So we will have to wait and see how serious the producers are of this show really being about Da Vinci.

We'll see if

^*Sorry about that hanging last line . . .

R17

I will only watch it if Aidan presents dong.

That's all you have R14? I think that says more about your mentality than anything else.

What the hell is wrong with you lot? Why hasn't anyone reminded us all of his gloriousness?

R19 - I realise this is heresy on this site, but after seeing so much of Turner's physique in "Hattie" and "Desperate Romantics" (in both of which he was more appealing than the overworked gym rat he looked like in "Poldark"), I suspect his dong will be, er, anti-climactic. The rest of him has given us the best of him, visually. That's not to suggest it isn't perfectly adequate, but . . .

R22 You know what they say about the Irish....the Irish curse.

I will die of sadness if I ever learn that Turner has a small cock.

I read in variety that Leonardo da Vinci will be portrayed as a gay outsider in the series.

R25 - Actually, given what was visible in those strange Victorian trousers he wore in "Desperate Romantics" in some scenes, I doubt it's anything but respectable. In fact, in several of those scenes, I suspect all three male protagonists were flyin' free.

As for the Irish curse - Liam Neeson is Irish (and I've seen his in some old footage of a film he made in his salad days), and Fassbender is half-Irish.

I second R21. I've just been feasting my eyes on him in Poldark. Thanks to this thread I now realize that he played the hot dwarf in the Hobbit—the only remotely hot dwarf (possible exception the guy Lee Pace was a couple with).

He can play Leonardo like this.

filmed in los angeles due to the Italian quarantine!

geesh, how/when did Italy get so nasty?

tho at nite I saw dozens of rats running thru the wet streets of venice….rabid rats! hi on drippings from viino b ottless and pizza crumbs.

rome and milan equally nasty.....Florence, not so much

am I wrong? aint 16 legal n most of the world????

I would pay money to watch Aidan Turner just sit and read the phonebook.... to himself.

The show has been renewed for a second season and Spanish actor Carlos Cuevas is currently playing Salai on the show.

They need to mention how the Vitruvian man was actually a woman and the Mona Lisa was a man.

Ummm, when was the first season?

He did go to the Gaiety School of Acting.

Since March 23rd r35

TY. I'm downloaded it,

I'm also day drinking!

Is Aidan one of the gays?

He's way too handsome to play Leonardo.