Yet another great interview with Tom has appeared online tonight, this time from Dish Magazine, where his da Vinci has been described as a "mix of Sherlock crossed with Tony Stark...crossed with Indiana Jones...crossed with Aladdin from the Disney film..."
There is even a lovely photo of Tom on the cover too (tho' photo is flipped). The April 2013 edition of the magazine is available to buy from Amazon.com for Kindles, but wait unti Tom's photo is on there, otherwise you get the March edition... The interview is also available to read in full on the Dish website.
For the English actor tasked with this monumental role, Riley had to do it all. “As far as a seven month giant monster shoot is concerned, where I’m in every scene and have giant swathes of dialogue full of long period words, there’s nothing else quite like it,” Riley said. “It’s a huge physical challenge and a huge mental challenge. I mean, the mental challenge is harder to show in trailers.”...
...For such a physical interpretation of da Vinci, Riley had to get into peak physical shape himself. “As far as the difficult stuff to do, I think I’ve still got a lot of the bruises. There was a lot of physical [demands], and lots of climbing. I wanted to also create a physical depiction of him because he was a vegetarian, he lived off the land. Vizari’s autobiography again says that aesthetically he looked great. And it was just something that I felt we should honor in a way, that didn’t look too bulky and modern and muscular. It just meant that I only eat Quinoa and brown rice for seven months.” After Season One wrapped, Riley could not stick to the da Vinci diet. “No, I do eat meat and I decided while I was doing it to not, for the duration of the shoot. By the end of it, I was feeling a little bit [protein starved]...”
