Another new interview with Tom has been shared by Dujour.com, and interestingly Tom reveals that shooting series 1 began in March / April 2012 and not in May as we thought.
This is an ambitious show, with a huge cast and sprawling sets. How long have you been working on it?
I took the job in December 2011. I was doing another job at the time, but all the way through 2012 I was prepping for this, doing the training machine, doing the research and going to exhibitions. We started shooting properly in March and April.
What kind of training were you doing?
Because Leonardo was a vegetarian, I was supposed to be quite lean and wiry. So I was dropping weight and getting to the gym and trying to have this very physically active body of someone who lived off the land.
A fabulous review from Philly.com praises the excellent cast.
Suffice it to say Da Vinci's Demons (warning: it contains nudity, violence, and profanity) has a lot of balls in the air. But it manages this juggling act with aplomb. The British cast is excellent, and the series, shot in Wales, does a pretty job of simulating early Renaissance Florence.
Cinemablend also posted a fantastic review for the show which airs on Starz tomorrow night at 10pm. Read it in full on the website.
What becomes clear from the start of David S. Goyer's new historical fantasy series Da Vinci's Demons is that this show won't work if fans aren't completely drawn in by Tom Riley's performance as the legendary artist, inventor, painter and all around Renaissance Man. Fortunately for Da Vinci's Demons, and for Starz, the series succeeds in selling us on the character, presenting him as a man who manages to measure up to the hype of his legend, while also coming across as human, relatable, flawed and likable all at once. Da Vinci's Demons plays almost like a procedural at times, introducing new mysteries, many of which are tied to the overall plot, and giving the titular character riddles to solve, challenges to overcome, and plenty of opposing characters to outsmart. In the end, what Goyer has delivered is something exciting, mysterious, suspenseful and clever...
...However, the focus of the show is on Da Vinci and his mysteries, which is why it's so crucial that Riley be the primary draw for this series. And he really is. He's an attractive man, but not distractingly so. It's his cleverness that makes Da Vinci such a mesmerizing character, and Riley sells that well.
Starz has added some new stills from The Hanged Man to their Da Vinci's Demons website.
