Although nothing really new has been reported from the weekend's TCA panel in Pasadena, one subject has been common to most online reports - sex. And more specifically, the question about how Da Vinci's perceived sexual orientation will be portrayed, even after a statement was released to After Elton way back in November.
While it's obvious from the latest trailer that there will be sex and nudity in the show, The Hollywood Reporter shared Tom's panel response about Leonardo's sexuality.
As for rumors about Da Vinci's sexuality, star Tom Riley said writers aren't intending to dispel any rumors about him. "He was a man who can't be confined," he told critics, adding that he thought viewers would be satisfied with how the story is handled.
HitFix and IGN also considered the subject, again quoting Tom.
As viewers of Starz have come to expect with series like Spartacus and Boss, Da Vinci’s Demons doesn’t hold back when it comes to sex scenes. But while the early episodes have Da Vinci involved with women, it doesn’t seem the show will ignore speculation that he was gay. While Riley didn’t get specific, he simply said, “He’s a man who wasn’t going to be constrained by the society he was within.”
Showrenity reported on Tom's responses to other aspects of Da Vinci's character.
Tom Riley then gave a little bit of insight into his take on playing Da Vinci. “He was a man who obviously wasn’t necessarily going to be constrained by the society that he was in,” he said. “And we’ve certainly reflected speculation about him in a way that will hopefully please an audience as far as combining all the different elements of a personality like that. Being someone whose mind was so expansive and consequently quite factious, and bordered on being a savant and bordered on being — had to be charming at the same time in order to bring people into his ideas, because he was known as being quite…”
“He had a big mouth,” Goyer cut in, laughing. “He had a big mouth,” Riley conceded. “He could talk people into things. Giorgio Vasari’s Lives of the Artists, which is the biography written closest to his life, it goes on and on about how he was all these things. So actually because he did so much in his life, and he was a polymath, it felt right that he should be played in so many different ways as to reflect that.”
A new Starz press release shared by Zap2It has this photo and the news that series will be premiering at 9pm on 12th April.
