With ‘Da Vinci’s Demons,’ history and fantasy mix
Starz series strives to stretch the past in demented ways
SWANSEA, WALES It takes about 15 hours via plane to travel from Italy to Peru.
If you’re on the Welsh set of the Starz TV series Da Vinci’s Demons, however, it’s about a 30-minute stroll to get from the streets of Renaissance-era Florence to a Machu Picchu ritual-sacrifice station.
An old Swansea car factory has been transformed into the various globe-trotting locales for super-genius action hero Leonardo da Vinci, played by British actor Tom Riley. And while AP world-history teachers probably cringe at the wild, sexy and overthe-top spin on 15th-century people and places, Demons fans can look forward to an expanded cast list and a new world — literally — for da Vinci and his cohorts in the show’s second season.
“What we’re doing on our show, people do in comic books and novels all the time,” says series creator and executive producer David S. Goyer. “It’s just something that hasn’t been done quite as much on television, positing an alternate history or the history-that-you-didn’t-know kind of thing.”
Season 1 of the historical fantasy ended with a bang, as da Vinci rival Count Riario (Blake Ritson), the general of the Holy Roman Church’s military, is about to use a primitive version of a bazooka to blow up a door and nab da Vinci and Lorenzo de Medici (Elliot Cowan) during a siege of Florence by the nefarious team of the army of Pope Sixtus IV (James Faulkner) and the Pazzis.
JUMPING FORWARD IN TIME
But Saturday’s premiere episode begins with a flash-forward to da Vinci and Riario together, disheveled and imprisoned in the Incan Empire, then shifts back to the action in Italy.
Before viewers find out how the twosome became captured frenemies, da Vinci saves Lorenzo, and two boats captained by da Vinci and Riario head off to South America in their competing quest to find the mythical Book of Leaves. Lorenzo is arrested and tormented by King Ferrante of Naples (Matthew Marsh). His wife, Clarice (Lara Pulver), is left to run Florence but under constant threat from Sixtus — who keeps his brother (also played by Faulkner) in a dungeon under the Vatican.
“David Goyer always says this is 85% historically accurate — which I think is a slightly bold claim — but very often, the more bizarre things are actually true,” says executive producer Lee Morris.
The elaborate sets on Da Vinci’s Demons reflect that real history but also colorful bombast.
Da Vinci’s workshop is adorned with replica drawings of the inventor’s time, along with wings and a parachute that he’ll need once in South America.
There is a period in da Vinci’s late 20s where not much is known about him, Morris says, and that’s the Demons sweet spot. “The premise, more or less, is that we go into that five or six years and speculate wildly about what might have happened.”
Since the show’s inception, Riley has tried to pay respect to da Vinci while putting him through outlandish situations, but he acknowledges that the first episodes “were testing the waters” of how potentially outrageous the concept was.
Da Vinci’s Florence was the home of free thinking at the time, and the bright city is shown in stark contrast to the darker locales of the city’s foes. Rome, for example, is a noir-ish and gritty study in black and white.
“The two worlds of Gotham City and the Renaissance collide here, in a sense, because the show is Leonardo Da Vinci as superhero,” Faulkner says.
In Naples — which, on the set, is a five-minute walk from the Vatican — Ferrante’s “black museum” is filled with mummified corpses and torture devices.
“It’s a real gorefest, if you like that kind of thing,” Morris says of the scenes in that room.
Ferrante’s son Alfonso is the Boba Fett of the Demons mythology, a spoiled brat played by Kieran Bew, who says he had to learn how to use a bullwhip for the role. “How often do you have a lesson with two guys in a car park for three hours learning how to whip beer cans off a fence?”
Bew and other new cast members are a welcome sight, says Laura Haddock, who stars as Lucrezia Donati, Lorenzo’s mistress, da Vinci’s lover and a Roman spy. “Popping another character in the mix can be electric.”
CHANGE OF SCENERY
Broadening the scope of the series and taking characters to an exotic environment such as Machu Picchu also refreshes cast and crew, according to Morris.
One interesting place the hero winds up this year: at the Louvre, face to face with the Mona Lisa.
While Riley is tight-lipped on how and why that happens, the episode is “the most Da Vinci’s Demons- y episode of Da Vinci’s Demons,” he says.
“We just found what we are, and we’re going for it in a big way: Yeah, there’s going to be Kryptonite in the secret archives, and yeah, the Spear of Destiny that pierced the side of Christ just happens to be knocking about. That’s our show.” DA VINCI’S DEMONS STARZ, SATURDAY, 9 P.M. ET/PT