Ethan Hawke is Set to Play Nikola Tesla in Upcoming Biopic
There's a such a fascinating and tragic history behind the life of electricity pioneer and inventor Nikola Tesla. I've been fascinated with this guy since I first learned about him sometime during my teen years. It seems crazy that there hasn't been a proper film made about this man, but it seems like that's all going to change with the biopic Tesla.
According to THR, Ethan Hawke is set to take on the role of Tesla and I think he's a solid choice. Tesla has previously been played by Nicholas Hoult (The Current War) and David Bowie (The Prestige).
The film will be written directed by Michael Almereyda, who previously worked with Hawke on the films Hamlet and Cymbeline. He also worked on the 2017 sci-fi film Marjorie Prime.
The film is sais to "chronicle the life and times of the famed Serbia-born inventor, including his creation of the AC motor and his fierce rivalry with Thomas Edison."
The rivalry between Tesla and Edison is the stuff of legend. In the end Edison pretty much ruined Tesla, but Tesla didn't go down without a fight. Edison was a complete asshole and he played crazy dirty. Here's a little background on Tesla for those of you not familiar:
Born in Serbia in 1856, Tesla immigrated to the U.S. in the early 1880s and began working for Thomas Edison. What began as a warm professional relationship would turn into a fierce, hostile rivalry when Tesla quit Edison after feeling he had been unfairly compensated for designing improvements to the company’s inefficient motor and generators designs. Their rivalry would form the basis for the so-called “War of Currents” of the 1880s and ’90s, as Edison was a proponent of direct current, while Tesla advocated for alternating current transmission of electricity.
Tesla conceived of numerous innovations that eventually would be realized by other inventors including wireless communications, remote-control devices and even X-ray imaging. He also famously attempted to build what he called a “directed energy weapon,” popularly referred to as a death ray, though he was never able to make such a device work. He died poor and in relative obscurity in 1944 and since has become a huge influence on subsequent scientists as well as the popular culture embodiment of the “mad scientist” archetype.
The Discovery Channel is actually developing a series that focuses on Tesla's Death Ray, which is sure to be fascinating. You can read more information on that here.
What do you think about Ethan Hawke playing Tesla?