Biscuits selected, coffees in hand, we sat down to hear about Leonardo Da Vinci and his demons…
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Tom Riley:Yeah.
She is, in a word, brilliant.]
Have I left anything out?
TR:No, I think youve covered all the answers Ive given all day!
Its playing the most mercurial, volatile, split-personality character I can imagine, its fantastic.
Hes the composite superhero isnt he?
[Another massive laugh from Laura]
LH:Also, it did stop didnt it?
And then you continued it…
TR:Youve forgotten the Tony Stark bit!.
The Renaissance Man…
TR:Yes.
And to achieve this stuff without seemingly doing any of the steps to get there.
LH:They did ask him to bend a bar in the auditions though.
TR:Which I could do.
All that kind of crazy stuff, people actually treated him with awe so its not a gigantic leap.
A mystery, is that how youd sum her up?
TR:A mistress, whos mysterious!
LH:A mysterious mistress!
There are so many things about her that we wont know until the series progresses.
TR:I just love watching you know you cant say it.
LH:[Shouts] I cant say anything!
Shes playing with her life essentially.
Shes similarly multi-faceted then, like Leonardo?
LH:She is.
TR:I think thats why they have such a meeting of minds, that connection.
He cant work her out.
TR:Well, minds and genitals…
He cant unravel her and that is whats fascinating to him about her.
TR:Certainly, there are certain elements of this that are similar.
LH:[Laughs]
TR:Well, I dont know, notso muchmembers of the Catholic church.
Have you heard about the gay sauna?
Yeah, didnt the Vatican accidentally buy a gay sauna?
Well, weve all been there.
TR:Thats like a parody, you couldnt make that up.
Thats season two sorted for you…
TR:Thats season two!
Leonardo and the gay sauna!
David Goyer said that he didnt think of this as TV but an eight-hour film.
Is that how it felt making it?
LH:We knew our journey from start to finish and beyond.
We could go to David and say Why is this happening at this point in series one episode four?
So its quite nice to know that youre not just throwing red herrings out there.
David presumably has seasons two and three and four all planned out then?
LH:In his mind, yes.
I think hes probably just got it all going on.
His is an amazing mind.
And youd be on board for future seasons should they come up?
TR:Oh yeah, absolutely.
And Ill be inMan of Steel 2!
Its one of those shows that you dont want to let go of.
TR:Everything.Everything.Cant tell you a thing though.
LH:[Laughing] I know nothing!
Just one thing, a small one?
Thats my headline sorted, thank you.
TR:Thats all hes told me.
TR:Its a Goya motif!
[Pause] This has all gone a bit wierd hasnt it?
Theyre of the figurative and literal variety arent they?
TR:Its a combination of things for Leonardo.
Very much his social status is a huge problem.
Its the Oppenheimer guilt thing for him I suppose?
TR:Yeah, exactly.
And the non-metaphorical demons?
Are we getting actual monsters?
TR:I wouldnt say that there are necessarily any real monsters.
Theres certainly a fantastical,potentiallysupernatural bent to the show.
We play with time in a way thats unusual, there are temporal things that dont seem quite right.
LH:You never quite know when hes hallucinating something or whether hes genuinely experiencing it.
TR:The Turk, a character you meet in episode one, hes kind of Obi-Wan.
Any Ewoks to speak of?
TR:Oh, weve got some Ewoks.
Theyre the things we cook and eat (under his breath) forruiningthe thirdStar Warsfilm.
Not on our site.
TR:Is that accepted?
Oh, thats an absolute given.
And David said, something thats inexplicable, so thats what the non-metaphorical demons are.
Tell us about the look of the thing, which is quite an unusual mix isnt it?
Its Lady Gaga-ish isnt it?
LH:Eighteen hundred chicken feathers all hand-stitched.
Theyre native to South Wales, red chickens?
TR:Not any more, we killed them all for that dress!
LH:And cooked and ate them again!
A bit like this chat then.
Tom Riley and Laura Haddock, thank you very much!
Read ourspoiler-free review of episode one, here, and ourinterview with Lara Pulver and Blake Ritson, here.
