The Current War, the Nikola Tesla movie that is somehow not about Nikola Tesla, has finally cast Nikola Tesla. At least we know he’s in this movie for sure. In a rather brilliant piece of casting, Nicholas Hoult will be playing Tesla, the genius inventor caught between two litigious businessmen, Thomas Edison (Benedict Cumberbatch), and George Westinghouse (Michael Shannon, replacing Jake Gyllenhaal). Less brilliantly, the movie continues to focus on the patent battle between Edison and Westinghouse and not on Tesla, whose story is that of a persecuted genius and ends with one of the smartest people who has ever lived in love with a pigeon.
Hoult is a perfect choice to play Tesla. This is young, sharp Tesla, who was relatively together despite some evidence that he suffered from fairly serious OCD, at the height of his power as an inventor. It’s easy to see Hoult as a mad scientist type—we’ve already seen a little of that in his portrayal of Hank McCoy/Beast in the X-Men movies—and he’s tall and handsome like Tesla was. But Hoult also has a delicateness about him, and Tesla did not possess the strongest constitution, so it’s smart to cast someone who can project that vulnerability. If only they would make Tesla the focus of the movie, and not the businessmen who were mean to each other in the press. (Source)
Attached: Nicholas Hoult at a London Fashion Week show on September 19, 2016 in London.
