ETHAN HAWKE IS TESLA
The Brilliant and Bizarre Inventor
In writer/director Michael Almereyda’s upcoming biopic Tesla, Ethan Hawke plays the brilliant inventor. The movie will follow Tesla’s feud with fellow inventor Thomas Edison (Kyle MacLachlan), his relationship with J.P. Morgan’s (Donnie Keshawarz) daughter Anne (Eve Hewson), and his discoveries in transmitting electrical power and light. For those not already familiar with Nikola Tesla, he was a Serbian-American inventor and electrical engineer. He developed an induction motor that ran on alternating current (AC). Tesla’s championing of AC was widely resisted by Thomas Edison, who had his own system running on direct current (DC).
Tesla premiered on January 27, 2020 at the Sundance FIlm Festival, and was quickly acquired for distribution rights by IFC Films. According to early reviews, which have been mostly positive, while the film is a biopic, it does not follow the traditional biopic formula. The film uses fourth-wall breaking and anachronistic music. For example, one scene has Tesla singing the Tears for Fears song “Everybody Wants to Rule the World”, which certainly was not around in his lifetime.
In addition to Hawke, MacLachlan, Hewson, and Keshawarz, the film stars Jim Gaffigan (Chappaquiddick), Hannah Gross (Mindhunter), Josh Hamilton (Eighth Grade), Ebon Moss-Bachrach (Girls), and James Urbaniak (Where’d You Go, Bernadette).
Tesla will be released on August 21, 2020. Watch the trailer above.
