Johnny Flynn: ‘I tapped into my rebellious side to play a young Albert Einstein’

The 34-year-old actor stars in National Geographic's new show, Genius 
Iconic role: Geoffrey Rush (L) and Johnny Flynn both play Albert Einstein
Dave Benett
Jennifer Ruby8 May 2017
The Weekender

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Rising star Johnny Flynn has said that he relates to the ‘rebellious’ side of the young Albert Einstein that he plays in his new show, Genius.

The British actor and musician found himself able to understand the ‘hot and fiery’ side of the famed physicist during scenes where he clashes with his teachers at school.

“That was an aspect of his character that I related to,” he said. “I definitely asked too many questions of my teachers and was probably a bit facetious at times.

“I was trying to stir a reaction from them. Especially things that I didn’t understand, I wanted to break it down and make the person giving me this inherited knowledge open it up a bit more for me.”

Flynn, who starred opposite Anne Hathaway in 2013’s Song One and is the lead in Netflix show Lovesick, plays the genius during his early years in the new National Geographic series.

In character: Shannon Tarbet as Marie Winteler and Johnny Flynn as young Albert Einstein
National Geographic/Robert Viglasky

“I think they’d done a brilliant job with the scripts and the first episode that I got, written by Noah Pink, really leant on an aspects of his character as a young man that were quite rebellious,” he said.

“I was like ‘Ahh this isn’t the settled, bourgeois, absent-minded archetypal professor that we know. This is a hot fiery, passionate man’. So I thought ‘I’m going to forget who I think he is.’”

Oscar-winner Geoffrey Rush plays Einstein as an older man, and worked with Flynn to try and develop a similarity between the two versions.

“We actually did a workshop together with one of Johnny’s former tutors at Central School here in London,” said Rush.

“We walked together and tried to imitate where the centre of gravity might be, how does he change from being at teenager to his 20s and what’s he like in middle age.”

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Rush said that the pair ‘interviewed each other’ ahead of filming during an ‘invaluable’ workshop.

“It was workshop material but kind of invaluable because it made us think about separate responsibilities in the shoot. We had to find our voice and work with a voice coach,” he said.

Flynn found that the scenes involving Einstein’s decision renounce his German citizenship and become officially stateless in 1896 were ‘timely’.

“The production began development long before they knew about things like the UK Brexit referendum and the US Trump election and things like that, but the more we went into it we realised that it was quite timely,” he said.

“He was a man for our times and that’s why we’re telling this story. “

Genius is on National Geographic on Friday at 8pm.

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