Which actor played Nikola Tesla in Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige?

David Bowie played Nikola Tesla in Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige.

Bowie appears as the Serbian-American inventor during the film’s later storyline, when Robert Angier seeks Tesla’s help with a machine connected to his increasingly dangerous stage act. The casting gave the inventor an unusual screen presence and linked the film’s theatrical rivalry to real scientific history.

The Prestige was released in 2006 and stars Hugh Jackman as Angier and Christian Bale as Alfred Borden, rival magicians in Victorian London. Michael Caine plays their engineer and stage assistant, John Cutter, while Scarlett Johansson portrays Olivia Wenscombe.

Tesla was a real inventor who worked in electricity and alternating-current systems. The movie uses his historical identity within a fictional plot, and its machine is a science-fiction element rather than a documented Tesla invention. Bowie died in 2016, several years after his performance in the film.