---
title: "Nikola Tesla in popular culture"
chunk: 4/5
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla_in_popular_culture"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:04:56.506096+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

== Stage productions ==
A number of live theatrical plays based on Tesla's life have been produced and staged worldwide.

=== Opera ===
Australian composer Constantine Koukias's two-act opera Tesla - Lightning in His Hand, about the life and times of Nikola Tesla, premiered at the 10 Days on the Island Festival in Hobart, Tasmania, in 2003.
Violet Fire is an opera centered on Tesla, with score by Jon Gibson and libretto by Miriam Seidel.  It premiered on July 9-15, 2006 at the National Theater in Belgrade, as part of the celebration of Tesla's 150th birthday.
The 2021 opera Les Éclairs, by Philippe Hersant, is based on a fictionalized version of Tesla's biography; the Tesla figure is named 'Gregor'.

== Television ==

=== Appearances ===
Nikola Tesla was a Yugoslav TV series in 1977 which featured Rade Šerbedžija as Tesla, as well as Mustafa Nadarević, Špiro Guberina, Izet Hajdarhodžić, Ljuba Tadić, Ivo Serdar, and a number of other nationally renowned actors.
Tesla: Master of Lightning, a 2003 documentary by Robert Uth, featuring Stacy Keach as the voice of Tesla.
Tesla was a crucial character in the pilot episode, "Power" (January 20, 2008), of Canadian television period drama Murdoch Mysteries, in "The Tesla Effect" (June 13, 2010), episode 13 of season 3, in "Murdoch and the Undetectable Man" (January 28, 2019), episode 13 of season 12, and in "Staring Blindly into the Future" (January 13, 2020), episode 11 of season 13. He was played in all episodes by Canadian Ukrainian actor Dmitry Chepovetsky.
In Sanctuary (2008), a fictional version of Tesla is revealed to have been transformed into a semi-vampire as a result of being injected with vampire blood. He appears to be one of the primary antagonists of the series' first season, but becomes more friendly later on. He is played by actor Jonathon Young.
In one of the "Drunk History" series of comedy sketches, Duncan Trussell while intoxicated tells a story of Nikola Tesla's life and his encounters with Thomas Edison. Tesla is portrayed in the reenactment by John C. Reilly while Thomas Edison is portrayed by Crispin Glover.
He is referenced many times on the show Ancient Aliens including an episode called "The Tesla Experiment".
In 2015, Tesla was a pivotal figure in a science fiction series with four episodes, Nikola Tesla and the End of the World. In 2019, a second season was picked up by CBC Gem. Paul O'Neill plays Tesla. The series won or was nominated for several indie film awards, including grand prize at the Los Angeles New Media Film Festival, 2020.
The fourth episode of Doctor Who’s series 12 aired in 2020, "Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror", featured Nikola Tesla as portrayed by Goran Višnjić.
A 2018 non-fiction series on the History Channel called The Tesla Files is based on the life and mysteries surrounding the work of inventor Nikola Tesla.
Season 4 Episode 10 of MacGyver features John Ales as Tesla, both in a 1922 prologue and an induced dream state MacGyver uses to "meet" Tesla and glean clues to the location of a "superweapon" Tesla built.

=== Allusions ===
On a 2006 episode of MythBusters titled "Earthquake Machine", hosts Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman debunked the claim that Tesla's oscillator could be used to create an earthquake.

== Video games ==
Tesla's proposal of teleforce weapons and the destructive possibilities of massive electric arcs created by tesla coils have inspired many video game designers to incorporate Tesla weapons and armors.
The asymmetrical  horror multiplayer game Identity V developed by Netease released a character named Luca Balsa ( also known as "the Prisoner" ) who shares the same birthday as Tesla.  In game, Balsa is characterized as a young and aspiring inventor working as an apprentice under Alva Lorenz, who shares his name with the middle name of Thomas Edison. The two worked together until they had an argument, resulting in Lorenz's accidental death and Balsa's imprisonment.