Copyright 1997 Southam Inc.   The Gazette (Montreal) October 18, 1997, Saturday, FINAL EDITION SECTION: ART & ENTERTAINMENT; Pg. G9 LENGTH: 504 words HEADLINE: Carver shares dream: Tries to solve mystery of flight as Leonardo da Vinci BYLINE: JAMIE PORTMAN; SOUTHAM NEWSPAPERS; SOUTHAM NEWS DATELINE: TORONTO BODY: Brent Carver won a coveted Broadway Tony Award for his performance in Kiss of the Spider Woman as an imprisoned gay window dresser with a passion for old movies. That portrayal made him the toast of Broadway, but it's characteristic of Carver that after doing the show for 18 months in New York and London, he was ready to return to Canada. He abandoned the bright lights and went back to doing what some people would call "little" projects: the Genie Award- winning Lilies, in which he dressed in drag to play a character called The Countess; the children's TV film Whiskers, in which he portrayed a cat who's transformed into a man; a sold-out one-man stage show at Toronto's Harbourfront; a critically acclaimed Cyrano de Bergerac for director Robin Phillips at Edmonton's Citadel Theatre; and the Toronto stage success, High Life, in which he played a morphine addict. These projects reflect Carver's eclectic tastes. But they also reveal an actor who is never drawn to a project simply by the size of the budget or the potential audience. Another major Broadway role is looming for Carver - reported to be in the upcoming new musical Parade - but right now the 46-year-old Canadian star would much rather talk about the pleasures of donning 15th-century Italian finery to portray a true Renaissance man in the new TV movie Leonardo: a Dream of Flight. The film, which airs tomorrow on the Family Channel, is the latest item from Toronto's Devine Entertainment Corporation, the production company responsible for such award-winning family movies as Beethoven Lives Upstairs, Bizet's Dream and Rossini's Ghost. For Carver, the role offered an opportunity to be part of one of Canada's great international success stories. Leonardo: a Dream of Flight was filmed on location in Italy. But the creative talent on the sumptuous-looking film is overwhelmingly Canadian. The director is veteran Allan King (Warrendale, Who Has Seen the Wind) and the designer is the Shaw Festival's Cameron Porteous. The screenplay is by award-winning TV and stage dramatist Raymond Storey. Joining Carver in the cast are such well-known Canadian actors as Cedric Smith, Leon Pownall and Brenda Bazinet. The da Vinci film is part of Devine's recently launched series of Inventors' Specials, which - like the earlier Composers series - seeks to bring to the screen a chapter in the life of a great figure in history. A recurring device in these movies is to view the historical character through the eyes of a young protege. In Leonardo: A Dream of Flight, it's a disabled 11-year-old (David Felton) who is determined to have a normal childhood and finds himself sharing da Vinci's obsession with solving the mystery of flight. "I really enjoy stories like this," Carver said, "and when I first read the script, I thought: 'This is really interesting. This young boy has this friendship with da Vinci - and who teaches whom what?' " - Leonardo: a Dream of Flight airs tomorrow at 7 p.m. on Family Channel. GRAPHIC: Photo: Brent Carver as da Vinci LANGUAGE: ENGLISH LOAD-DATE: October 19, 1997