His image has beamed out at us from posters, T-shirts and even mugs, transforming his name into handy shorthand for eccentric genius and ensuring that Albert Einstein is considered the original mad scientist, science’s first celebrity and, arguably, still its greatest.

Now an ambitious 10-part television series from National Geographic intends to dig deep into Einstein’s life, asking audiences to reconsider the father of relativity and see not just the genius, but the complicated, flawed and fascinating man. Genius: Albert Einstein, which stars Geoffrey Rush as the older Einstein and rising British star Johnny Flynn as the younger man, draws on Walter Isaacson’s acclaimed 2007 biography, Einstein: His Life and Universe, to paint a picture of a rebel and dreamer, a man who ploughed his own path through life not out of stubbornness or arrogance but because of the unique way in which he saw the world.

“My theory about him is that he was not an eccentric, isolated introvert,” says Ron Howard, the director. “I’ve always been really interested in Einstein and television seemed the place to do his story justice by being truthful and comprehensive yet also entertaining and engaging.”

Einstein “loved the world, he loved life, he loved nature, he loved women and most of all he loved the science of the physical world and what it meant”, says Howard. “The source of his genius was his willingness to trust question marks so that when he bumped up against conventional thinking he challenged it not aggressively but thoughtfully and thoroughly.”

His ability to connect and inspire more than 60 years after his death, and in fields far removed from his own, is what makes Einstein such an obvious choice for an in-depth television series, says Howard. Did he worry about falling into the traditional biopic trap of signposting the big moments? “The thing about Einstein is that his life story doesn’t really fit into a movie narrative,” says Howard. “Television allows us to take risks with the structure of the story by telling it in a nonlinear way. That shifting between the experiences of the older Einstein and the younger was really important to us – it lets people know that we weren’t trying to approach his life in a conventional or particularly safe way.”

Albert Einstein and his second wife Elsa in 1930. Photograph: Popperfoto/Getty Images

Rush agrees: “This isn’t a story with Eureka! moments,” he says. “There are so many little corners to this guy’s life and those are what the series is most interested to explore.”

Most of all it’s a series about personality. Isaacson’s book memorably describes Einstein as “a loner with an intimate bond to humanity, a rebel who was suffused with reverence” – it’s a description with which Flynn agrees. “When I read Isaacson’s book what struck me was his rebelliousness. He went to university off his own back because his father’s not really supporting and he’s proud in his identity,” he says. “He really knows who he is. At that stage in his university career he’s very charismatic – he’s more like [French poet] Rimbaud.”

Howard was also keen not to ignore the darker aspects of the scientist’s life: his failed first marriage, his issues with fidelity, the guilt he felt about surviving war when countless others didn’t, his complicated relationship with Judaism, his conflicted feelings over the development of the atomic bomb. The series is particularly good about Einstein’s relationships with his two wives: scientist Mileva Marić (played by Samantha Colley) whom he loved intensely but divorced in 1919, and Elsa (Emily Watson), his first cousin who appeared happy to play second fiddle to a genius, bolstering his ideas and helping to build his celebrity.

“They don’t shy away from the complexities of the relationship between Einstein and Mileva and how much she contributed to his early career,” says Colley. “She had such courage and determination and was a trailblazer for female education and a great scientist in her own right. Yet she ends up keeping house and becoming a mother and it’s sort of a death by a thousand cuts.

“The debates about how much she contributed to Albert’s work are particularly interesting because even now women are too often sidelined and don’t push for the credit they deserve.”

Marić’s sad trajectory from celebrated trailblazer to depressed housewife isn’t the only part of the Einstein story that the makers believe will strike a chord with modern viewers. “He’s living in a time when the world is moving to the right and totalitarianism is on the rise and global conflict is looming within another generation. It does resonate, absolutely,” says Rush.

Howard agrees. “When you think how close he came to not sharing his gifts with the world because of his religion, the politics of the time, the narrow-minded institutional thinking, the nationalism … it’s troubling that decades later those themes still feel so relevant.”

So too does Einstein’s celebrity status in later life, a celebrity that the scientist found thrust upon him rather than embracing. “There is this whole theme about how do you cope with becoming a celebrity, with being world famous and as much of a household name as Charlie Chaplin but you’re a theoretical scientist,” says Rush. “Stephen Hawking today is probably the closest example.”

National Geographic has conceived Genius as an anthology series with a new “genius” in the spotlight each season. Do they have an idea of who will be next? “We’re narrowing it down,” says Howard. “What made Einstein so perfect was that his life has so many surprises that allowed for a dramatically compelling and watchable tale.

“What I can say is we are looking for subjects where we can offer something fresh in the telling. We won’t always go for the most obvious choice.”

Genius: Albert Einstein begins on National Geographic at 9pm on 23 April