NotLinda Interviews Damianista about Fan Fun with Damian Lewis

Dear Damianista!

Thanks so much for the gift of Damian! I enjoyed your interview with him and that gave me a fun idea for Fan Fun! I’ve composed interview questions for YOU!

I’m certain we fans are also curious about the woman who curates the website.

So here is my interview “Fan Fun With Damianista.”

Hello Damianista, thank you for sitting down with us for a few questions. First I must point out that I was positively prescient when I described you years ago as a “pal” to Damian, over your objections!  “Of course I’m right, Bahar.”

Shall we?

Not Linda: I, of course, was pleased to hear you chime in “Brody!” when Damian was referring to favorite characters; that leads me to wonder how has that character changed for you with time? How has your relation to him changed?

Damianista: Firstly, my dear NotLinda, thank you so much for being such a good friend to me and a constant supporter and a brilliant contributor to Fan Fun over the years. You and I bonded over our love for Brody and long-time Fan Fun readers know that everything started with him for me. Oh, yes, Damian knows it, too!

I LOVE Nicholas Brody. He is, by far, my all-time favorite fictional character. A character that could get close is Sydney Carton in Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. Now that I am thinking about it, it is quite incredible both characters meet their ends in similarly heart-breaking circumstances. I think Brody’s last thoughts could well be very similar to Carton’s last words: “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”

I don’t think my relationship with Brody has changed over the years. I still haven’t watched the execution scene despite many fans and Damian telling me to do so and I’m totally in denial about Brody’s death. Yes, I know that Javadi tells Carrie that he picked a shady nice spot in a forest of pine trees for Brody’s remains in Season 6 but we’ve never seen a dead body, have we?

So, as I also shared with Damian after his gig in Leeds back in October, I believe that Brody is alive and well. He lives in Iran. And guess what? He has found new love 🙂 Her name is Bahar, a perfectly legitimate Persian name, and she looks exactly like me… end of story! And here is yours truly telling Damian this fantasy as he is signing my favorite Brody photo in Leeds (thank you, Darlene, for printing that photo for me!)

Look at the signed photo below. Is there any chance my relationship to Brody may change in the years to come? I’m stuck 🙂

NotLinda: Has Brody ever been in danger of being supplanted by another perhaps longer running character?

Damianista: NEVER.

Bobby Axelrod is the longest-running character in Damian’s acting career. And I was super excited when we called it before everyone else that Damian would return to Billions for Season 7. Because I love Billions. It’s such a smart and entertaining show. I had so much fun catching Damian on the set over the years, I had so much fun writing episode reviews every week – pulling all-nighters for the first couple of seasons. I even wrote a Billions book for God’s sake! I genuinely believe no other Billions fan had as much fun as I had with the show. But I’ve never had the kind of feelings I have for Brody for Bobby.

Bobby is such a larger-than-life character, most characters in Billions are, and this makes the show delightful. And there are more than a few things that I like about Bobby: His blue collar background, his loyalty to his friends and his respect for his adversaries, and above all, the fact that he knows who he is and does pretend that he is a great guy. But he is not someone I would ever fall for. I am as surprised as Damian that many viewers idolize Bobby.

Let me put it this way: I don’t think there would have been a Fan Fun with Damian Lewis if there had been no Nick Brody. Brody changed my life.

NotLinda: How do you arrange your schedule to be present at so many gigs and performances?

Damianista: As the very wise Bobby Axelrod has said, “you get one life, so do it all.” I have made it my life motto 🙂

Joke aside, I’m a nerd, I take everything I do very VERY seriously. Fan Fun is no exception. I’m honored that Damian and his people make me feel part of the team and I am trying my very best to support him.

Most of Damian’s gigs taking place in the UK requires a bit of planning! But thank God I don’t have a 9 to 5 job. Teaching at university is not trivial but it is flexible. It allows you to take short trips anytime except for when you need to be in the classroom. I have been extremely lucky that I never had to travel on a day that I needed to teach, but it may of course happen in the future. But we typically know about the performance dates a month or two earlier, so I think it would be possible to make some arrangements in that case, too.

NotLinda: Is Lewisto the saint he appears to be or have you worked a spell on him?

Damianista: I would never have started fan Fun if Lewisto had not encouraged me. I will never forget him saying:

“Some people love golf. You love Damian Lewis. What’s the difference?”

Right?!?!

Have I ever told you Lewisto named the blog, too?  He said:

“You are a big fan and you will be doing this for fun so why not call it Fan Fun with Damian Lewis?”

And I ran with it.

Lewisto is the best thing that has ever happened to me. You call him a “saint” I call him “the love of my life and my best friend.” I can’t thank him enough for always accommodating me, even in my craziest endeavors like Fan Fun, making everything in life better, funnier and happier! We’ve been together for almost three decades now and I want so much more!

NotLinda: How would you rank Damian’s performances high to low just in terms of your personal preference?

Damianista: This is a very difficult question since there are so many performances to choose from. So maybe I should just rank Damian’s top five performances in terms of my personal preferences.

Martin Gray in The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? It is a huge challenge for a stage actor to convince live audience that he’s in love with a goat and Damian was utterly believable as Martin!

Soames Forsyte in The Forsyte Saga  Making the unlovable likable is a true accomplishment in my book. I love Soames!

Oh, and last but not the least, I have my excellent blog mates, former and current, who have always come up with brilliant ideas that we’ve turned into collective posts or post series. Our first Fun Fun community project “How did you become a Damian Lewis Fan?” came out of a subway conversation with Lady Trader.

It was Hollidazzle who offered to write a “Fan Fun Holiday Gift Giving Guide“. You and JaniaJania digged deep into Brody and Carrie relationship in a series of posts and also contributed Homeland fan fictions. Gingersnap came up with the wonderful idea of choosing Billions episode MVPs which we collectively did on Wednesdays for a couple of seasons. And she recently came up with the idea of a post in which we collectively talked about our favorite songs on Damian’s debut album Mission Creep. And, hey, you have just come up with these brilliant interview questions! The list is endless. I am very lucky to have the best teammates ever!

NotLinda: What message do you want to send to all your fans?

Damianista: My fans?!?! Come on, I don’t think I have fans. But I know that I am surrounded by so many wonderful Damian Lewis fans who have been reading us, following us, reposting us. I have had the pleasure of making friends with many of them over the years and I have been lucky enough to meet some of them in person at Damian’s theatre performance and lately at his music gigs.

Their kind words, encouraging remarks, beautiful messages keep me going and going. So I thank the fandom from the bottom of my heart for making my wildest dreams come true – making Fan Fun a success story! I feel VERY lucky.

NotLinda: Thank you for sitting down with us, Bahar, and for all you’ve done for the many years and for the many fans of Damian. And for the man and his family.

Damianista: It’s been a pleasure to answer your questions. And it’s been a pleasure doing all the work. It has given me so much joy!