A Weekend with Damian Lewis: Revisit

A revisit this week to a post that recently came up in conversation: Meeting Damian at the New Yorker Festival last year, ie the last year before last year. 🙂

Where do I even start with a retelling of the events of October 3, 2015, my first time seeing Damian Lewis in person? Seems like my experience was clouded by a fangirl fugue state that started when he first walked into the theater for his interview with Lauren Collins, reached a new crescendo with the Cleo reading, and didn’t let up until days later, when I could sit and recall it all in a moment of tranquility. As we were wrapping up our immersion into The Weekend with Damian Lewis provided by the New Yorker Festival, Damianista wanted to talk about how we would write about the events, who would write what, and when. Truthfully, I said, I could take that 90 minute interview and churn out a post about every 15 minute chunk of it. And that’s not even including the Green Room time, which in my fugue state felt like 5 minutes, but, in reality, I’m assured, was much longer. Such was the richness of the experience.

Granted, for the hard core Damian fans, there were several things we’d already read or heard him say before. But even those topics that had been touched upon over the years in one forum or another (eg Damian being told he got the Dick Winters role when he was still drunk from a night carousing in Santa Monica and his visit with President Obama) were retold under a fresh light. And how fresher a light can there be than when the subject of the interview is sitting less than five feet in front of you. Blazing light, to be perfectly honest.

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TOP Damian Lewis Moments 2016: Hand in Hand

“Marry someone you love and someone who you like. I am incredibly lucky. We are constantly apart and in stimulating situations; it’s feast or famine.” –Helen McCrory

source: Getty Images

It is no secret we adore this couple and we are extremely pleased to end this year — exactly like we did last year — with some TOP Damian & Helen moments 2016!

Well, it is obviously not easy to be two ridiculously talented actors living together and raising a family. I remember Damian telling us at Cheltenham Literature Festival that the problem never goes away:

“When you’re two actors living together, you’re always asked to do work away from your home, so you just have to decide which ones are important enough to go and do away from home and try to spend the rest of the time together.”

And that is exactly what Damian and Helen have done in 2016. Continue reading “TOP Damian Lewis Moments 2016: Hand in Hand”

Top Damian Lewis Moments 2016: Soccer Aid

What a match Soccer Aid 2016 at Old Trafford turned out to be! So much so that it makes it into our Top Moments of 2016 for Damian Lewis.

Sure as shootin’, England came ready to play, with energy, enthusiasm, and most of all, a truly united front. With the Rest of the World, they 1) raised a tidy sum for UNICEF, a wonderful cause helping children all over the world and 2) Gave us a beauty of a show over a muggy evening at the Old Trafford in Manchester.

Generated by IJG JPEG Library
Generated by IJG JPEG Library

Let’s look together at some highlights of the match, shall we? Oh, and, England took away the trophy, 3 – 2, just so you know. 🙂

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Top Damian Lewis Moments 2016: SAG-AFTRA Interview

So desirous are we to learn about the elusive nature of creativity that we’ll watch and listen with bated breath when someone who has been successful at living life as a creative person has something to say about the process and the choices he’s made to get to where he is today. One of Top Moments of this year was Damian Lewis chatting at the SAG-AFTRA Foundation with New York Magazine’s Hollywood editor, Stacey Wilson Hunt, about his career as an actor.
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TOP Damian Lewis Moments 2016:
Billions at PaleyLIVE New York

I cannot agree more with Variety critic Maureen Ryan who writes the following about Billions as she includes the show in her Best 20 New TV Shows of 2016 list:

source: Showtime

“Too many dramas these days, even modestly ambitious ones, mistake plodding glumness and a dour tone for seriousness of intent,” but Billions doesn’t make that mistake. Paul Giamatti, Damian Lewis, Malin Akerman, David Costabile and Maggie Siff all gave fierce, wry, committed performances as high rollers in the Manhattan financial elite, but “the most salient fact about Billions may be that it’s funny. Sarcastic asides, humorous insults and well-targeted quips are folded into it like truffles in a plate of handmade ravioli.”

Well, firstly, I approve this message as a huge truffle fan! And, secondly, believe me, it is truffle-level delicious to be in the same room with Billions cast and creators discussing the show. What an incredibly brilliant bunch! Lady Trader and I were very lucky to attend Billions Season 2 Sneak Peek and Discussion Panel at Paley Center in New York early December and we cannot thank enough for an hour full of intelligence, wit and laughter! Continue reading “TOP Damian Lewis Moments 2016:
Billions at PaleyLIVE New York”