musings about the actor and the characters he brings to life
One of the top war movies JaniaJania finds in the same league with Band of Brothers in her post on Damian Lewis as Dick Winters a few weeks ago was Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down.
Did you know that Damian Lewis was actually offered a part in Black Hawk Down after his big success as Dick Winters in Band of Brothers but he turned it down for The Forsyte Saga? Continue reading “Trivia Tuesday… From Dick Winters to Soames Forsyte”
As Damian Lewis is preparing for a wonderful comeback to stage this spring in David Mamet’s modern classic American Buffalo… I thought it would be cool to travel back in time and visit some earlier stage work Damian did. We may start with Hamlet which Damian calls a “growing up, coming of age experience ” in his career.
Damian Lewis did his Broadway debut in Hamlet, and played Laertes to Ralph Fiennes’ Hamlet in 1995. The Almeida Theatre production was staged first at Hackney Empire in March 1995, and after its successful run in London, it came to Broadway in the summer of 1995 — OMG, yes, exactly twenty years ago! Continue reading “Throwback Thursday with Hamlet on Broadway”
Vanity Fair has a series of videos and a special March issue about how the British actors have invaded — and maybe even conquered — Hollywood.
Well, Hollywood has always, and rightly so, admired and respected great British actors, say Jeremy Irons, Judi Dench, or Michael Kaine. But the on-going invasion is mostly done by a new generation of Brits who have now become “household names” in the US — some more than the others in my household 🙂 They sometimes fascinate us in British movies and TV shows, and sometimes play Americans in American movies and TV shows. And, thanks to their perfect American accents, some fans may actually find out much later that they are, in fact, British!
Just to drop a few names… some of them may be surprising! Let’s start with our own boy, Damian Lewis, but also Dominic West, Idris Elba, James Purefoy, Benedict Cumberbatch, Eddie Redmayne, Dan Stevens, James McAvoy, Tom Hiddleston… And, the ladies… Keira Knightley, Michelle Dockery, Amy Adams, Felicity Jones, Rosamund Pike, and many, many others. Continue reading “THAT Vanity Fair bit with Damian Lewis & Michelle Dockery GOT me thinking…”
As I told you earlier, I was at the Cheltenham Literature Festival in October 2014 for the very original and lovely event “Damian Lewis & Helen McCrory: Great Love Poems” followed by a book signing by Allie Esiri, the wonderful woman behind the Love Book, the Love Book app as well as the event, Damian Lewis and Helen McCrory. Continue reading “The Love Book… or You can do this at home :)”
UPDATE 03/24: Drumroll! Showtime has just picked up Billions as a series. The series will be in filmed in NY later this year for a 2016 premiere on the network!
This is what David Nevins, the President of Showtime says about Billions:
Congratulations to the entire cast and crew!
We’re waiting for you with open arms in New York!
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Well, it’s a challenge to catch up with Damian Lewis nowadays! In fact, he has collected quite a few frequent flier miles these couple of months on Transatlantic flights.
First, He was in LA for TCA Winter Press Tour for Wolf Hall, then he was in New York to shoot new Showtime Drama Pilot Billions. Then he was in Berlin for Queen of the Desert World Premiere at Berlinale 2015. Then he was in London to attend pre-BAFTA Charles Finch and Chanel dinner… Then he was again on a plane flying stateside. Continue reading “Damian Lewis is making Billions in NY! What do we know? What do we want to know? UPDATED”