Damian Lewis and Shakespeare

In the talk with Stacey Wilson Hunt at SAG-AFTRA Foundation last week, it is notable that Damian never had straight up formulaic answers for any of the excellent questions asked by the interviewer. He seemed to put some real thought into all his answers. Something struck out as requiring further exploration from that interview. When asked about the best advice he’d been given as an actor, Damian turned it around into a story of his biggest professional regret. Damian tells us that he was once offered a major role in a major Shakespeare production to be staged at the very major National Theatre by, as you can imagine, an appropriately superlative artistic director. In sharing this story, he provided a perfect instance of the notion that our biggest lessons come from our biggest mistakes.

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Damian in Between: Reserve Rope, Frankenstein, and WWE

In the time since Billions finished filming and we know Damian has been on break, it’s been interesting following the various projects he’s tackling back home across the pond. You hear of actors spending their series hiatuses well out of the public eye, on a beach somewhere, lounging away the days until filming starts again. Not Damian Lewis. The break from NYC and from Bobby Axelrod saw a Londoner doing London things, loving on his home town. Seems the only person to get the time off was Damian’s barber!

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Top Damian Lewis Moments 2015: Cleo at the New Yorker Festival

Damian Lewis
source: New Yorker

The holiday season seems a great time to watch new films and catch up with the waiting list. One film long on my list has been Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. I knew enough about the film and had seen enough clips to know it would not be the typical feel-good holiday watching. But I also knew enough about Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor’s history together that any film starring the two of them would be a scalding glimpse into their mad love story.

What does all this have to do with Damian Lewis, you wonder? Well, one of the Top Moments in 2015 for Damian Lewis was his reading the role of Richard Burton in Lawrence Wright’s Cleo at the New Yorker Film Festival in October. And because Damianista and I were there, front row center, it’s a TOP moment for us too! There we were rapt in attention as Damian belched his way into the script and, despite the fact that the show was simply a table reading, proceeded to channel the rude, sexy, and perpetually drunk Welshman to a tee.

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Cleo at New Yorker Festival 2015

After the interview with Lauren Collins on Saturday, the second event for Damian Lewis at this weekend’s New Yorker Festival was a play reading of Lawrence Wright’s Cleo, with Damian Lewis playing the part of Richard Burton to Lily Rabe’s Elizabeth Taylor.

We’re all pretty familiar with “le scandale” that brewed behind the set of the filming of the most expensive production of its time, right? Lawrence Wright’s script gives us a story built around the events of Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor’s combustible love affair during the filming of Hollywood blockbuster Cleopatra.

Damian Lewis, Lily Rabe
source: Hollywood Reporter

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