Damian Lewis: A Year at Home – Part I

While Damian is currently in NYC filming the rest of Billions Season 5, this past year has been different than any other for him (and for us all)! There was no filming, no theatre, no cheering for his beloved Liverpool at Anfield, no live concert or summer festival. But the good news is that the pandemic let Damian spend more time than ever with his family, let him make a lot of time for charity and let those of us on the other side of the pond catch our favorite actor in a few fabulous virtual performances! So it is my pleasure today to revisit the year Damian spent home. Continue reading “Damian Lewis: A Year at Home – Part I”

TOP Damian Lewis Moments 2020: Theater of War UK – Philoctetes

Whenever I’m compelled to watch or read or listen to something out of our place and time, something “foreign”, I’m sent back to ninth grade, to when I first learned to read. No doubt I’d been deciphering the alphabet strung into words and sentences long before I turned 14, but ninth grade is the time, I think, when we really learn to read, if given the chance. To look at meaning between the lines, find the metaphors and the messages connecting one story to another to yet another and then back to ourselves.

And I’m brought back to my ninth grade teacher asking us “why do we read?” Maybe she was provoked by someone sighing too loudly at an assignment or maybe even muttering under their breath “why do we have to read this stuff?” She asked the question of us all and waited. Someone likely said “to pass this class so we can get into college” or “to write the paper, take the test, get the grade.” These answers didn’t satisfy her, so she waited and asked us again “why do we read?”

Continue reading “TOP Damian Lewis Moments 2020: Theater of War UK – Philoctetes”

TOP Damian Lewis Moments 2020:
Theater of War UK – Oedipus

Wow, this pandemic, amirite? Depending on where you live you may be still hunkered down, resisting social gatherings, wearing masks whenever you go out. Maybe you’re somewhere where things are fully open and things are back to normal. For most of us, though, it’s certainly a new way of life. And, it may be with us much longer than anyone hoped it’d be.

Some of us are fortunate enough to have jobs that weren’t too affected, or actually took off, due to the nationwide lock down. (once folks can no longer mill around the water cooler in the office, they seem very keen to get stuff done. I sense in some industries, like tech, for example, productivity is at a record high) Too many of us haven’t been so lucky. And what about our artists, the stories that we need to watch, the performances that entertain and sustain us? Obviously they have been affected in a major way. Those in Damian’s profession are still learning how to get their work running again.

Continue reading “TOP Damian Lewis Moments 2020: Theater of War UK – Oedipus”

Damian Lewis as Philoctetes : Archetype of a Wounded Warrior

Whenever I’m compelled to watch or read or listen to something out of our place and time, something “foreign”, I’m sent back to ninth grade, to when I first learned to read. No doubt I’d been deciphering the alphabet strung into words and sentences long before I turned 14, but ninth grade is the time, I think, when we really learn to read, if given the chance. To look at meaning between the lines, find the metaphors and the messages connecting one story to another to yet another and then back to ourselves.

And I’m brought back to my ninth grade teacher asking us “why do we read?” Maybe she was provoked by someone sighing too loudly at an assignment or maybe even muttering under their breath “why do we have to read this stuff?” She asked the question of us all and waited. Someone likely said “to pass this class so we can get into college” or “to write the paper, take the test, get the grade.” These answers didn’t satisfy her, so she waited and asked us again “why do we read?”

Continue reading “Damian Lewis as Philoctetes : Archetype of a Wounded Warrior”

From Charity to Sports to Theatre: We Know What Damian Lewis Did During The Covid-19 Lockdown! *UPDATED*

I am going to have a summer.

This is how Damian promptly responded to a lady who asked him at The Goat stage door back in May 2017 about what he would be doing between The Goat and Billions, whose shoot would not start until September. And that was his first full summer with family since Damian constantly worked summers between 2011 while he was shooting Homeland to 2016 when they started shooting Billions shoot in July.

And he was probably pleased with the results that this is the fourth summer in a row Damian has spent with family but also the first he spent mostly at home, like the rest of us, due to Covid-19 pandemic. Damian was filming Billions in New York when the pandemic arrived in the US. As they took a break from filming mid-March, he came back home, and has had a spring and summer bookended by two important Covid-19 activities. Continue reading “From Charity to Sports to Theatre: We Know What Damian Lewis Did During The Covid-19 Lockdown! *UPDATED*”