Throwback Thursday to Tom Hanks
Surprising Damian Lewis on his 30th Birthday

source: WWD.com

February 11 is a special day, well, at least for us: Damian’s 53rd Birthday. We will kick off the festivities soon so stay tuned and join us today for a fun trip back to Damian’s 30th Birthday!

We all know Tom Hanks played a major role in making Damian an internationally known actor. We blogged earlier about how Spielberg and Hanks cast Damian Lewis as Dick Winters in Band of Brothers.

source: tircuit.com
source: tircuit.com

Damian tells Independent that, once he was cast for the role, he had the opportunity to hang out with Steven Spielberg as well as Tom Hanks for a while, and in his own words, got to know, “what kids they are.” 🙂 Continue reading “Throwback Thursday to Tom Hanks Surprising Damian Lewis on his 30th Birthday”

Prop Improv with Damian Lewis – Redux

According to Wikipedia, a prop, formally known as theatrical property, is an object used on stage or screen by actors during a performance or production. In practical terms, a prop is considered to be anything movable or portable on a stage or a set, distinct from the actors, scenery, costumes, and electrical equipment. Based on that definition, clothing, shoes, hats or scarves would typically be out of play, but we are going to bend the rule just a bit and allow it! Interesting enough, consumable food items appearing in a production could be considered props, too.

So you know what all this means? It’s game time! Name three stage or screen props you would most like to own from the set of any of Damian’s theatre, film or television series and explain why. As an added bonus, some of us came up with an original or funny use of the prop, without using the prop the way it was intended. Let’s play Prop Improv with Damian Lewis.

Continue reading “Prop Improv with Damian Lewis – Redux”

It’s Veterans Day! We Salute Major Dick Winters – The Rank and The Man

Today is Veterans Day – a day of honoring all men and women that served in the United States armed forces. And it gives us a great opportunity to salute all war heroes, and in particular Major Dick Winters and Easy Company.

I know a thing or two about war. My day job is to study and understand war. I have written academic articles on war, I have taught on war… and even though I can write about war for pages and talk about it for hours as a scholar, the human cost of war is still incomprehensible to me.

Let me take a moment and look at my own family. My maternal grandmother never knew her father because he was a soldier in WWI in the Eastern Front in Turkey, and he literally froze because of the cold as he fought against the Russians. My paternal grandmother never knew her father, either; because he was also a soldier in WWI and was killed by a shrapnel in Gallipoli as he fought against the Anzacs. Continue reading “It’s Veterans Day! We Salute Major Dick Winters – The Rank and The Man”

From Dick Winters to Steve McQueen: The “American” Damian Lewis

“This sounds absurdly pretentious, but the American Damian, I’m sort of oddly comfortable with him.” – Damian Lewis

A Guardian article from July 2015 talks about Brits versus Yanks in Hollywood:

The invasion of British and Irish leading men in Hollywood has now gone beyond a joke for many in the American entertainment industry. First noticed some time in 2011, the trend was initially dismissed as a novelty: an interesting phase that would pass, rather than as a threat. But this summer actors and directors are calling for action to mobilise American drama teachers and schools to counter it.”

So Hollywood has finally taken notice and is now somehow mobilizing to defend its territory against the British invasion 😀 Well, maybe it is too little too late at this point? I mean, it is not that the Brits are coming, but they have already arrived. Besides, Vanity Fair says “victory is assured” in the video clip below, with fabulous ginger alert at 0:29, about which I blogged about earlier here! Continue reading “From Dick Winters to Steve McQueen: The “American” Damian Lewis”

On the 79th Anniversary of D-Day: Band of Brothers Episode 2 “Day of Days”

source: HBO

On June 6, 1944, more than 160,000 allied troops landed along a 50-mile stretch of heavily-guarded French coastline to fight the Nazis on the beaches of Normandy. Today, on the 79th anniversary of D-day, we are revisiting Band of Brothers Episode 2 “Day of Days” in honor and memory of all men and women who contributed to the victory in WWII. We are eternally grateful. Continue reading “On the 79th Anniversary of D-Day: Band of Brothers Episode 2 “Day of Days””