We’re very much looking forward to welcoming Homeland star Damian Lewis to Aberglasney for the official opening of the mansion this Saturday (May 25th). You don’t need tickets to attend simply pay on the gate as usual! The day will very much be a celebration of this important restoration project with music throughout the day including performances from Shan Cothi and Elin Wyn Murphy. There’s more information on our website www.aberglasney.org Hope to see you on Saturday!

Source: Aberglasney Gardens Facebook

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Damian Lewis and Helen McCrory

The Josephine Hart Poetry Hour – The Romantics

Event 474 • Wednesday 29 May 2013, 4pm • Venue: Barclays Pavilion

The husband and wife actors read a programme of Byron, Keats and Shelley. McCrory’s credits include Charles II: The Power And The Passion, The Queen,the Harry Potter movies and Skyfall. Lewis’ screen work includes Band of Brothers, The Forsyte Saga and Homeland. Josephine’s commentary will be read by Lisa Dwan.

Source: HayFestival.org

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A household name both sides of the Atlantic, Damian Lewis came to international prominence starring in Band of Brothers, furthering his reputation in The Forsyte Saga, Life and numerous stage plays.

A consummate actor of theatre, film and television, his recent triumph in Homeland won him a Golden Globe and an Emmy. In a great scoop for Epigram, he granted me an exclusive interview. I tried to uncover a few pearls of wisdom from the most exciting British actor of the moment. For many students staring nervously into the precipice of recession unemployment, Damian Lewis’ characters seem unrealistically cool and successful. Decisive and worldly, these soldiers, cops, business executives and assassins don’t rely on others. I asked him what advice he would offer graduates making their way in the world. But his own life wisdom is refreshingly clear. ‘Work hard, play hard,’ he summarises deftly. ‘Understand what makes you happy and do it.’

Such an approach has clearly served him well: he has dined with the U.S. President and been directed by Steven Spielberg. But his drive is evident. ‘I still think I’m trying to make it. A bit like chasing one’s tail. Not healthy, but part of the condition.’ Modest, certainly, but that attitude betrays the aspirations of a winner. I suspect that he does not consider sitting on his laurels to be a viable option. If he retired from acting today, he said that his dream job would be teaching. Well, an audience is an audience.

Rest assured, even someone as successful as Damian Lewis can encounter bumps on the road. ‘The cold sweat you get on stage the moment you know you have absolutely no idea what to say next haunts me in my dreams,’ he observes. Famously, his eyebrow was slashed open by Ralph Fiennes during a performance of Hamlet. Pretty awkward, but dramatic at least. ‘Worst moment though was when I was at The RSC. and heard my cue over the tannoy system. I was still in my dressing room four floors up and quite literally skidded to a halt at the end of my hysterical dash on to the stage. The other actors were pacing up and down. If looks could kill…’

As a notorious master of accents, perhaps mimicry is effortless. I wondered if there was any accent he had struggled to perfect. ‘I played football with Paul Gascoigne for a week and spent every moment I wasn’t with him trying to be him. I sounded mad. But then so does he. That was Geordie.’ I guess he won’t be adding The Pitmen Painters to his CV any time soon.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that to reach the top of your game you must be an arrogant prima donna. In order to prepare for a role, Damian Lewis declares that he has ‘no rituals. Just quiet time on my own when I need it.’ Neither does fame seem to have gone to his head. I am confident that he keeps Balotelli-style antics to a minimum, but surely, I joked, there are some inescapable consequences? ‘I haven’t burnt anyone’s house down if that’s what you mean…’ That fame has not created a pyromaniac is certainly reassuring for his neighbours. Indeed, the single role from cinematic history which he would most like to have played is reassuringly respectful to an historic masterpiece of acting: ‘Ben Braddock in The Graduate.’ Homeland might be Damian Lewis’ biggest success to date, and certainly is in terms of awards. The tense storylines leave many viewers desperate to uncover what happens next. Does he tell anyone what happens before it airs? ‘My wife. Leave her alone.’ You heard him.

Despite a significant number of interviews, there is never a great deal of personal information about the avid Liverpool FC. fan in the press. I wondered if he draws on this ability to play his cards close to his chest when portraying the mercurial Sergeant Brody. ‘Brody doesn’t know who he is anymore. He’s become a kind of sociopath, extremely adept at compartmentalising. Every actor needs a bit of this.’

Homeland flags some contemporary political issues, such as nationalism, power relations and the nature of war. Does its leading man think that mass entertainment can convey serious political messages? ‘Yes I do. Especially in long form drama.’

Acting aside, his performances in charity football match Soccer Aid proved solid. When I asked him which celebrity he considers to have been the worst player, he named Alastair Campbell. It just goes to show: follow Damian Lewis’ example, and you too could outplay the most powerful opponent.

Source: Epigram

Damian Lewis attended Lord’s England v New Zealand cricket match on May 17th. Click here for BBC Radio 5′s Test Match Special interview with Damian (almost 27 minutes). ECB also has a short interview below:

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EXCLUSIVE: Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson to exec-produce love story starring Andrea Riseborough and Damian Lewis, due to get underway this summer.

Oblivion and Shadowdancer star Andrea Riseborough is to star alongside Homeland’s Damian Lewis in love story The Silent Storm, which WestEnd will be presenting to buyers in Cannes.

James Bond producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli of Eon Productions will executive produce and finance the drama, which is produced by Moon co-producer Nicky Bentham of Neon Films.

BIFA-nominated director Corinna Villari-McFarlane has written and will direct the feature about an enigmatic outsider, played by Riseborough, living on a remote Scottish island who is caught between her commanding husband (Lewis) and a 17 year-old delinquent.

Principal photography is due to get underway this summer in Scotland.

Marc Samuelson, Steve Milne and Hani Farsi are also executive producers and financiers on the project alongside Transparent Film Financing.

“It is very exciting to me to be working with Corinna, a director who has a fresh female voice and a strong creative vision”, said Broccoli, whose Eon makes a rare foray into a non-Bond production. “Her inspiring script has attracted two of Britain’s most talented actors and we believe that she will make a powerful film”

On the question of whether Eon would be looking to produce more non-Bond features in the near-future, the outfit told Screen: “We’re always interested in the potential of other projects whether it’s feature film, documentary or theatre, it just so happens we’ve been focusing more on theatre recently with the musical Once on Broadway and now in London.

“The timing on The Silent Storm has worked out well for us, we’re always excited to discover fresh British talent, Corinna is a really inspiring young female director with an incredible vision and her superb script has so far been attracting a fantastic British cast and crew.”

Source: ScreenDaily.com

Click below for pics of Damian Lewis at the BAFTA TV Awards at The Royal Festival Hall on Sunday, May 12th in London. Damian and David Harewood presented the award for Drama Series.

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The 10-part Book at Bedtime series A Delicate Truth will begin broadcast this week Monday-Friday from 10:45-11:00pm on BBC Radio 4. John le Carre’s novel “about a good man who must choose between his conscience and his duty to the Service” is read by Damian Lewis. The episodes will be made available to listen to at the BBC website for 7 days after broadcast. We’ll try to upload the series to the Media archive. Update: Downloads are now available at the Media Archive.

‘It would be so brilliant if I was actually a spy!” Damian Lewis is in a basement somewhere under Soho. There’s a new le Carré out and when Radio 4’s Book at Bedtime was casting around for a reader, who else could they turn to but the Emmy-winning star of Homeland? “My front as an actor,” he adds, “is going really well.”

It really is. Lewis was by no means the first to be cast as a spy, but more than any actor apart from Daniel Craig, he is now indissolubly linked with espionage. It seems to have infiltrated his manner of interacting with the world. “We’re being monitored in a bunker,” he says, as a BBC publicist sits down to listen in.

We edge into a discussion of le Carré’s A Delicate Truth, the abridgement of which Lewis has just spent three days recording. The story, he advises, “has a terrific opening which happens in a little bit of British soil somewhere else not in Great Britain”. As in Gibraltar? The plot précis is all over the media, I tell him. “Gib,” he confirms, tersely.

Lewis came to le Carré through boys’ own tales. “My first recollection was sun-stained copies of Smiley’s People and The Spy Who Came In From the Cold at home. I flicked through them as a follow-on from Fleming and Franklin W Dixon’s The Hardy Boys and Desmond Bagley, Alistair MacLean and Willard Price. I really had not had anything to do with him for about 20 years and then, doing Homeland, it was clear there were many similarities, so I’ve just been dipping in and out on the loo.”

Is the actor who plays the war hero who would be US vice-president sure that he wants to reveal where his reading takes place? “I don’t see why not. Whether David Cornwell [le Carré’s real name] will be happy with people thumbing his texts while in the throne room I’m not sure.”

Source: Telegraph

Here’s a short review from the Radio Times.

Damian Lewis and Helen McCrory attended the Olivier Awards at The Royal Opera House in London on Sunday. Click below for pictures from the event.

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Thanks to Ali for the clip!

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Thanks to Ali for the scans!

The Emmy winner tells THR about his Sundance London collaboration with the automaker and his decision to put a humorous spin on the Bond-esque hero: “There’s not a lot of comedy in ‘Homeland.’”

The kind of TV affection that Damian Lewis has earned since Homeland premiered tends to come with a high-profile endorsement deal — preferably for an automaker.

Many of the of Emmy and Golden Globe winner’s contemporaries are partnered with some of the big ones. Dexter star Michael C. Hall narrates Dodge ads, Mad Men’s Jon Hamm is the voice of Mercedes-Benz and co-star John Slattery can frequently be seen behind the wheel of a Lincoln.

But Lewis strays from the pack in his elaborate production for Jaguar. He doesn’t provide a voice over, and you won’t see 30 second spots airing during ad breaks for SportsCenter. Lewis’ Jaguar commercial is a 12-minute movie produced by Ridley Scott’s advertising company.

Desire, being screened as a part Sundance London’s 2013 programming, premieres in its official venue, YouTube, on Wednesday.

“It sort of fell into my lap,” the London-born actor tells The Hollywood Reporter. “I’ve never done anything for the online market before, and I just thought it was cool to work with Ridley Scott and [director] Adam Smith. I thought the script had a kind of nod to the Americana that you find in the Coen brothers’ movies.”

In Desire, Lewis plays Clark, a man who encounters difficulties in his attempts to deliver a Jaguar F-TYPE to a rather shady man who’s at odds with a mysterious young woman (Shannyn Sossamon). The lawless, Coen-esque desert depicted film required a five-day shoot in Chile for Lewis — who says he had a somewhat lighter read of the character that some might be quick to brush off as a James Bond homage.

“I thought he had quirky voice and actually I might have pushed comedy a bit further because I found him as sort of a comedic character,” says Lewis. “At times there’s an oddly hapless quality to him, and I quite liked that. He wasn’t just a stereotypical monosyllabic hero. I think I went a little bit to Cary Grant, David Niven and these famous British movie stars of the past. There’s something very British about them which I tried to evoke.”

That humor is another thing Lewis’ says attracted him to the project. His next film credit is Lord Capulet in a new adaptation of definitive downer Romeo and Juliet, and as Lewis is quick to point out: “There’s not a lot of comedy in Homeland.”

Those more familiar with Lewis’ biggest U.S. credits — Homeland, NBC’s Life, HBO’s Band of Brothers — also get the less common sound of the actor’s natural accent throughout the short. Though what couldn’t be further from London is Desire’s South American locale.

“It’s dry as hell,” says Lewis, who’s grown used to Homeland’s humid North Carolina set. “Dust and sand and dirt get into your eyes, and your lips crack. As a redhead, I stood there occasionally thinking, “Wow, I really wasn’t designed for the desert.’ But it is an extraordinary landscape to shoot in.”

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

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Daily Mail – The new transporter! Forget Jason Statham… Damian Lewis stylishly delivers in Jaguar’s short film Desire