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Damian Lewis Gets His Movie Star Moment – Apr 17, 2019

The Billions Star Tells Playboy About Wealth, Mixed Morals and Playing Steve McQueen For Tarantino

by Daniel Barna | Playboy | April 16, 2019

Damian Lewis is not American, but he plays one on TV. In fact, he’s played many. Since breaking out as the gutsy U.S. soldier Dick Winters in Steven Spielberg’s sprawling World War II miniseries Band of Brothers, the London native has almost exclusively built his career on exploring this country’s rich history of heroes and villains. After the singularly heroic Winters, Lewis muddied the moral waters with Homeland’s Nicholas Brody, another Army man whose allegiances were tested after returning home from an extended stint as a prisoner of al-Qaeda.

Showtime had originally planned to kill Sgt. Brody off in season one, but Lewis’ role as the POW-turned-terrorist became so integral to the show’s DNA that the network decided to keep him around until season three, no matter how many rules of logic they needed to bend along the way. The performance earned Lewis an Emmy and a Golden Globe, and made him one of television’s biggest stars. It also showcased Lewis’ preternatural ability to play men steeped in moral ambiguity.

So when it came time to cast the lead for its glossy new prestige drama set in the high-stakes world of hedge funds, the network didn’t flinch. Now in its fourth season, Billions stars Lewis as Bobby “Axe” Axelrod, a self-made Wall St. billionaire with the hubris of Kanye West and the ruthlessness of Vladimir Putin. The show, which pits Axelrod against Paul Giamatti’s U.S. Attorney Chuck Rhoades, has become an obsession for Wall Streeters and wealthy athletes like Kevin Durant (who made a cameo in season three), who identify with its depiction of the luxurious kind of lifestyle that comes with being obscenely rich.

But as Lewis tells PlayboyBillions is about more than very fast cars and really big boats. Lewis believes that at its core, Billions is a story about the intersection of money and power, which is especially timely given that the wealth gap in America is wider than it’s ever been before. “There’s no question that some of these billionaires operate like nation states. They have the ears of prime ministers and presidents around the world, and they influence policy,” he says. “It’s a problem that the gap between the wealthy and the poor has increased, when the political project for the last 20 to 30 years has been to reduce that gap. I’ve got no problem with individuals amassing enormous amounts of wealth. The critical questions are, How did they make it, and how do they use it?

Continue reading Damian Lewis Gets His Movie Star Moment – Apr 17, 2019

Categories Homeland Poll Print Media

All 109 Golden Globes Best TV Series Winners, Ranked From Worst to Best – Jan 5, 2019

The Brody Effect

by Janaki Jitchotvisut | Insider | January 4, 2019

Ranking TV series according to critical acclaim is bit different from movies — because there are multiple seasons, a show might appear more than once on this list. It also might have completely different ratings from season to season — among critics and fans alike. After all, isn’t half the fun of being a fan of a show arguing over which season is the best, and exactly where your favorite jumped the shark? Seasons of TV shows are rated individually on Rotten Tomatoes — but in some cases, no critical scores are listed for quite a few Golden Globes winners. These are listed in their own category and are not included in the rankings. Because the Golden Globes dates so far back, some TV shows do not have written critic reviews.

#19 – Homeland

Homeland Remained a Firm Favorite with Fans and Critics in its Second Year

Category: Drama
Year: 2013
Starred: Claire Danes, Mandy Patinkin, Damian Lewis
Tomatometer rating: Season two, which aired in 2012, is 95% certified fresh with 39 fresh and 2 rotten reviews

Matt Zoller Seitz wrote for Vulture:

“More than anything else, ‘Homeland’ is about trust. What makes people trust each other? Do we give people our trust for rational, defensible reasons or because they’re deceiving us, pushing our buttons, telling us what they know we want to hear? Can we trust the show’s main characters to do the right thing — to be ethical and patriotic and act in the country’s (and their own) best interest?”

#3 – Homeland

Homeland Made for Compelling Viewing from the Start

Category: Drama
Year: 2012
Starred: Claire Danes, Mandy Patinkin, Damian Lewis
Tomatometer rating: Season one, which aired in 2011, is 100% certified fresh with 30 fresh and 0 rotten reviews

Adam Sweeting wrote for the Arts Desk, “The amount of information packed into this pilot episode, which still managed to sustain an urgent dramatic pace while creating a shivery sense of foreboding, is a testament to the quality of the writing and performances”

Read the rest of the original article at Insider

Categories Homeland Magazine Poll Print Media

Five Star-Crossed TV Lovers That Make Our Hearts Hurt – Oct 2, 2018

Love Conquers All…Right?

by Helen Whitaker | Cosmopolitan | October 2, 2018

“You and meee could write a bad romance,” sang Lady Gaga. And anyone who’s fallen for the wrong person – again and again – can relate. While this can suck IRL, on TV, the against-all-odds couple is irresistible. Inspired by the forbidden passion in our new TV obsession, here are five of our favourite star-crossed couples.

Homeland: Carrie and Brody

You’re a troubled CIA workaholic who finally meets the perfect guy and he turns out to be married with kids. Oh, and a recently-released military hostage who may or may not be a terrorist. But somehow, between the cat and mouse chase, Claire Danes’ award-winning cry-face and Damian Lewis’s double (and then triple) agent duplicity, we were rooting for the effed-up duo… for a while. While clandestine romance can be addictive, there’s only so many dates in secret grubby bunkers a girl can take.

Read the rest of the original article at Cosmopolitan

Categories Homeland Media Print Media

Why Homeland Season 1 is Still The Show’s Best Season – May 5, 2018

The Power of Brody

by Nat Berman I TV Overmind I May 5, 2018

Season 7 of Homeland came to a conclusion at the end of April of 2018. However, there are plenty of reasons to believe that Season 1 of the series remains the best one, which is rather interesting considering how long it has been since it started up.

First and foremost, Season 1 of Homeland was broadcast in a time when its subject matter was still dominated to a significant extent by 24. As a result, it was an interesting contrast in that it was a much more subtle and much more complicated handling of the topic, which enabled it to stand out in its own right. Moreover, Season 1 of Homeland had a clear focus in the form of Nicholas Brody, which served to minimize the narrative clutter that can sometimes clog up complicated stories. Continue reading Why Homeland Season 1 is Still The Show’s Best Season – May 5, 2018

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Rake Magazine Interview: A True Leading Man – Feb 15, 2018

Easy Company

by Tom Chamberlin | The Rake Magazine | February, 2018

Source: The Rake Magazine – Photo by: Kalle Gustafsson

In an exclusive interview with The Rake, Damian Lewis tells Tom Chamberlin why we all, in spite of ourselves, love an anti-hero.

Lewis – from Life to Homeland, Wolf Hall to Billions – has become the finest purveyor of modern drama’s moral ambiguities. In fact, writes Tom Chamberlin, if you can think of an actor who has influenced our golden age of television more than him, speak up…

Among the more ambiguous archetypes of the celluloid age, that of ‘leading man’ is perhaps the least defined. Far from the specific criteria of commedia dell’arte and melodrama, in which the characters are demarcated (bad guy = black hat and moustachioed, etc.), the leading man is purely subjective. Arguably he is the origin of celebrity, pulling screen presence into the limelight of fame. But the list of leading men over the years has shown that no colour, size, hair, manner or cultural identity has ever had dominion over the sobriquet. That is until Damian Lewis entered the fray. For Lewis is a man who, above anything else, is an exemplar of leadership and integrity at a time when the acting world could use a dose of it.

Damian Lewis takes charge of rooms when he enters them. Photoshoots with celebrities are often led by either the photographer, who squeezes every image he or she can from the available time; the stylist, whose job is to make sure a well-curated variety of clothes appears in the magazine; or the publicist, who tends to be the powerbroker. The ‘talent’ can often struggle through the day (except, of course, former Rake cover subjects), regarding the experience as a necessary nuisance. Not so with Mr. Lewis.

Continue reading Rake Magazine Interview: A True Leading Man – Feb 15, 2018

Categories Billions Media Print Media

Beauties and the Beast: Damian Lewis on Skinny-Dipping and a Bombshell But No Trophy Wife in Billions – Feb 17, 2017

Beauties and the Beast: Back in a New Season of Billions, Damian Lewis on Skinny-Dipping with His Sexy Co-Star and the Bombshell Who’ll Never be a Trophy Wife

Source: Weekend Magazine

You have to take your hat off to Damian Lewis for his uncanny ability to pick a winner.

After his Golden Globe-winning performance as tortured marine Nicholas Brody in three series of brilliant spy thriller Homeland, he gave an acclaimed turn as a swaggering young Henry VIII in BBC2’s Wolf Hall, then decided to return to our screens last year in Sky Atlantic’s explosive Wall Street drama Billions.

Taking on the role of flashy, ruthless, morally bankrupt hedge fund king Bobby Axelrod was a huge departure, and a huge gamble, for Damian. But yes, once again, the show has been a big hit both here and in America.

It earned the highest ratings ever for an opening episode on the Showtime channel when it aired in the States, and became the most downloaded series from Sky Box Sets here in Britain.

Continue reading Beauties and the Beast: Damian Lewis on Skinny-Dipping and a Bombshell But No Trophy Wife in Billions – Feb 17, 2017

Categories Appearances Media Print Media TV/Film Projects

Damian Lewis Rocks Times Talks at Directors Guild Theatre, Fan Fun with Damian Lewis, June 25, 2016

Damian Lewis ROCKS Times Talks at Directors Guild Theater

by Damianista, Fan Fun with Damian Lewis, June 25, 2016

source: Times Talks Program
source: Times Talks Program

Damian Lewis was the guest of celebrated Times Talks on June 23 at Directors Guild Theater and had a great conversation with Cara Buckley, a New York Times culture reporter and the new Carpetbagger.

Read the rest of the story on Fan Fun with Damian Lewis

Categories Appearances Media Print Media

Damian Lewis Talks Career and Craft at SAG-AFTRA, Fan Fun with Damian Lewis, May 4, 2016

Damian Talks Career and Craft at SAG-AFTRA

by JaniaJania, Fan Fun with Damian Lewis, May 4, 2016

source: Getty Images

Creativity is a strange beast. At its narrowest definition, it is the skill of creating something original and new using nothing but one’s imagination. But that would exclude a lot of us from the act of creativity, wouldn’t it? How many of us are capable of conjuring up some idea, art, or thing completely from scratch? An impossible task, even for the creative geniuses among us. Nothing is truly original. It’s all about processing what has come before and presenting it in new and “creative” ways. “Creative problem solver” is one of those phrases you see on resumes a lot. Try telling a mathematician or a software engineer that what they do doesn’t involve creativity and you’re bound to get an earful in exacting detail of just how wrong you are. Thus, not an easy thing to get a handle on, creativity.

Read the rest of the story at  Fan Fun with Damian Lewis

Categories Band of Brothers Billions Homeland Media Personal and Family Life Print Media Theatre

Blue Blood, Blue Collar: Damian Lewis’ Transformations, The New Yorker, January 18, 2016

The actor probes his characters, but his method isn’t Method. “I’m Damian Lewis, not Daniel Day-Lewis.”

 Photograph by Pari Dukovic for The New Yorker

At a corner table in the dining room of Marea, a restaurant on Central Park South, the conversation was smooth but disputatious. Three men in suits were drinking red wine and eating pasta that cost thirty-four dollars a serving. One of them was a hedge-fund manager, a famous short seller. Another was the financial journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin. The third man, in from London, was the actor Damian Lewis.

Sorkin had made the introduction. The hedge-fund manager and Lewis were doing most of the talking. “Does your business have a societal benefit?” Lewis asked. He wanted to know what made a hedge-fund manager more than “a paper shuffler.”

The hedge-fund manager said that he and his peers basically function as market-based regulators—that they have a financial incentive to expose wrongdoing. Sorkin had set up other audiences for Lewis with financial machers. One of them urged Lewis to consider an underperforming company with entrenched management or a sclerotic board: an activist investor, even if he came in and cut things and fired people—well, that’s capitalism.

Continue reading Blue Blood, Blue Collar: Damian Lewis’ Transformations, The New Yorker, January 18, 2016

Categories Homeland Print Media

Damian Was Third Choice to Play Homeland’s Nick Brody – Jan 12, 2016

Damian Lewis had to fend off Ryan Philippe and Patrick Wilson to play Homeland’s Nicholas Brody

by Sarah Doran – RadioTimes – January 12, 2016

Source: Showtime

Showrunner Alex Gansa reveals the British actor wasn’t top of the list of Showtime’s potential leading men for the espionage thriller.

He may now be one of TV and film’s most famous redheads but did you know Damian Lewis very nearly missed out on his role as Homeland’s Nicholas Brody?

 When casting for the US show began, Lewis wasn’t Showtime’s (the network Homeland debuted on) first choice for the role. In fact, he wasn’t even the second, despite showrunner Alex Gansa’s determination to see him step into Brody’s shoes.

“When we first brought him up, everyone was very negative about the suggestion,” Gansa told The New Yorker. Their hesitation had a lot to do with the failure of Life, a cancelled NBC police procedural drama in which the British actor had played the lead character.

“That carries a pretty big stigma,” Gansa said. “The network really wanted Ryan Phillippe; Patrick Wilson passed. I kept talking about Damian until I got a call from the head of the studio saying, ‘Look, Alex, please do not bring up Damian’s name again.’ Hanging up the phone in my office – I think we were two weeks from the start of principal photography – I was like, Are we going to cast Ryan Phillippe in this role?”

That’s right. A non-Lewis Brody very nearly happened. We know, you guys. We know.

Continue reading Damian Was Third Choice to Play Homeland’s Nick Brody – Jan 12, 2016

Categories American Buffalo Media Print Media

Damian Lewis: Red Hot, Sunday Times, April 12, 2015

Original article at the Times

Red hot

Back on the London stage after years of top TV, what could the thoughtful actor Damian Lewis possibly have to worry about?

(Francesco Guidicini)

Bryan Appleyard
April 12 2015, 1:01am Continue reading Damian Lewis: Red Hot, Sunday Times, April 12, 2015

Categories American Buffalo Band of Brothers Homeland Interviews The Misanthrope Wolf Hall

Red Hot Interview – April 11, 2015

Acting: A Leap of Faith

by Bryan Appleyard | The Sunday Times | April 11, 2015

The Sunday Times - April 12th
There’s no easy way of saying this, but the man who has just walked into the rather funereal sitting room in the West End’s Noël Coward Theatre has red hair.

It’s not carroty red, but it is indisputably red. I’m no reddist, but I still feel we need to get this out of the way — after all, he has bravely tackled this fraught subject in the past.

“People find it very difficult to be indifferent to red hair,” he once said. Emboldened, I plunge in.

“So, Damian Lewis, what is it about red hair?”

“Well, I was never bullied at school because of it. I was lucky because I was sporty, and I had status and profile within the school [Eton]. Now I get letters from children who get teased about their red hair and they ask how I managed.”

Having survived childhood unscathed, it wasn’t until he found himself working with the Royal Green Jackets on the television drama Warriors that he first endured the full force of institutional reddism in the military — “I experienced witty and scatological abuse all around, being a redhead.”

Times have changed, however; red rights are widely accepted. Maybe he is destined to be the redheads’ Martin Luther King. “The redhead stock is very high at the moment. This might be a unique moment in recent history: redheads everywhere are doing well — Prince Harry, Ed Sheeran, Julianne Moore, me, Lily Cole…”

Continue reading Red Hot Interview – April 11, 2015