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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 Print Media Video

Video: Damian Thinks It’s Weird That You’re Rooting for Axelrod – Feb 14, 2018

Billions‘ Damian Lewis Thinks It’s Weird That You’re Rooting for Bobby Axelrod

by Liam Mathews | TV Guide | February 14, 2018

There are a lot of great shows and movies about bad men from which people take the wrong lesson. Some guys wish they could be feared and respected like Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) or Walter White (Bryan Cranston). They wish they could live in Mad Men times because “men were men” then. They watch The Wolf of Wall Street and see the criminal excess as aspirational, failing to recognize that it’s a cautionary tale.

Those are exactly the kind of people who watch Billions and shout “Yo Bob-ay!” at Damian Lewis out of passing cars when they see him on the street. Lewis’ character, hedge fund titan Bobby “Axe” Axelrod, is not someone you’re supposed to root for. He’s a greedy crook who made millions by shorting airline stocks while his employees were dying on 9/11. So it’s weird to Lewis when wealthy women come up to him and say “you are playing my husband, did you know that?”

Continue reading Video: Damian Thinks It’s Weird That You’re Rooting for Axelrod – Feb 14, 2018