Categories Wolf Hall

Wolf Hall Sequel Update – Feb 25, 2020

The Mirror and the Light: TV Adaptation Has Begun

by Gingersnap | damian-lewis.com | February 25, 2020

According to this February 25, 2020 article in the Radio Times,

“Wolf Hall director Peter Kosminsky has apparently already been sent the manuscript for Hilary Mantel’s long-awaited sequel The Mirror and the Light – and the work of adapting it for TV has begun. But Piers Wenger, the BBC’s Drama Controller, said he still had no idea when the drama will make it to our screens. At a press event in London, he commented: “I can’t say that now. Genuinely I think we are engaged in those conversations around getting [co-writer] Peter Straughan, Peter Kosminsky, getting the cast back together.”

The Times February 22, 2020 article had this to say when interviewing Hilary Mantel about her third and final installment of the book series,

Continue reading Wolf Hall Sequel Update – Feb 25, 2020

Categories Awards Wolf Hall

Wolf Hall Voted Britain’s Favorite Historical Novel – Jan 20, 2020

Walter Scott Prize

by Eleanor Sharples | Daily Mail | January 20, 2020

When it comes to royal history, you can’t beat the Tudors for scandal and intrigue – though the Windsors are putting in a spirited effort.

So perhaps it should come as little surprise that Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall has been named as Britain’s favourite historical novel.

The Booker Prize-winning book was voted top in a poll, just months before Mantel’s eagerly-awaited conclusion to her Tudor trilogy – The Mirror and the Light – is released.

Wolf Hall, published in 2009, tells the story of Thomas Cromwell’s rise to power in the court of King Henry VIII and has sold 1,027,278 copies across all print editions.

Mantel’s second book in the saga, Bring Up the Bodies, was published in 2012 and also won the Booker Prize.

The novels were successfully adapted for TV with Claire Foy starring as Anne Boleyn, Damian Lewis as Henry VIII and Mark Rylance as Cromwell.

The Walter Scott Prize came up with a shortlist of ten novels to celebrate its tenth anniversary.

In the poll, second place went to Rosemary Sutcliff’s Roman adventure story The Eagle of the Ninth and third to Dorothy Dunnett’s The Game of Kings.

Read the rest of the original article at Daily Mail

Categories Print Media Wolf Hall

Wolf Hall Streaming This November – Nov 7, 2019

Set Your Calendar for November 10

by Stephanie Prange | Media Play News | November 7, 2019

In November PBS Distribution is debuting seven new programs on the PBS Masterpiece Prime Video Channel, including the entire series (all four seasons) of Mr. Selfridge, starring Jeremy Piven and Wolf Hall with Damian Lewis and Mark Rylance.

The six-part miniseries adapted from Hilary Mantel’s best-selling novels Wolf Hall begins streaming November 10!

A historical drama for a modern audience, this unromanticized re-telling lifts the veil on the internal struggles England faced on the brink of Reformation.

From humble beginnings and with an enigmatic past, Thomas Cromwell (Mark Rylance) is the brilliant consigliere to King Henry VIII (Damian Lewis).

Told from Cromwell’s perspective, Wolf Hall follows the complex machinations and back room dealings of this pragmatic and accomplished power broker who must serve king and country while dealing with deadly political intrigue, Henry VIII’s tempestuous relationship with Anne Boleyn (Claire Foy, The Crown) and the religious upheavals of the Protestant reformation.

PBS Masterpiece is $5.99 per month with an Amazon Prime or Prime Video subscription. Check out Amazon.com here.

Read the rest of the original article at Media Play News

Categories Dreamcatcher Halloween Hearts & Bones Messages Romeo and Juliet Site Stormbreaker The Baker Wolf Hall

Happy Halloween! – Oct 31, 2019

Getting Caught in Damian’s Web

by Gingersnap | damian-lewis.com | October 31, 2019

Happy Halloween to all our ghoul and goblin fans out there, from all of us at the Fan Fun with Damian Lewis team! One of these critters in the photo above is not a fake graphic. Can you spot the real deal?  You can ‘Trick or Treat’ with us at damian-lewis.com, but don’t forget to grab your cauldron and head over to our sister site Fan Fun with Damian Lewis for more spooky spectacular goodies. We serve all things Damian – all day, every day!

In keeping with the Halloween theme, you can watch Damian on your small screen in the following:

  • Dreamcatcher (who’s up for lots of killings and blood?!) – stream on Amazon Prime Video
  • Hearts and Bones (no skeleton bones harmed in the making of this) – stream on Amazon Prime Video
  • Wolf Hall (who’s up for a beheading, raise your hand!) – stream on Amazon Prime Video
  • Romeo and Juliet (death by poisoning anyone?) – stream on Amazon Prime Video
  • Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker (contract killing with an accent) – stream on Amazon Prime Video
  • Assassin in Love aka The Baker (contract killing…in a cake) – stream on Amazon Prime Video
Categories Print Media Wolf Hall

TV bosses pounce on delayed final novel in Wolf Hall trilogy

Mantel’s publisher revealed this week that The Mirror & the Light, the concluding part of her series about Thomas Cromwell, will go on sale next March. The author had said in April 2017 that she hoped to have it finished by early 2018.

Wolf Hall, the first book in the series, was published in 2009, followed three years later by Bring Up the Bodies. They were adapted for television by the BBC in 2015, starring Mark Rylance as Thomas Cromwell, Damian Lewis as Henry VIII and Claire Foy as Anne Boleyn. The six-part series was directed by Peter Kosminsky and written by Peter Straughan. Both men are involved with the follow-up, according to the production company Playground.

Continue reading TV bosses pounce on delayed final novel in Wolf Hall trilogy

Categories Announcement News Wolf Hall

Will Damian Be Reprising His Role as Henry VIII? – May 22, 2019

Hilary Mantel’s Conclusion to Wolf Hall Trilogy Set to be Released in 2020

by Arts & Entertainment Staff | BBC | May 22, 2019

Hilary Mantel’s next novel will be published on 5 March 2020, her publishers have announced.

The long-awaited book, the title of which was already known to be The Mirror and the Light, will complete the author’s Thomas Cromwell trilogy.

The first two novels in the trilogy – Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies – each won the Man Booker Prize.

In 2015, Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies were adapted into a Bafta and Emmy award-winning television series, starring Mark Rylance as Cromwell and Damian Lewis as King Henry.

Continue reading Will Damian Be Reprising His Role as Henry VIII? – May 22, 2019

Categories Billions Helen Interviews Personal and Family Life Print Media

Damian Lewis and His Wife Helen McCrory Crack the US Showbiz Lifestyle – April 8, 2019

Ping-Pong, Dressing in Drag, and More Details About Those Guitars!

by Gabrielle Donnelly | Express | April 8, 2019

BOBBY AXELROD, the hedge fund manager at the centre of the financial drama Billions, is brutal, thuggish, ruthless and dangerously sexy. In other words, he’s a complete animal – or not, depending upon which side of the Atlantic you live. According to Damian Lewis, who plays Axelrod, he has noticed a marked difference between the reaction of American audiences to his character and the British.

“I think we can all agree that Bobby is corrupt,” he laughs now, affectionately, of the Billions character, Bobby Axelrod.

“He’s an old-school scrapper, a gangster, an alley cat: his motto is, ‘Why use a scalpel when you can use a sledge hammer?’

“But on the other hand, it turns out that in some ways he’s also quite progressive and quite liberal in his political views.

“That’s what makes him fun. It’s interesting to me that when I’m walking down the street in New York and someone recognizes me, they’ll go, ‘Yeah! Bobby Axelrod!’ ‘Yeah, love you, man!’ But when it happens in England, people go, ‘Oh. Bobby Axelrod. You’re a real ****hole!’

“I’m not quite sure exactly what that says about both places but it says something!”

Lewis, 48, knows a bit about both England and New York these days, since he spends his time commuting between New York, where the series is shot, and London where he lives with his wife, actress Helen McCrory, and their two children, Manon, 12, and Gulliver, 11.

“We work it out,” he shrugs of his ever-travelling schedule.

“We actors are all gypsies and we all have to travel for work.

“I have friends who have bought a house in LA and been very excited – It’s great! I’ve moved the whole family to LA and it’s going to be so good! No more travelling!’

“And then they find they get three years of work in Toronto or Vancouver or even back in London! We just muddle through somehow.”

He admits that, constant jet lag and the proceeds of Billions and other series such as Homeland, Band Of Brothers and Wolf Hall have all helped make life pretty comfortable for the Lewis household.

Continue reading Damian Lewis and His Wife Helen McCrory Crack the US Showbiz Lifestyle – April 8, 2019

Categories Poll Print Media Wolf Hall

Royals on TV: A Ranking of the Best On-Screen Kings and Queens – March 23, 2019

Damian Lewis as King Henry VIII in Wolf Hall

by Katie Rosseinsky | The Evening Standard |

Whatever your thoughts on the royals, there’s no denying that Britain’s most famous family make good TV.

From Wolf Hall to Victoria to Netflix’s The Crown, many of the most talked-about (and most critically acclaimed) series of recent years have all taken inspiration from royal history, be it centuries old or within living memory.

With the third seasons of Victoria and The Crown coming soon (and amid feverish speculation over future casting decisions for the latter show), the industry’s fascination with what goes on behind palace doors shows no sign of waning.

As the Jenna Coleman-led Victoria returns to the small screen this weekend, we’ve ranked some recent royal performances, in ascending order from the middling to the truly unforgettable.

Continue reading Royals on TV: A Ranking of the Best On-Screen Kings and Queens – March 23, 2019

Categories Print Media Wolf Hall

In the Realm of TV Entertainment, Royal Dramas Reign – Feb 28, 2019

Fans of Royal TV

by Matthew Gilbert | Boston Globe | February 28, 2019

I’m a sucker for the royal dramas. They marry history to warped family dynamics, and they’re generally quite pretty and transporting. They’re like “Succession,” HBO’s Murdoch family send-up, except with a majestic makeover, more servants, and at least one crown. There’s treachery, there are big castles, and at the center of it all there is the distorted psychology of a person who has inherited, not necessarily earned, a position closer to God than we mere mortals.

These shows are just what the Anglophile TV doctor ordered, a spot of tea as the cure for the uncountably many grim crime-solving dramas and superhero spectacles elsewhere on the schedule. For some viewers, royal dramas, like period novel adaptations, are too staid, too mired in the subtleties of their indirect exchanges to be entertaining. But for me, it’s fascinating to watch lives constrained by rigid social and dynastic rules, as messy human needs struggle against ancient policies. Things can get ugly around the palace, for sure, but most of the time the messes are hidden behind an elegant veneer of dignity.

Continue reading In the Realm of TV Entertainment, Royal Dramas Reign – Feb 28, 2019

Categories Awards Britannia Award Broadcast Media Events Gallery Print Media Red Carpet TV/Film Projects Video

Damian Receives His Britannia Award

Our Brit Gets the Britannia

by Gingersnap | damian-lewis.com | October 26, 2018

Our favorite, most talented actor of our generation (and quite the ham), Mr. Damian Lewis, received the well-deserved and long overdue BAFTA Los Angeles Britannia Award for Excellence in Television this evening at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, California.

The Britannia Awards are BAFTA Los Angeles’ highest accolades, recognizing both outstanding British talent and exceptional international artistry through their body of work. Damian is talented and exceptional, no doubt.

As Fan Fun with Damian Lewis writes, for more than a decade and a half Damian has enticed and intrigued audiences with highly complex, compromised, flawed characters he has brought to life on television, from steadfast Dick Winters, constipated Soames Forsyte, and quirky Charlie Crews to damaged Nicholas Brody, radical Henry VIII and currently, the ruthless Bobby Axelrod.

But where did it all begin? Damian’s first lead role in television was Lt. Neil Loughrey in Warriors (1997), a story about a group of British peacekeepers during the Bosnian war and ethic cleansing of 1993.

How great was it to honor Damian’s excellence in television full circle, as BAFTA TV award-winning actor Matthew Macfadyen, Damian’s Warriors co-star, presented him with the award tonight!

Walking the red carpet, Matthew was asked what his first impression of Damian was over 20 years ago,

“He’s very confident, the room sort of stops when he’s in it. This is a very nice thing to do, especially for Damian.”

In addition to Matthew Macfadyen, this year’s presenters also included Viola Davis, Kathleen Kennedy, Jon Favreau, Peter Farrelly, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss.

Continue reading Damian Receives His Britannia Award

Categories Locations Guide Print Media Wolf Hall

Seven Historical TV Shows That Have Tourists Flocking to Britain – Aug 14, 2018

Wolf Hall

by Emma Mason | BBC History Magazine | August 14, 2018

Here, we look at seven historical TV dramas that are attracting tourists from Britain and beyond.

#5 Wolf Hall

The six-part BBC adaptation of Hilary Mantel’s Booker Prize-winning novels Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies was a huge hit both on and off-screen. Starring Mark Rylance as Thomas Cromwell and Damian Lewis as King Henry VIII, the 2015 drama sent fans flocking to filming locations including Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire, the real-life Wolf Hall; Chastleton House in Oxfordshire, which portrayed scenes from Cromwell’s childhood in Putney; and Montacute House in Somerset, which was used as the setting for Greenwich Palace – Henry VIII’s main London seat and the site of Anne Boleyn’s arrest in Wolf Hall.

Continue reading Seven Historical TV Shows That Have Tourists Flocking to Britain – Aug 14, 2018

Categories Forsyte Saga Print Media

Ten Actors Who Shone Even Before They Were Stars – June 28, 2018

Damian Lewis: The Guy Has Been a Godsend to TV

by Matthew Gilbert | Boston Globe | June 28, 2018

Damian Lewis as Soames Forsyte & Gina McKee as his wife in the 2002 miniseries The Forsyte Saga

A lot of the TV actors and actresses we’ve come to love have a past. Turns out that before they could get a good table at an exclusive restaurant, they were nonetheless doing some fine work. Here are 10 examples of memorable early performances by now famous actors and actresses.

DAMIAN LEWIS

“The Forsyte Saga”

The guy has been a godsend to TV, with his work on “Homeland,” “Billions,” “Wolf Hall,” “Band of Brothers,” and a fine network procedural called “Life,” on which he played a cop released from prison on DNA evidence. I have a particular fondness for his work on “The Forsyte Saga,” a 2002-03 adaptation of John Galsworthy’s novels and a remake of a seminal late-1960s PBS series. It’s an engrossing literary soap about a wealthy family torn between passion and Victorian repression, with Lewis’s Soames Forsyte as the upholder of the latter. Lewis is ice cold, pale, and pathetic, as Soames clings to his Victorian delusions, stuffing his emotions down, his eyes a brutish blue. As his unloving wife, Irene, Gina McKee is perfection.

Read the rest of the original article at Boston Globe