Categories A Spy Among Friends Interviews Print Media

Damian Lewis, Guy Pearce and Anna Maxwell Martin Discuss A Spy Among Friends

Spies Like Us

by Richard Godwin and Caroline Frost | Radio Times | November 22, 2022

Damian Lewis and Guy Pearce are among the most acclaimed actors of their generation. Lewis has transformed himself into a tortured US soldier in Homeland, a volatile Henry VIII in Wolf Hall, an obnoxious hedge-fund manager in Billions – and any number of Shakespearean roles. Pearce sprang from the Australian soap Neighbours into a wide-ranging career, with roles including a drag queen, action heroes and a lovelorn English King.

But neither man has anything on Kim Philby, the British intelligence officer unmasked as a Soviet double-agent as part of the Cambridge Spy Ring, which included Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean and Anthony Blunt, and whose web of deception has been a subject of endless fascination since his exposure in 1962. Lewis sees Philby’s treachery as “part of British folklore.”

First look photos here

Continue reading Damian Lewis, Guy Pearce and Anna Maxwell Martin Discuss A Spy Among Friends

Categories A Spy Among Friends Helen Interviews Music Print Media

Damian Lewis on Grief, Espionage and His New Musical Ambitions

This Is a Mini-Midlife Crisis, But Not a Full-Blown One

by Simon Hattenston | The Guardian | October 29, 2022

They were the golden couple of British acting, but Helen McCrory’s death last year left her husband shattered. Now he is putting the pieces of himself back together – and finding a new creative energy.

The entrance to the private members’ club is so unobtrusive it is barely visible. I walk up the back stairs to a well-disguised roof terrace. A member of staff seems to know why I’m here, and shows me to a discreet table with barely a word. Damian Lewis is sitting there alone, tucking into a plate of sea bass. “Sorry, I couldn’t wait,” he says, looking up. “I was starving.” We move on to the veranda – an even more private spot. I half expect him to show me a secret code, tell me to consign it to memory, and walk away. It feels like a scene from a spy novel.

Continue reading Damian Lewis on Grief, Espionage and His New Musical Ambitions

Categories Broadcast Media Charity Guest Appearances Interviews Philanthropy Trailer

Damian Lewis on Good Morning Britain

Prince’s Trust

by Gingersnap | damian-lewis.com | October 4, 2022

Damian guest-appeared on Good Morning Britain on Tuesday, October 4, 2022 to discuss the Prince’s Trust, a charity he is an Ambassador for.  With CoVid impacting education, training and employment for 18 months during the pandemic, many youth are left feeling uncertain about their prospects and children with Long CoVid are still at home without education, living with long-term health conditions.

The charity research found more than 60% of 16-25 year-olds are scared about the future. The Prince’s Trust is a youth charity that aims to bridge that gap by helping young people aged 11 to 30 get into jobs, education and training.

Continue reading Damian Lewis on Good Morning Britain

Categories Audio Broadcast Media Dream Horse Interviews Podcast

Exclusive Chat with Damian About Dream Horse – BBC Radio 2

Culture Club: Film With James King

by Gingersnap | damian-lewis.com | May 25, 2021

Tune in today, May 25, 2021 from 8:00 p.m. on to hear Damian discuss Dream Horse with James King on the Jo Whiley podcast for BBC Radio 2, here.  His portion is more towards the end of the broadcast. Damian speaks of his Welsh roots, his support of Wales, and that he identifies as partly Welsh and British (“not English”). He also reveals his children tease and mock him about his American accent. The programme will be available shortly after broadcast. Download the BBC Sounds app to your phone!

Full interview here:

Continue reading Exclusive Chat with Damian About Dream Horse – BBC Radio 2

Categories Interviews Lift Me Up I Am Dying Print Media

Damian As Poet Percy Bysshe Shelley – Feb 23, 2021

Giving Keats New Life 200 Years After His Death

by Suzi Feay | Financial Times | February 23, 2021

EVENT DETAILS: Tuesday, February 23, 2021 at 22:30 p.m. CET/21:30 p.m. GMT (4:30 p.m. Eastern time, 3:30 Central time). This event will premiere via the BSR’s YouTube channel here on the date and time indicated above.

To view photostills, please visit our Gallery here

It would have been a strange sight, if anyone had been there to witness: actor Damian Lewis, up a tree in his garden, reciting Keats’s “Ode to a Nightingale” against a cacophony of banging and shouting from builders working next door. “Trying not to fall out of the tree or drop my laptop, talking about the melodious this, that and the other . . . very low-tech!”

The bicentenary of the death of John Keats falls today, and in a normal year, a new production of the play Lift Me Up, I Am Dying would have taken place in Rome, in the Keats-Shelley museum, located in the house where Keats died. As 2020 wore on with no sign of respite from the pandemic, it became clear this planned commemoration wasn’t going to happen.

Continue reading Damian As Poet Percy Bysshe Shelley – Feb 23, 2021

Categories Billions Helen Interviews Personal and Family Life

Damian Lewis Telegraph Interview – Oct 16, 2020

Big Hitter

By Louis Wise | Telegraph | October 16, 2020

As Billions returns, the actor explains why he isn’t interested in playing 007 – or bothered about turning the big 5-0.

Damian Lewis’s next birthday is the big 5-0: at the risk of seeming indelicate, does it mean people will stop asking if he’s the next James Bond? The actor, star of Homeland, Wolf Hall and Billions, hoots gruffly down the phone. “Well, no! You’re proof of the rule!”

Oh dear. Sorry. I had read this summer he really was dismissing all chances of becoming 007, so it only seemed fair to check. Talking from his home in north London, which he shares with his wife Helen McCrory and their two children, he is happy(ish) to clarify again.

“I don’t want to play Bond. I’m ambitious for different things,” he sighs. “I don’t know who they’ll choose – he’ll be fantastic, or she will be fantastic. But I don’t want to play Bond – even if I was asked!”

Continue reading Damian Lewis Telegraph Interview – Oct 16, 2020

Categories Billions Interviews Magazine Print Media

Industry Mag Staten Island Cover Story – July 19, 2020

Accents and How He Handled Overnight Fame

by Joel Keller | Industry Mag Staten Island | July 19, 2020

He may be an officer of the British Empire, but the London native is best known for playing Americans, including Bobby Axelrod in Billions.

Damian Lewis has been playing American characters on and off (mostly on) for 20 years, since he was cast as Maj. Dick Winters in the 2001 HBO miniseries Band of Brothers. He’s played so many American characters that people are genuinely shocked to hear his natural west London-accented voice. He’s so used to it that sometimes he forgets to go back to his natural voice.

“I go get my groceries in an American accent,” he told ABC News in 2016. “And I get halfway through paying and I’m like, ‘I’m so sorry. I’m British, and I have no idea why I’m talking in an American accent to you, but I’ve been doing it all week.”

His American roles have been so prominent in his career that BBC America’s website actually has a listicle with the title “7 Roles Featuring Damian Lewis’ Real Accent.”

Suffice to say, playing American characters has been very good to Lewis. He won an Emmy in 2012 for his powerful turn playing war hero-turned-terrorist Nicholas Brody in the first season of Homeland, and since 2016, he’s played scheming billionaire Bobby Axelrod in another Showtime series, Billions. “Hello, I’m Damian Lewis, one of those pesky Brits,” he said somewhat apologetically when he went up to accept his Emmy.

Continue reading Industry Mag Staten Island Cover Story – July 19, 2020

Categories Billions Interviews Video

I Was Interested In How Taylor & Axe Were Going To Get Along – May 8, 2020

Taylor Back at Axe Capital

by DJ Sixsmith | CBS Local Denver | May 8, 2020

(CBS Local) – “Billions” is back on Showtime for season five and things are about to get interesting as Taylor Mason is back at Axe Capital.

Asia Kate Dillon has been a trailblazer in their portrayal of the non-binary character Mason and Dillon is excited for fans to check out season five of the series.

“We got through shooting seven episodes and we were shooting episode eight when we shut down production,” said Dillon in an interview with CBS Local’s DJ Sixsmith. “The first seven episodes are going to come out and we still have to film the back half of the season. I went into this season like I do every season with excitement and curiosity. I know very little about what’s going to happen ahead of time. Certain things the producers will let me know, but for the most part I like to be surprised. This season, I was particularly interested in how Taylor and Axe were going to get along, now that Taylor is back at Axe Capital. Also, I was really interested in how the relationship between Taylor and Wendy Rhoades was going to develop.”

Continue reading I Was Interested In How Taylor & Axe Were Going To Get Along – May 8, 2020

Categories Billions Interviews Print Media

Damian’s Q&A Interview on Billions Season 5 – April 30, 2020

The Wall Street Avengers

by Maria Estevez | amNY News | April 30, 2020

May 3 will see the release of the fifth season of ‘Billions’, a drama series that follows a legal battle of the U.S. Attorney against a self-made millionaire in New York, played by the English actor. Metro chatted with the 49-year-old to learn more.

Money, power, inequality… humanity has been consumed by the class struggle throughout history, and if ‘Game of Thrones’ showed that fight in an imaginary scene, ‘Billions’ does it as a fable about wealth and power in modern life.

English actor Damian Lewis brings to life Bobby Axelrod, a business titan who can jump out of a plane with his friends before a Metallica concert, pick his children up from school or have an enemy killed without any problem. On the other side of the law, we see a prosecutor Chuck Rhoades Jr., played by Paul Giamatti, heir to the old money that is settling at the prestigious Yale Club, where he will meet Catherine Brant, a successful writer (Julianna Margulies).

When Showtime renewed ‘Billions’ for its fifth season, it came as no surprise. According to the audience reports, the series averages 4.5 million viewers per episode in just the U.S. New episodes will see the alliance between Chuck Rhoades (Paul Giamatti) and Bobby Axelrod (Damian Lewis) being terminated. Both will return to their corners of the ring to continue the fight they started in the beginning.

Continue reading Damian’s Q&A Interview on Billions Season 5 – April 30, 2020