Categories Magazine Print Media

People Magazine: Star Tracks

A Couple of Old Friends

by Staff | People Magazine | May 9, 2022

Photo: David M. Benett/Getty

From Hollywood to New York and everywhere in between, see what your favorite stars are up to in this week’s Star Tracks of People Magazine. Damian and Helena Bonham Carter were featured in the column, stating this couple of old friends attended the gala afterparty in aid of Stephen Sondheim Foundation held May 3, 2022 in London.

Read the rest of the original article at People Magazine

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 Helen Interviews Magazine Print Media Spy Wars

Radio Times Magazine Interview – Oct 2, 2019

Could the Next James Bond Be Ginger? The Famous Redhead Rules Himself Out

by Kristy Lang | Radio Times Magazine | Issue: October 5-11, 2019

In a five-star hotel suite high above the City of London, Damian Lewis and I have a ginger bonding moment. As a fellow redhead, I’ve long admired his rise through the acting world. Not many gingers get leading-man status, but after starring in series such as Band of Brothers, Homeland and Billions, Lewis is big in American.

We’re meeting to discuss his first venture into the world of documentaries, fronting and producing a series about spies on the History channel.

Lewis, now 48, was born in London but was sent to boarding school at a young age, which, he thinks, would make him a very good spy.

“If you are sent away from your family at the age of eight, it gives you a rigor, a dissociative quality that is extremely useful for spies because they have to be able to shut down parts of their emotional life. That’s why the British secret services actively recruited public schoolboys. Guy Burgess is the most extreme example of that. He was flamboyant, charming and mostly drunk – how he didn’t reveal what he was doing is a mystery to me.”

Continue reading Radio Times Magazine Interview – Oct 2, 2019

Categories Billions Magazine Print Media Recap

Billions Season Four is Game Of Thrones With Less Sex But More Drugs and Rock’n’Roll – March 19, 2019

Damian Lewis is back as hedge fund alpha Bobby Axelrod. And hell hath no fury like an atomic asset manager with his billion-dollar balls in a vice.

by Paul Henderson | GQ Magazine | March 19, 2019

Within five minutes of the start of season four of Billions, hard-rockin’ hedge fund alpha Bobby Axelrod (Damian Lewis) has woken to the sound of “Ace Of Spades” by Motörhead, skipped breakfast (“A man like you should eat something. You’ve got fuel to burn,” says Axe’s manservant. “Do I look like I need to fan the fire?” snaps back the response) and unleashed a maelstrom of iron-clad legal documents that his lawyer Orrin Bach (Glenn Fleshler) describes as “tighter than AC/DC in ’78”.

Meanwhile, on the other side of town, former US attorney Chuck Rhoades (Paul Giamatti) kicks off proceedings by air drumming his way through the Rev Al Green’s “I Feel Good”, before getting on with his new and far less prestigious job: playing the small-time power broker as he sets about trying to re-climb the greasiest of political poles.

In other words, Billions is back, baby, and it means business.

Continue reading Billions Season Four is Game Of Thrones With Less Sex But More Drugs and Rock’n’Roll – March 19, 2019

Categories Helen Interviews Magazine Personal and Family Life Print Media

Helen Discusses Damian, Marriage, and Those Bond Rumors – Feb 24, 2019

What’s the Story Helen McCrory?

by Cole Moreton | Event Magazine | February 23, 2019

She stars opposite a legendary Hollywood heart-throb in the ambitious new BBC drama MotherFatherSon, but Helen McCrory was never going to swoon over Richard Gere. ‘I was a naughty girl,’ says the actress with a chuckle, explaining why she didn’t fall for Gere’s clean-cut charms like so many her age – 14 – when his first hit, An Officer And A Gentleman, came out in 1982.

‘I was a Jimi Hendrix girl. I liked my rock ’n’ roll. I liked the naughty boys – Bob Dylan was going to wake me up in a harem in Morocco. So it wasn’t that I didn’t have a crush on him, I didn’t see the films.’ ‘I knew who he was, of course,’ she says. ‘But I had a crush on Adam And The Ants back then. It was all London, it was all street, it was all edgy, it was all the smell of carbon monoxide and marches and DMs.’

Gere plays a very powerful man with deep secrets. Could she challenge Gere? She nods. ‘It was constantly a work in progress. I come from the British tradition, which is all about the script. The word is God. He comes from an American tradition, where you improvise around it. I’ve never worked with anyone like that.’

She does know – and is proud to say – that she was given her part long before her more famous co-star. ‘I was cast six weeks before Gere was! MotherFatherSon: it’s in that order for a reason, as in every family!’

McCrory and Lewis have a son and a daughter, Gulliver and Manon, who are 11 and 12. They live in a Victorian townhouse in north London, having tried Los Angeles for a while before returning home.

Continue reading Helen Discusses Damian, Marriage, and Those Bond Rumors – Feb 24, 2019

Categories Billions Magazine Poll Print Media

Parade Magazine’s Must See TV of Spring 2019 – Feb 1, 2019

Allies of Destruction 

by Mara Reinstein | Parade Magazine | February 1, 2019

Billions

Ah, it’s good to have wild ambition and betrayal back in the boardroom. In season four, former foes Bobby (Damian Lewis) and Chuck (Paul Giamatti)—as well as their chief counselor (Maggie Siff)—unite to form an unlikely alliance aimed at the destruction of all their rivals. Chief among them? That seedy Russian oligarch (John Malkovich). (Showtime, March 17, 9 p.m.)

Read the rest of the original article at Parade Magazine

Categories Charity Helen Magazine Personal and Family Life Photoshoots Print Media

Photographing the Famous – Oct 14, 2018

One Button Press, One Camera Shutter Click, and You Get This:

by Jemma Dodd | Olympus Magazine | Issue 59

Photo by: Debbi Clark

Debbi Clark has had work featured in Vogue, Homme, and Tatler, photographed the likes of Kate Moss and Damian Lewis and set up her own charity. We speak to the woman who’s capable of it all…

When did you become interested in photography?
It was when I was studying fashion and design at St. Martin’s College when I fell in love with photography. I used to photograph landscapes, capturing patterns in trees, flowers, grass picturing shapes, shadows and formations in clouds. I became so obsessed with how fascinating it was playing with light that I wanted to learn the technical side to really bring my images to life. I then went on to LCP and studied photography and printing. My first camera was the Olympus PEN-F 35mm film camera, which I still love and use.

You’ve photographed the likes of Kate Moss, Paul Weller and Damian Lewis. How did your journey into photographing such big names begin?
As a photographer, I love taking portraits. I have been extremely fortunate to have photographed some of the most iconic people in the world, including Kate Moss, Paul Weller, Damian Lewis and Helen McCrory, which began when I founded Sir Hubert von Herkomer Arts Foundation, a charity that I am CEO of. The charity supports young people by inspiring them in the arts, giving them lifelong skills that they can develop their artistic passions through. I work with many models, actors and singers on commissions, and because I work with them as a professional photographer, I was able to approach many of my artists to ask if they would let me take their portrait and exhibit each year to fundraise for Sir HVH Arts Foundation, supporting my passion in the arts and passing it on to young people to encourage and nurture through the arts.

Of all the people you’ve photographed, what was your most memorable shoot?
I have many memories and stories as each time I take a portrait there is always something that happens to make that portrait so special. I do remember the time when Helen McCrory phoned me and said, “Damian is shaving off the tash, beard and sideburns today.” Being such a passionate advocate and patron of Sir HVH Arts Foundation, Helen McCrory managed to weave her magic, and off I went to take a portrait of Damian Lewis dressed in a blue denim shirt, with his amazing mop of flame colored hair, tash and sideburns. I remember thinking at the time that the ‘Brut 33’ 70’s style clashed with the blue denim, ginger hair and green glass as I stood above Damian shooting directly down from above – what a color contrast. We shot this image within a 30-minute window – as I rushed out to meet Damian at Swiss Cottage on the grass banks of the sports centre, the skies were clouding over and the rain was imminent. I had my Olympus PEN-F and 45mm lens attached and my LEDGO travel light held high above to fill in as daylight for the lack of light as the clouds were darkening up ready to let go. We managed to shoot two fantastic final images and Damian, Helen and I chose this featured photo as the firm favorite.

Continue reading Photographing the Famous – Oct 14, 2018

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 Magazine Print Media

Why More and More British and Australian Actors are Getting Cast in the U.S. – Oct 1, 2018

The British Invasion

by Secret Man Agent | Backstage Magazine | October 1, 2018

Boy, there sure are a lot of foreigners landing on the shores of our television industry. Like just the other day, I was watching an interview with Andrew Lincoln. He plays a Southern-fried police officer fighting the zombie apocalypse on “The Walking Dead.” You can’t get more American than that, right? Well, listen to this: The guy was sporting a British accent during that interview. So I did some research, and it turns out Andrew Lincoln is from England!

It also turns out my other favorite characters on his show and its spinoff are played by British or Australian performers. Talented actors like Lennie James and Alycia Debnam-Carey have been driving on the wrong side of the road for years! Even Lauren Cohan, who was born in New Jersey, moved to England when she was 13. WTF? These people are taking jobs from red, white, and blue American actors!

All right, all right—enough kidding around. My last column was about how important it is for American agents to seek out clients in countries like England (Damian Lewis, Freddie Highmore, Charlie Hunnam) and Australia (Toni Collette, Ben Mendelsohn, Katherine Langford). All the actors I just mentioned are the reason why. In a word, these people are T-A-L-E-N-T-E-D.

Continue reading Why More and More British and Australian Actors are Getting Cast in the U.S. – Oct 1, 2018

Categories Magazine Print Media

20 Actors You Forgot Were British – Aug 19, 2018

England is His Homeland

by Mary Sollosi | Entertainment Weekly | August 19, 2018

There have been a number of British actors that have done a phenomenal job convincing movie and television audiences that they are American with their spot-on accents. Of course we here at damian-lewis.com know Damian is British, but many new fans are still shocked to learn he is a native from across the pond. Perhaps it’s because Damian has been known to stay in his American persona both on and off the set, even while grocery shopping or guest appearing on a talk show, to some degree. Nevertheless, Damian has made Entertainment Weekly’s top 20 actors you forgot were British.

#11 – Damian Lewis

Don’t be fooled by his flawless American accent; the Billions star’s real Homeland is England.

View the entire slideshow at Entertainment Weekly

Categories Billions Magazine Print Media

Damian Lewis: Billions Dollar Baby – June 8, 2018

Wall Street Wizard and Self-Made King Who Makes it Rain

by Elizabeth Kaye | Watch! Magazine | June 8, 2018

Emmy® and Golden Globe® winner Damian Lewis captures the complexity of power politics in the world of New York high finance.

Award-winning actor Damian Lewis makes fans swoon as powerful Wall Street wizard Bobby Axelrod on Showtime’s hit series Billions.

Some say that acting is an exercise in pretending—though mere pretending, with its intimations of considered fakery, seems too shallow a frame. More accurate are those who insist that acting is, at its best, a form of lying; a masquerade so thorough and convincing that it can seduce the viewer into believing the masquerade and the person behind the mask are one and the same.

By this measure, Damian Lewis is a masterful professional liar whose searing portrayals of blue-collar Americans belie his own rarified roots as the grandson of a Lord Mayor of London and an upper-crust Brit educated at Eton for whom Queens, we can safely assume, evokes not a borough east of Manhattan, but Elizabeth and Victoria.

Continue reading Damian Lewis: Billions Dollar Baby – June 8, 2018