Damian Lewis
Actor, Dad, Redhead, and Ping Pong Champion
Categories Homeland Print Media

6 Fantastic Foreign Shows Remade in America – June 29, 2018

Homeland – Prisoners of War

by Brigid Brown | BBC America Anglophenia | June 29, 2018

It’s not just the British who love to remake fabulous foreign language shows, in English and subtitle-free, for their own audience. U.S. networks are just as into it. Did you know some of your U.S. favorites started life somewhere else?

Here are six TV series from around the globe, just so good they were remade in America:

1. Homeland (Israel)

Showtime’s critically-acclaimed series Homeland, now in its seventh season, is based on the Israeli series, Prisoners of War. The original (2009-2012) revolves around three Israeli soldiers (Yoram Toledo, Ishai Golan, Assi Cohen) who are released after 17 years in captivity. As they work to settle back into the lives they once knew, the military assigned psychiatrist picks up on discrepancies in the soldiers’ stories, resulting in an investigation. The first season of the U.S. version kicked off with a similar storyline, but revolved around only one POW (Damian Lewis), who returned home a hero. In this version, it’s CIA Operative Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes) who picks up on unsettling behavior.

Read the rest of the original article at BBC America

Categories Homeland Print Media

Homeland Overhauled – Feb 28, 2018

Six Shows That Were Seriously Overhauled After Their Stars Left

by Sam Ashurst & Morgan Jeffery | Digital Spy | February 28, 2018

If it’s broke, try to fix it. No one can do the same job forever, and actors are more keen to stretch their legs than most – doing different things is basically the job description. But sometimes telly shows want to carry on after their star leaves, going to drastic lengths to extend their shelf life.

Here’s some shows that managed to survive losing their star, thanks to some major plot overhauls.

Damian Lewis – Homeland

Source: Showtime

Damian Lewis was very much at the heart of Homeland when it started out – the first season was all about the investigation into his character Nick Brody, a US marine who’d been corrupted by terrorists, while the second run saw him exposed as a traitor and explored his redemption.

Come the third season, though, it was clear that the show’s writers were running out of things to do with him. Lewis appeared in just half of that year’s 12 episodes as a fugitive Brody, before Homeland took the bold decision to kill him off.

Continue reading Homeland Overhauled – Feb 28, 2018

Categories Homeland Print Media

A Forensic Analysis of Homeland – Feb 8, 2018

Homeland: Is the CIA Drama Actually Any Good? (A Forensic Investigation)

by Gavin Haynes | The Guardian | February 8, 2018

Source: Showtime – Photo: Everett/Rex Features

We armed our writer with some DVDs and a few cups of coffee and he came back with a definitive answer to one of TV’s biggest unanswered questions. Homeland is famous for two things: Claire Danes’ capacity to act by wobbling her face, and being maddeningly uneven. Terrorists come and go: who could tell a Bibi Hamed from a Saad Massoud in the long game? But inconsistency remains. So as the show resumes later this month, when you look at it across six seasons, is Homeland actually any good? The question has never quite been resolved. Until now. Six seasons, one metric. Goodness.

Season One

UPSIDE

What’s striking now about Homeland’s debut is how slow it is. Rather than what it became – a frantic hail of bullets falling amid a fog of sarin gas – this is a psychological turn about the alienation of a returning PoW.

DOWNSIDE

A climax that’s a touch random. Nicholas Brody (Damian Lewis) attempts to turn the vice president into strawberry jam with his suicide vest, before mammalian evolutionary programming saves the day, via a last-minute phone call from his teenage daughter – as if The Godfather climaxed with the Monty Python foot coming down on Michael Corleone.

Verdict: 57% good

Continue reading A Forensic Analysis of Homeland – Feb 8, 2018

Categories Awards Homeland Media News Poll Print Media

Vote for Damian Lewis – Who’s the Best Drama Actor Emmy Winner This Decade? – Oct 4, 2017

Who’s the Best Drama Actor Emmy Winner This Decade? [Poll]

By Kevin Jacobsen – Gold Derby – October 4, 2017

The Best Drama Actor category at the Emmys has gone to many deserving men since 2010. After a decade of multiple victories for actors like James Gandolfini (“The Sopranos”), James Spader (“The Practice”/”Boston Legal”) and Bryan Cranston (“Breaking Bad”), the 2010s have thus far featured refreshing turnover, with only one repeat win in eight years. The decade began with Cranston accepting his third consecutive trophy for playing Walter White in “Breaking Bad.” That streak was broken when Kyle Chandler picked up his Emmy for playing Coach Eric Taylor in the final season of “Friday Night Lights.”

Damian Lewis in Homeland – Source: Showtime

“Homeland” fever struck in 2012 as Damian Lewis won his Emmy for playing corrupt soldier Nicholas Brody on the Showtime drama. 2013 was a shocking year with buzz split between Lewis and splashy newcomer Kevin Spacey for the first season of “House of Cards.” The award went to neither — instead, Jeff Daniels surprised for his role as Will McAvoy in “The Newsroom.” 2014 was another competitive year, with Cranston taking on the men of “True Detective,” but Cranston pulled off one last victory for his iconic performance. After seven years of being the bridesmaid, Jon Hamm finally won in 2015 for his equally iconic role as Don Draper in “Mad Men.” In 2016, Rami Malek won for playing troubled hacker Elliot Anderson in “Mr. Robot.” Sterling K. Brown then prevailed this year for his emotional performance as Randall Pearson in “This Is Us.”

Continue reading Vote for Damian Lewis – Who’s the Best Drama Actor Emmy Winner This Decade? – Oct 4, 2017

Categories Billions Homeland Interviews Print Media

One in a Billion: Cigar Aficionado Interview – Jan 1, 2016

Killer Charm and Killer Instinct

by Marshall Fine | Cigar Aficionado | January/February 2016 Issue

Heads turn as Damian Lewis strides into a Le Pain Quotidien franchise in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood.

Lewis, in sunglasses, walks the length of the restaurant unmolested to a table in the rear. It’s mid-afternoon and the lunchtime crowd has thinned on this summery late-October day. Still, it seems an unlikely place to meet one of the hottest actors in television. Asked how he happened to choose this particular spot to meet, Lewis, sunglasses now off, smiles quizzically and says, “I thought you chose it.”

Tall and surprisingly rangy, Lewis has a slow grin, and blue eyes that can look both warm and icily transparent in the right light. His coppery hair actually appears to have a slightly chestnut cast this particular day. Normally Lewis is the most recognizable red-haired actor working today.

Continue reading One in a Billion: Cigar Aficionado Interview – Jan 1, 2016

Categories Homeland Video

Damian Lewis Reminisces About Quick Stint on Homeland – Feb 19, 2015

Four Days for Season Four

by Gingersnap | damian-lewis.com | February 19, 2015

Damian talks about his cameo appearance in Season 4 of Homeland. Looks like this was filmed while promoting Wolf Hall at the Winter TCA Tour.

Categories Homeland Media Print Media

‘Homeland’: Damian Lewis talks about finale tragedy, Entertainment Weekly, December 17, 2013

‘Homeland’: Damian Lewis talks finale tragedy

Homeland 312

Damian Lewis is breaking his silence on the season 3 finale of Showtime’s Homeland. Below, the Emmy-winning actor says goodbye to Nicholas Brody, his popular Homeland starring character who was executed in a public square in Tehran during the show’s last episode of the season Sunday night. Lewis reveals what it was like to shoot his agonizing last scene, what he thinks Brody was thinking in those final moments and his feelings about the show’s future without him.
Continue reading ‘Homeland’: Damian Lewis talks about finale tragedy, Entertainment Weekly, December 17, 2013