Gareth Lewis – Page 2

Billions Star Damian Lewis Talks Spy Wars, Unscripted and His New Prodco – Oct 16, 2019

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Damian’s Journalistic Side Unpacked

by Richard Middleton | Television Business International | October 16, 2019

A docudrama exploring the lives of (in)famous spies might not have been the most obvious next project for the star of Homeland and Billions, but the switch of genre for Damian Lewis clearly provided a new challenge for the much-vaunted English actor and producer.

Damian Lewis: Spy Wars marked the actor’s first foray into factual and for a talent who has to date been more used to having a script to work to, the shift into unscripted was unnerving.

“You don’t know if you’ve found an interesting way of telling the story until you find it and then you think how can we put something on air if we didn’t quite get it – that is quite daunting,” he admits. “But that is just the risk of documentary.”

The docudrama, which is presented by Lewis, was commissioned by A+E Networks’ UK network History and produced by Alaska TV in association with the actor’s recently launched outfit Rookery Productions. Lewis acts as host on the show – which has his brother Gareth attached as a producer – and provides “thumbnail portraits” of spies involved in covert missions with the help of new declassified information, high-profile experts and intelligence officers who took part.

“I kept trying to get a handle on how much of a story we had,” continues Lewis, “but the answer is all the little bits, the component parts, are put together at the end and made in the edit. And I found that a bit daunting.” Continue reading Billions Star Damian Lewis Talks Spy Wars, Unscripted and His New Prodco – Oct 16, 2019

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Broadcasters Sign Up for A+E’s Damian Lewis: Spy Wars – Oct 11, 2019

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Going Global

by Joseph O’Halloran | Rapid TV News | October 11, 2019 -and-
by Peter White | Deadline | October 11, 2019

As we head into the leading global content trade show and world’s entertainment market MIPCOM 2019 next week, A+E Networks and A+E Networks UK have signed a slew of top international broadcasters for its latest factual co-production, Damian Lewis: Spy Wars.

Earlier this year we reported here that Spy Wars was heading to the Smithsonian Channel for US markets, a joint venture between CBS Corporation’s Showtime and the Smithsonian Institute. And now it seems other broadcasters will be joining Smithsonian Channel’s lead. The docu-drama currently airing on History UK and Blaze in the UK will now be available in the following markets: Blue Ant (Canada); POP TV (Slovenia); Bilibil.com (China); TVNZ (New Zealand); Historia and Atresmedia (Spain). A+E Networks says that multiple other deals are in negotiation. No word yet when television viewing audiences in other countries will see Damian hit their small screens, but rumor has it early 2020 for US customers.

In the series, award-winning actor Damian Lewis unpacks some of the most thrilling covert missions in modern-day history with the help of new declassified information, high-profile experts, and intelligence officers who were there. The program ranges from the most notorious spy exchange of recent times to the fake film production that freed Americans during the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis to in-depth profiles of the world’s most skilled and lethal double agents and has been described as James Bond meets every John le Carré thriller you’ve ever read.

Damian Lewis: Spy Wars is executive produced by Alaska TV’s Chris Fouracre, Ian Lamarra, and Paul Sommers in association with Lewis’ own recently launched Rookery Productions with brother Gareth Lewis.

Read the rest of the original article at Rapid TV News
Secondary Source: Deadline

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Boarding School Creates a Mild Sociopathy That’s Helpful to the Life of Espionage – Oct 4, 2019

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Damian Makes His First Documentary Spy Wars With His Brother

by Lisa Campbell | iNews | October 4, 2019

Few British actors have set foot inside Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Langley, Virginia, but as the star of the American spy thriller, Homeland, Damian Lewis was granted unprecedented access as part of his research.

While he jokes that his meeting with the director of the CIA, John Brennan, is “classified”, the story demonstrates his ability to get under the skin of characters through keen observation of the tiniest details. He describes the “incredibly poker-faced field operatives who had revealed only the smallest increments of expression and emotion, until Brennan walked in and the temperature in the room rose instantaneously.”

It’s an experience that stood him in good stead for his latest project, Damian Lewis: Spy Wars, which also marks his first foray into factual television.

The eight-part series – the first to come out of Lewis’ newly-launched Rookery Productions – airs on History from Monday in the UK and showcases the true stories and remarkable characters behind some of the most important international spy operations of recent years.

“I’ve done a lot of research over my career for Homeland and a movie I made, Our Kind of Traitor, and have read my John le Carre like everyone else. I enjoy the genre and thought it was an opportunity to look behind these popular stories and find out something a bit more intimate and personal about the people themselves, their decisions and the ramifications on global politics,” he says.

Continue reading Boarding School Creates a Mild Sociopathy That’s Helpful to the Life of Espionage – Oct 4, 2019

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Spy Wars: TV Real Interview – Oct 3, 2019

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Spies Next Door

by Mansha Daswani | TV Real, World Screen | October 3, 2019

Damian Lewis talks to TV Real about what appealed to him about the docudrama, which is being rolled out by A+E Networks.

Lewis already knew a fair bit about espionage before signing on to executive produce and present the A+E Networks U.K.-commissioned series Spy Wars. He did, after all, play an MI6 agent in Our Kind of Traitor, based on the John le Carre novel, and a U.S. prisoner of war who returns home and is hailed as a hero as he secretly plots a terrorist attach in Showtime’s Homeland. Damian Lewis: Spy Wars sees the British actor recounting notable stories of espionage from the last four decades, spanning from the Cold War all the way through to the contemporary war on terror. The eight-part series produced by Alaska TV in association with Lewis’s own Rookery Productions sees him speaking directly to camera and features expert interviews and dramatic reenactments.

TV REAL: Tell us about the genesis of Spy Wars. How did you come to be involved in the show?

LEWIS: My brother [executive producer Gareth Lewis] was already involved, he was going to be directing parts of it. He said, Do you want to do this? I said, I don’t really do factual, I’m not a presenter. But I got sucked into these eight spy stories. I came on as a co-producer and tried to get to the bottom of what makes a man or woman do heroic or traitorous things on behalf of their country. That was it really. It came to me by invitation and my curiosity was tickled.

TV REAL: As you got into the details of these stories, what were some of the things that surprised you?

LEWIS: To be honest, a lot of what happens in the spy world is pretty unscientific. There’s still quite a lot of buccaneering and derring-do, if you like. It’s not risk-averse. It’s pro-risk, and often it can seem a bit chaotic, a bit ramshackle, and even at times a bit amateurish. Exotic words like “dead-drop” and “brush past” and things like that can simply be someone walking into a supermarket with the same plastic bag and putting it down and then each leaving with each other’s bag. It’s not exactly high-tech. While you’re looking for a slightly more sci-fi, James Bond aspect to these stories, they don’t exist. So the challenge for us was how to make the stories gripping and suspenseful. We tried to get into the minds of the individuals and what was at stake for them. What are the documents in that bag? What happens if that individual is caught? Why is the individual doing it? If the individual is a KGB officer and he’s caught, he’s going to be executed. If he’s a Western intelligence officer, he’s going to be imprisoned for life. We were trying to find out why these men and women are motivated to do these things. The motivation is often grubby and personal. It can be for simple revenge, a need to be heard, a need to belong to something, to be loved. People turn traitor for all these different reasons. So the surprise was constantly the grubbiness! And the desperation that’s there. And the extreme risk that these people are prepared to take in order to keep going.

Continue reading Spy Wars: TV Real Interview – Oct 3, 2019

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Radio Times Magazine Interview – Oct 2, 2019

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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

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The Real Stories Behind Some of the World’s Most Intriguing Espionage Cases – Sept 27, 2019

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Spy Wars: kNOw More Secrets

by Nicole Lampert | Weekend Magazine | September 27, 2019

Damian Lewis thinks he would probably make a good spy, partly because of his schooling. Some of Britain’s best known spies – and traitors – went to public school, and the Eton- educated actor isn’t surprised.

‘If you’re sent away from home at the age of eight and you’re asked to cope with that situation, I think there’s an instinctive compartmentalising of one’s emotional life,’ he says.

‘That’s very helpful to a covert life of espionage. It helps you develop a mild sociopathy, which is clearly what spies need to have. Often they’re living multiple lives, not just double ones.

‘I think I’d be a good spy, better than James Bond, who’s a rubbish spy,’ he adds, despite being one of the favourites to take over the role from Daniel Craig.

‘What’s brilliant about Bond is his recovery. Each movie is two hours of him getting himself out of a massive mistake he made quite early on.’

It’s little wonder he’s fascinated by spies. He won acclaim as soldier-turned-potential-terrorist Nick Brody in Homeland, and was cast as MI6 agent Hector in the film adaptation of John le Carré novel Our Kind Of Traitor.

But as outlandish as those stories were, they don’t compare to the twists and turns in the real spy dramas he explores in his first documentary series, Damian Lewis: Spy Wars.

Continue reading The Real Stories Behind Some of the World’s Most Intriguing Espionage Cases – Sept 27, 2019

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Damian Tells of His New Docudrama Series Spy Wars and His Take on Ian Fleming’s Hero – Sept 21, 2019

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The World of Espionage: Traitor or Hero?

by Dalya Alberge | The Guardian | September 21, 2019

His award-winning performances have included the hit espionage drama series Homeland and he is among actors tipped to take over from Daniel Craig as James Bond. Now Damian Lewis has taken on his first role in a television docudrama about spies, whom he describes as “often quite grubby and banal”, a world away from the glamour of 007.

The Hollywood star presents and produces the eight-part show about some of the most significant espionage operations of the last 40 years. The series features undercover agents – some still identified only by their code names – who were persuaded to tell their stories for the first time.

“I find the different reasons for turning traitor or being a hero, depending on your view, are often quite grubby and banal. I’m interested [in] the motives of these spies. That’s the series we’ve tried to make,” Lewis said.

Continue reading Damian Tells of His New Docudrama Series Spy Wars and His Take on Ian Fleming’s Hero – Sept 21, 2019

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Damian Lewis Looks at Real Life Spies in History’s New DocuDrama – Sept 12, 2019

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From Our Kind of Traitor to Spy Wars

by Matthew Bell | Royal Television Society | September 12, 2019

Having played a fictional spy in the John le Carré adaptation Our Kind of Traitor and a turncoat in long-running US thriller Homeland, Damian Lewis has turned presenter for History’s new espionage series.

The actor was initially reluctant when his brother, Gareth – one of the executive producers of Damian Lewis: Spy Wars – asked him to present. “I hadn’t done factual [before] and I don’t consider myself a presenter.

“But I enjoy the [spy] genre and I thought it was an opportunity to look behind these popular stories and see if we could unearth something a bit more intimate about the people themselves, and the ramifications on global politics of very personal decisions taken by individuals.”

Lewis was talking after a screening of an episode of Damian Lewis: Spy Wars at the British Museum in mid-September.

Continue reading Damian Lewis Looks at Real Life Spies in History’s New DocuDrama – Sept 12, 2019

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Spy Wars Q&A Transcript Highlights and Video – Sept 11, 2019

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The Spy Stories That Still Intrigue Us

by Gingersnap | damian-lewis.com | September 11, 2019

Gareth Lewis second from left, Damian Lewis far right.

On Wednesday, September 11, 2019 The Royal Television Society hosted an exclusive sneak peek screening of History UK’s Damian Lewis: Spy Wars , followed by a Q&A, at the British Museum in London, England. Damian, along with his brother Gareth Lewis, Johanna Woolford Gibbon, Dan Korn, and more were present. Here is a highlight of the evening:

Damian Lewis: I wanted to get involved because I’ve been to Langley the CIA headquarters for Homeland…but I wanted to look at the personal intimate decisions people have made.

Johanna Woolford Gibbon: We wanted to speak to people who were in the room at the time and could give us that personal testimony to get into the mind of the spy.

Johanna Woolford Gibbon: We have Russian and French speaking specialists who gained the trust of people over months so we could get the testimonies.

Dan Korn: Having the small human stories has made this series what it is. It’s about getting to the story behind the story.

Gareth Lewis: We’re telling stories that go back 40 years and yet we’re still reading these kind of things today. How we’ve come to this point is mind boggling, that we’re still locked in this kind of conflict, it’s slightly worrying.

Continue reading Spy Wars Q&A Transcript Highlights and Video – Sept 11, 2019

The Baker

Stream The Baker as a Free Trial – July 15, 2019

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Sundance Now

by Gingersnap | damian-lewis.com | July 15, 2019

Want to watch Damian in a less dramatic role and a more comedic one? Then we have the answer for you: The Baker! It’s a great movie by none other than the Lewis brothers, with Gareth as writer and director and Damian starring in it. You can essentially stream The Baker (aka Assassin in Love) for free on Sundance Now.

Simply sign up for a trial membership and cancel within seven days. Or keep your subscription, as Sundance Now offers award-winning films with unlimited streaming and no ads or hidden costs. Try it for free and cancel anytime.

Damian plays Milo, a professional hit man living on the edge. When he fails to fulfill a contract for the first time in his career, he is forced to escape the city to avoid the wrath of his employers who are keen to make him pay for his mistake.

Pursued by a ruthless colleague who has been charged with delivering his punishment, Milo hides out in a remote rural village where the locals mistake him for the new baker.

Forced to bake bread and cakes to maintain his cover, what he discovers in the process is nothing short of a revelation. When sparks fly with the beautiful local vet, he decides to start a legitimate new life as the village baker but with his past about to catch up with him, Milo soon discovers that you can’t always have your cake and eat it too.

Start your free trial and watch The Baker on Sundance Now, here.

In Development/ Pre-Production Print Media Spy Wars

Are You Excited to See a Different Side of Damian Lewis? – Feb 28, 2019

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Damian Lewis is Hosting a New Factual Spy Series

by Nick Levine | BBC America: Anglophenia | February 28, 2019

Calling all Damian Lewis fans: the Homeland and Billions actor is to make his debut as a documentary host.

Lewis will show off his factual chops as the presenter of a new eight-part docu-drama series about some of the most important international spy missions of the last four decades.

The series, which is being made jointly by A&E’s U.K. and U.S. divisions, has the working title Damian Lewis: Spy Wars, Deadline reports.

Each episode will tell a different real-life spy story with Lewis introducing reconstructions of key events from the mission, as well as interviews with experts and former spies from the CIA, KGB, and MI6.

Lewis will definitely need his passport for the job, as it’s being shot in London, Moscow, and Israel.

Read the rest of the original article at BBC America

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A&E Set for Damian Lewis-Fronted Docu-Series – Feb 28, 2019

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Damian Lewis: Spy Wars

by Kaltrina Bylykbashi | TBI Vision | February 28, 2019

A&E Networks and A&E Networks U.K. have partnered on factual co-produced Damian Lewis: Spy Wars.

Featuring Lewis in his first docu-drama role, this 8 x 60-minute factual series will reveal the remarkable true stories behind some of the most gripping and important international spy operations of the last forty years.

Using reconstructions, the show will see Lewis act as the guide with each episode telling a different spy story from the Cold War through to the ‘war on terror’ and the renewed espionage hostilities of present day. It is shot on location in Moscow, Israel and London. It will feature experts and former spies including ex-Mossad, ex-CIA, ex-KGB and ex-MI6.

Continue reading A&E Set for Damian Lewis-Fronted Docu-Series – Feb 28, 2019