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Written By GingersnapComments Off on 10 Most Underrated TV Drama Actors
Bobby and Wendy
by Christine Persaud | ScreenRant | January 5, 2022
It seems the same names often get recognized for their roles in drama series, but there are other actors who are deserving of praise.
Every year during awards season, there are top actors who are praised for their performances in some of the biggest shows. Oftentimes, the same names appear, or during the run of a top show, the leads get their deserving accolades. Think Bryan Cranston during the Breaking Bad era, Claire Danes when Homeland was the drama du jour, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ impressive domination of the Best Actress in a Comedy category through Veep‘s entire run.
But there are some actors who have consistently appeared in some of the highest rated shows or had major roles in specific ones past and present, who don’t get the recognition they so rightfully deserve, and it’s time they receive their moment in the spotlight.
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Written By GingersnapComments Off on Billions Star Damian Lewis Reveals How He Spends His Leading Man Money – June 16, 2018
Playing an Anti-Hero on Mega Money Drama Series Billions has Polarized Fans but Damian Loved the Chance to Turn Bad
by Michele Manelis | News Corp Australia Network | June 16, 2018
Source: Showtime
Damian Lewis can plot the impact of his lead role on hit US drama series, Billions from one season – and continent – to the next.
“When I’m in New York and I walk around, people go, ‘Yeah, Bobby Axelrod, yeah, love you man!’, and when I’m in England, where I live, people go, ‘Oh, Bobby Axelrod, you’re a real arsehole!’” he tells TV Guide.
After wrapping season three, the former Homeland star adds, laughing “I think you’ll find that everyone’s an a-hole.”
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Written By GingersnapComments Off on How To Dress Like a Billionaire – April 23, 2018
Now on its third season, Showtime’s dramedy “Billions” masterfully captures the changing dress codes of the finance world
by Jacob Gallagher | Wall Street Journal | April 23, 2018
Bobby “Axe” Axelrod (next to his wife Lara, played by Malin Akerman) wearing his trademark hoodie. Source: Showtime – Photo by Jeff Neumann
TYPE “BOBBY AXELROD” into Google and the first recommendation that pops up is “Bobby Axelrod hoodie.” So, to satisfy your curiosity: Mr. Axelrod, the cool-as-an-ice-cube-in-Alaska protagonist of Showtime’s series “Billions,” wears Loro Piana zip-ups. They’re cashmere and just in case you’re really interested in dressing like the man who makes the billions on “Billions,” each one costs $2,295. For a glorified sweatshirt, they’re a needlessly expensive indulgence, which makes them perfect for a show that is the embodiment of what wealth looks like today.
Now on its third season, the drama unfurls a cat-and-mouse chase between Mr. Axelrod (played by Damien Lewis), an ethically flexible Manhattan hedge fund manager, and Charles “Chuck” Rhoades Jr. (played by Paul Giamatti), an ethically flexible United States attorney for the Southern District of New York. The plots weave stock swapping and legal loopholing with fist-bumping bros, strip-club sushi lunches and even an excursion to a BDSM dungeon. In short, the show is glorious, greedy fun.
More than that though, what “Mad Men” did to immortalize the style of 1950s ad agencies, “Billions” is doing for post-Great Recession financial firms. Aside from his used-Camry-priced hoodie, Mr. Axelrod dresses more or less like the guy who sold me my coffee this morning, with his simple, dark A.P.C. jeans and egalitarian Puma sneakers. Gordon Gekko would mistake Bobby Axelrod for an intern.
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Written By GingersnapComments Off on Rake Magazine Interview: A True Leading Man – Feb 15, 2018
Easy Company
by Tom Chamberlin | The Rake Magazine | February, 2018
Source: The Rake Magazine – Photo by: Kalle Gustafsson
In an exclusive interview with The Rake, Damian Lewis tells Tom Chamberlin why we all, in spite of ourselves, love an anti-hero.
Lewis – from Life to Homeland, Wolf Hall to Billions – has become the finest purveyor of modern drama’s moral ambiguities. In fact, writes Tom Chamberlin, if you can think of an actor who has influenced our golden age of television more than him, speak up…
Among the more ambiguous archetypes of the celluloid age, that of ‘leading man’ is perhaps the least defined. Far from the specific criteria of commedia dell’arte and melodrama, in which the characters are demarcated (bad guy = black hat and moustachioed, etc.), the leading man is purely subjective. Arguably he is the origin of celebrity, pulling screen presence into the limelight of fame. But the list of leading men over the years has shown that no colour, size, hair, manner or cultural identity has ever had dominion over the sobriquet. That is until Damian Lewis entered the fray. For Lewis is a man who, above anything else, is an exemplar of leadership and integrity at a time when the acting world could use a dose of it.
Damian Lewis takes charge of rooms when he enters them. Photoshoots with celebrities are often led by either the photographer, who squeezes every image he or she can from the available time; the stylist, whose job is to make sure a well-curated variety of clothes appears in the magazine; or the publicist, who tends to be the powerbroker. The ‘talent’ can often struggle through the day (except, of course, former Rake cover subjects), regarding the experience as a necessary nuisance. Not so with Mr. Lewis.
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Written By GingersnapComments Off on Video: Damian Thinks It’s Weird That You’re Rooting for Axelrod – Feb 14, 2018
Billions‘ Damian Lewis Thinks It’s Weird That You’re Rooting for Bobby Axelrod
by Liam Mathews | TV Guide | February 14, 2018
There are a lot of great shows and movies about bad men from which people take the wrong lesson. Some guys wish they could be feared and respected like Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) or Walter White (Bryan Cranston). They wish they could live in Mad Men times because “men were men” then. They watch The Wolf of Wall Street and see the criminal excess as aspirational, failing to recognize that it’s a cautionary tale.
Those are exactly the kind of people who watch Billions and shout “Yo Bob-ay!” at Damian Lewis out of passing cars when they see him on the street. Lewis’ character, hedge fund titan Bobby “Axe” Axelrod, is not someone you’re supposed to root for. He’s a greedy crook who made millions by shorting airline stocks while his employees were dying on 9/11. So it’s weird to Lewis when wealthy women come up to him and say “you are playing my husband, did you know that?”
