National Theatre – Page 2

Damian Attends ‘People, Places & Things’ Post-Curtain Dinner Event – Oct 24, 2017

On October 24, 2017July 14, 2018 By Gingersnap Comments Off

Damian Attends ‘People, Places & Things’ Post-Curtain Dinner Event

by Maria Ward | Vogue | October 24, 2017

People, Places & Things Post-Curtain Dinner Event. Source: Vogue – photo by Krista Schlueter

On Monday night, the toast of Broadway traveled to Brooklyn for the American premiere of Duncan Macmillan’s People, Places & Things staged at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn, NY.

Following sold-out productions at London’s National Theatre and then on the West End, Denise Gough has reprised her Olivier Award–winning role as Emma alongside much of the original cast.

All were on hand at the elegant post-curtain dinner, hosted by Vogue’s Anna Wintour. There, underneath the theater-style lights in the auditorium, Damian Lewis warmed up the room with a little-known anecdote from when he first began dating now-wife Helen McCrory in 2005. At the time, McCrory was playing the part of Rosalind in the West End production of As You Like It. Lewis recounted a conversation he had with McCrory: “She said, ‘If there’s any justice in this world, the girl who is understudying me is going to be a fucking star,’” Lewis recalled. “‘She’s brilliant.’” As fate would have it, the understudy was Gough.

Continue reading Damian Attends ‘People, Places & Things’ Post-Curtain Dinner Event – Oct 24, 2017

Media Personal and Family Life Print Media

Vogue Archive: No Place Like Homeland – Jan 20, 2015

On February 1, 2013October 31, 2020 By Site Administrator Comments Off

Damian Lewis and Helen McCrory British Vogue Interview

by Staff | British Vogue | January 20, 2015

“Do you know, I think you might wear a suit better than any man I’ve ever met.” In the intimate and strangely forbidden confines of a lift at the National Theatre, Helen McCrory’s heavily made-up hazel eyes are drinking in her husband’s tall, tailored frame.

“Thank you,” he replies, faintly awkwardly, looking down at the same Tom Ford tuxedo he wore to accept the best actor Emmy award only last month. “Does this mean you want me to do all the washing-up for a week?”

A gypsy laugh bubbles up from deep inside McCrory’s tiny dancer’s body.

“No, my darling, of course not! Just the bedtime stories…”

It’s a rare day of togetherness and, despite a stoic, unwaveringly professional determination to get the photographs absolutely right – freezing winter winds notwithstanding – Mr and Mrs Damian Lewis are enjoying every minute of this short holiday from work and the parenting of their two children, Manon, six, and Gulliver, five. Curling herself into her husband, McCrory locks eyes with him as he puts a protective hand between her shoulder blades and gently rubs her slender back. They seem in a little world of their own on the top of Waterloo Bridge, talking quietly and constantly to each other, oblivious to both the photographer’s lens and the gawping Londoners who keep falling into the traffic in their astonishment at getting a real-life Homeland fix in the middle of the week.

When one frazzled woman with a pushchair stops dead in her tracks between the couple and the camera and stares, open-mouthed, at the nation’s favourite redhead as if he were a painting, they laugh tolerantly until she manages to pull herself together. This, after all, is their reality. And, for a couple who were recently invited to a state dinner for David Cameron at the White House and were sat not, as they had suspected, somewhere “between the kitchens and the loo” but on President Obama’s table, nothing is terribly surprising. “He did, yes. Yes, he did. He did say it was his favourite programme,” Lewis later admits, between hungry mouthfuls of chicken stew and gulps of red wine in a nearby South Bank brasserie.

Continue reading Vogue Archive: No Place Like Homeland – Jan 20, 2015

Homeland Media Print Media

Soldiering on: Damian Lewis in Homeland, The Telegraph, February 4, 2012

On February 4, 2012October 9, 2017 By Site Administrator Comments Off

Soldiering on: Damian Lewis in Homeland

After his breakthrough 10 years ago in Band of Brothers, Damian Lewis’s finest work has been for television, his latest role that of a US Marine held captive for eight years

By Craig McLean
7:00AM GMT 04 Feb 2012

Photo: Channel 4

Damian Lewis opens our conversation with a sheepish mention of his ardent admirers. ‘I’ve a set of fans who call themselves – you’re not allowed to laugh – Damian Bunnies.’ Their name seems to be a reference to those other copper-top characters, the Duracell Bunnies. They have been following him since his 2001 breakthrough in Steven Spielberg’s acclaimed Second World War series Band of Brothers, ‘and they’re absolutely lovely. In the end, I realised they knew so much about me, I let two of them run a fan site.’

Continue reading Soldiering on: Damian Lewis in Homeland, The Telegraph, February 4, 2012

Homeland Media Print Media

Damian Lewis Interview, Channel 4, February 2, 2012

On February 2, 2012October 9, 2017 By Site Administrator Comments Off

Damian Lewis interview

02 FEB 2012

You WILL answer our questions, Lewis…

The following feature is available free for reproduction in full or in part.

Damian Lewis is sitting opposite me, drinking tea in a wood-panelled library in a discreetly opulent Central London hotel. With his clipped Old Etonian accent and understated self-confidence, he seems the epitome of Englishness. Which is why it’s surprising that so many of his highest profile roles have been Americans.

Continue reading Damian Lewis Interview, Channel 4, February 2, 2012

Keane Media Print Media

Red Hot: The Irresistible Rise of Damian Lewis – Sept 8, 2006

On September 8, 2006July 6, 2020 By Damianista Comments Off

Damian Lewis: The Chameleon Performer

by Liz Hoggard | The Independent | September 8, 2006

Damian Lewis is an intense chap, capable of conveying a huge range of emotions with the smallest gesture. He’s hotly tipped for an Oscar for his new film. And he’s a real gent. Just don’t call him posh, whatever you do.

“Ask him about that intense thing he does with his eyes,” a female journalist suggested when she heard I was interviewing the actor Damian Lewis. What’s striking about Lewis is how much he manages to convey by doing so very little. There is stillness about him on screen, a faraway look that can evoke anger or desire or – if you saw his rollicking performance as Benedict in BBC1’s modern-day version of Much Ado about Nothing – sheer hilarity.

The press love to brand Lewis as an arrogant posh boy. Like David Cameron, he went to Eton. But, among his generation of actors, no one does grief and repressed emotion so well. In Spielberg’s Second World War epic, Band of Brothers, he played an American soldier facing up to fear with a quiet certainty (it won him a Golden Globe nomination). He was the bewildered newlywed who doesn’t understand why his marriage is falling apart in Hearts and Bones. And in the remake of The Forsyte Saga, he did the unthinkable – making the brutal Soames sympathetic.

For several years now, 35-year-old Lewis has been a successful actor on the verge of becoming a major star. Unlike Ewan McGregor or Joseph Fiennes, his contemporaries at London’s Guildhall drama school, you might still walk past him in the street. But all that should change with the release of his new film Keane: his performance is already sparking Oscar rumours in the States.

Continue reading Red Hot: The Irresistible Rise of Damian Lewis – Sept 8, 2006

Helen Media Personal and Family Life Print Media

Great Expectations: An Interview with Helen McCrory – August 25, 2006

On August 25, 2006August 2, 2020 By Gingersnap Comments Off

Drama Queen

by Lydia Slater | Evening Standard Magazine | August 25, 2006

Perched on a velvet sofa in the elegant sitting room of the Cheyne Walk Brasserie, Helen McCrory strokes her Stella McCartney-clad stomach and smiles under heavy eyelids, rather like the cat who’s got the cream. As well she might. Life has never seemed to be particularly tough for McCrory, 37, who has been winning plaudits for her acting ever since she took her first role in the National Theatre’s production of Trelawney of the Wells, and who is constantly tipped as the next Judi Dench.

But even by her own high standards, the future is looking pretty rosy. She is eight months pregnant with her first child, and has an unnervingly perfect celebrity bump – no fat ankles or swollen face, just a watermelon at the waistline and a correspondingly magnificent bronzed cleavage. “I’ve never worn so many low-cut dresses in my life. If I could just wear spangles, I would. I feel so amazingly attractive,” she gurgles throatily, with total justice if our young waiter’s saucer eyes are anything to go by.

McCrory doesn’t appear to notice him but then if you’re engaged to Damian Lewis, star of The Forsyte Saga and Band of Brothers (and arguably the sexiest redhead on the planet), waiters probably come rather low in the pecking order. “I’ve never been broody before, but when I met Damian I became very different about relationships,” she says.

Continue reading Great Expectations: An Interview with Helen McCrory – August 25, 2006

Media Personal and Family Life Print Media

Damian Lewis: My London – Oct 28, 2005

On October 28, 2005November 15, 2019 By Damianista Comments Off

From Brolly to Woolly

Staff | Evening Standard Magazine | October 28, 2005

Where do you live and why?

Camden. I’ve always liked this part of London. I remember, when I was younger, I used to make it along to the Electric Ballroom in Camden High Street on a Friday night and jump up and down to the rock music.

How long have you lived there?

I’ve lived in North London all my life. I grew up in St. John’s Wood, although I was at boarding school a lot of the time. Afterwards, I returned to London to study at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. I was at Guildhall at the same time as Joseph Fiennes, Ewan McGregor and Jude Law.

What was the last play you saw in London and did you enjoy it?

As You Like It at Wyndhams Theatre with my girlfriend Helen McCrory and Sienna Miller. Helen’s performance as Rosalind was quite stunning — I loved it.

What have been your most memorable London meals?

Long Sunday lunches in great pubs with good wine and good friends. I also like eating at The Wolseley on Piccadilly. I can’t really tell if I’m in a Viennese brasserie or a car showroom — but it’s very grand.

What do you miss most when you’re out of London?

The magnificent views of the city when you’re standing on the top of Primrose Hill or from Waterloo Bridge — they’re breathtaking.

What is your life philosophy?

Be brave. Regret nothing.

What items are in your winter wardrobe?

Long johns and woolly socks — especially if it’s going to get as cold as everyone is predicting this winter.

Which aftershave do you wear?

Acqua di Gio by Giorgio Armani or something by Christian Dior.

What are your current projects?

I’m currently rehearsing for a Henrik Ibsen play at the National Theatre called Pillars Of The Community, which opens on 1 November. Then I’ve got Much Ado About Nothing, which is on BBC One, also on 1 November. And there’s my film Keane which is being screened at the London Film Festival. I play a man struggling to come to terms with the disappearance of his six-year-old daughter.

Continue reading Damian Lewis: My London – Oct 28, 2005