Categories Homeland Poll Print Media

The Greatest TV Episodes of All Time

Homeland: ‘The Weekend’

by Staff | The Independent | April 8, 2023

Television shows are, inevitably, made up of parts. On the surface, there’s the great, overarching story that begins with the first shot and ends with the last. But, within that narrative, there are small parts: the series, and the episode. It is the smallest of these sub-divisions, the episode, that is most intriguing. A truly brilliant episode can bridge the gap between cinema and TV. It can refine the essence of the best shows into a single, self-contained moment. At its most potent, a perfect episode is like mainlining all the myriad ingredients of prestige television in a single sitting.

But great TV shows do not necessarily beget great episodes and, conversely, great episodes are not always the sign of a great show. The start of 2023 has been dominated by discussions about The Last of Us, a perfectly good series including one stunning episode. In it, two supporting characters tell us the story of humanity’s endurance at the end of the world. It is an episode that any show would be proud of. This list contains lots of excellent shows and a few mediocre ones, but what matters here is how they tell a story over one single broadcast. Whether that’s an hour of prestige drama or a 20-minute sitcom, these are the moments when television transcends its format and becomes an art form.

Continue reading The Greatest TV Episodes of All Time

Categories A Spy Among Friends Billions Homeland Poll Print Media

10 Actors Who Always Star In Good TV Shows

According to Reddit

by Phillip Etemesi | Screenrant | December 2, 2022

Though landing good roles is hard, some TV actors managed to do so consistently over long periods of time. And Redditors have appreciated them for it. These talented actors have been fortunate enough to have amazing streaks of awesome TV shows and performances over the past few decades. And their impressive resumes haven’t gone unnoticed. On Reddit, fans have named the individuals who can always be expected to be part of a magnificent TV project. Besides Damian Lewis, others who made the list were Timothy Olyphant and David Costabile, who coincidentally have both worked with Damian on the projects Dreamcatcher and Billions, respectively.

Continue reading 10 Actors Who Always Star In Good TV Shows

Categories Homeland Poll Print Media

All The TV Deaths That Shook Us To Our Core

Nicholas Brody

by Daniel Trainor | E! Online | May 18, 2022

Misery loves company—even when it comes to our favorite TV shows. For the most shocking deaths in recent TV history that we didn’t see coming, keep reading:

Brody, Homeland

OK, so we knew this day would eventually have to come, as the executive producers always said their original plan was to off the conflicted war vet-turned prisoner of war-turned terrorist-turned-maybe a good guy. But then you take into account that Damian Lewis is Damian Lewis. He won a Golden Globe and an Emmy for his performance and he’s the male freakin’ lead, so yes, we were completely thrown off-guard when Brody was hanged in public in the season three finale as as devastated (and pregnant!) Carrie (Claire Danes) watched.

Read the rest of the original article at E! Online

Categories Poll Print Media

10 Best Spy/Espionage TV Shows Ranked

Best of the Best: Intriguing Stories With Complicated Characters

by Tom Steel | CBR | April 3, 2022

Genres within television and film have evolved over the years, with several being combined to form new genres and sub-genres. One such instance has seen spy and espionage television and films – which incorporate elements of thrillers, dramas, and more action-oriented fare. Spy and espionage shows are a great way to become engrossed in intriguing stories full of complicated characters. More often than not, spy shows on TV emphasize the action element – comparable to the likes of James Bond. More rarely, however, shows will lean more towards the espionage side of things, in which spies and agents are sent deep into the heart of an intriguing plot.

1 Out of 10
Homeland Is The Best Espionage Thriller Series With Consistently Thrilling Seasons

While there are spy shows that opt to integrate comedy to help complement the espionage and action, Homeland thrives on its thriller tropes and psychological warfare, making it one of the most intense and engrossing spy/espionage shows out there. Spanning eight seasons from 2011 to 2020, Homeland focuses on Carrie Mathison, played by Claire Danes, and her work with the CIA.

Her investigations into Damian Lewis’s Nicholas Brody and the pair’s interactions, help to make the first few seasons particularly captivating. The later seasons even manage to move past the dynamic that drove the early episodes of the series and arguably get even better – as opposed to getting diminishing returns like with many long-running shows.

Read the rest of the original article at CBR here

Categories Billions Homeland Poll Print Media

The 10 Best Showtime Dramas According To IMDb

Homeland and Billions

by Nathan Sharp | ScreenRant | January 11, 2022

Showtime has produced some excellent dramas throughout its history, many of which have won awards and become important products of pop culture.

Showtime is a major player in cable television. While it doesn’t quite have the prestige of an HBO or the popularity of an AMC, it has nevertheless become a household mainstay thanks to its strong lineup of television shows. Many shows that have aired on Showtime have gone on to enjoy incredible success, both in terms of popularity and critical evaluation. Some have even become iconic mainstays of popular culture.

They can’t all be winners of course, but Showtime’s greatest dramas are well-renowned within critical television circles, as is evident by their strong ratings on IMDb. These are the best of them all.

Continue reading The 10 Best Showtime Dramas According To IMDb

Categories Billions Broadcast Media Homeland Video

‘Variety: Actors on Actors’ with Claire Danes and Damian Lewis – July 2, 2020

Zooming with Carrie and Brody

by Gingersnap | damian-lewis.com | July 2, 2020

Claire Danes and Damian Lewis reminisce about their Homeland collaboration for ‘Variety: Actors on Actors.’ Among a host of topics, the two discuss the final season of Homeland, Billions, and what it’s like to be a child actor. Damian did this interview in his car because he had to drive away for better Internet in the English countryside!

Continue reading ‘Variety: Actors on Actors’ with Claire Danes and Damian Lewis – July 2, 2020

Categories Billions Broadcast Media Homeland Video

Variety, PBS SoCal Takes ‘Actors on Actors’ Virtual – June 21, 2020

The One Where Carrie and Brody Reunite

by Variety Staff | Variety | June 21, 2020

Variety and PBS SoCal have announced the actor lineup and schedule for Season 12 of “Variety Studio: Actors on Actors.”

The new season of the Emmy-winning series was filmed entirely from actors’ homes and includes one-on-one conversations between stars from potential contending shows in this year’s Emmy race. The first two episodes will premiere on PBS SoCal on Friday, July 17, at 8 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. with episodes three and four premiering on Friday, July 24, at 8 p.m. and 8:30 pm. All episodes will stream on pbssocal.org and on the free PBS Video app following their premieres. Continue reading Variety, PBS SoCal Takes ‘Actors on Actors’ Virtual – June 21, 2020

Categories Homeland Print Media

Homeland Series Finale Acknowledges Brody – April 26, 2020

Arm in Arm in Espionage: Series Finale Recap

by Bill Keveney | USA Today | April 26, 2020

When “Homeland” grabbed the public’s attention and six Emmys, including best drama series, for its spellbinding first season in 2011, the relationship between CIA super spy Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes) and military hero and suspected terrorist  Nicholas Brody (Damian Lewis) took center stage.

Over eight seasons, many ups and some downs and the death of Brody in Season 3,  the central dynamic shifted to Carrie, a brilliant operative struggling with mental illness, and her savvy CIA mentor, Saul Berenson (Mandy Patinkin).

That bond frayed at times, as Carrie broke every rule in the book twice, but never has it been as endangered as it was going into the series’ final episode, which aired Sunday, after Russian agent Yevgeny Gromov (Costa Ronin) gave Carrie only one way to secure the black box flight recorder, evidence that can prevent a possible nuclear war: “Kill Saul.”

Here’s how the finale played out:

Continue reading Homeland Series Finale Acknowledges Brody – April 26, 2020

Categories Homeland Print Media

Homeland Declassified: An Oral History of Never Told Tales – Jan 16, 2020

Battles, Backlash, CIA Meetings

by Michael O’Connell | Hollywood Reporter | January 16, 2019

Claire Danes, Mandy Patinkin, Damian Lewis and the creators of the era-defining Showtime drama — now entering its eighth and final season — reveal in The Hollywood Reporter’s oral history never-told tales of a show that smashed records, captivated presidents and predicted everything from terrorist attacks to Russian election hacks.

“What keeps you up at night?” That’s the question Homeland showrunner Alex Gansa annually posed to Washington insiders before putting fingers to keyboard on a season of his Emmy-winning Showtime drama.

What began as a slick spy thriller driven by a potent sexual chemistry, courtesy of leads Claire Danes and Damian Lewis, evolved into an exposé on the greatest dangers to an America that finally had some distance from 9/11. Threats from ISIS, the surveillance state and Russian interference punctuated clandestine meetings with the intelligence community — part of a yearly writers and cast symposium in D.C. affectionately dubbed “Spy Camp.”

The series, loosely developed from an Israeli format by Gansa and longtime collaborator Howard Gordon (24), became an instant and bona fide success when it premiered in 2011 to 2.8 million viewers and unanimous critical acclaim. Boasting a murderers’ row of writers, each a showrunner at one time, the drama catapulted Showtime and studio Fox 21 to an echelon of prestige TV they previously couldn’t reach. It swept its first Emmys (with six awards total) and those first seasons had both the Obamas and Clintons soliciting screeners.

Continue reading Homeland Declassified: An Oral History of Never Told Tales – Jan 16, 2020

Categories Print Media Spy Wars

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

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

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 Audio Guest Appearances Interviews Podcast Radio

Actor Damian Lewis Explores A World ‘Of Ego And Power’ On Showtime’s ‘Billions’ – June 10, 2019

Damian on NPR’s Fresh Air

by Damianista | damian-lewis.com | June 10, 2019

Damian was Dave Davies’ (sitting for Terry Gross) guest on NPR’s acclaimed (and my personal favorite!) program Fresh Air!

“The classically-trained British actor plays a ruthless hedge-fund manager on Billions, which recently ended its fourth season. Lewis describes his character as “the embodiment of the American dream.”

You can listen to what Damian has to say about Billions, Bobby Axelrod, and more. ENJOY!

TRANSCRIPT:

Continue reading Actor Damian Lewis Explores A World ‘Of Ego And Power’ On Showtime’s ‘Billions’ – June 10, 2019