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Written By GingersnapComments Off on Damian Lewis Discusses Theatre on the Stage Door Johnny Podcast
An Extra Helping of Damian Lewis: Act I and Act II
by Jonathan Cake | Stage Door Johnny | January 24, 2023
Back in October 2022 (and released in November of that same year), Damian appeared on the Stage Door Johnny podcast. You can listen to both episodes on Feeds here after scrolling down the page to find Act I and Act II, or you can listen to both episodes on Spotify here after scrolling down the page to find Act I and Act II. You can also listen on Podbean here, page two. Here are the podcast descriptions of each episode:
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Written By GingersnapComments Off on Celebration of Helen McCrory’s Life
Remembering Helen
by Gingersnap | damian-lewis.com | May 20, 2022
According to a tweet by theatre critic Dom Cavendish, Damian hosted a memorial service at St. Paul’s Church, Covent Garden (aka The Actors’ Church) in London on Friday, May 20, 2022, to celebrate Helen McCrory’s life and her formidable personality. There was laughter, tears and a standing ovation in Helen’s honor. Attendees included Helena Bonham Carter, Allie Esiri, Ralph Fiennes, Benedict Cumberbatch, Eddie Redmayne, Natascha McElhone, Bob Geldoff, Rory Kinnear, Mark Strong, Joe Cole, Finn Cole, Matthew Macfadyen and Keeley Hawesdeath. Mark Strong led the tributes as the actor who had worked with Helen more than almost any other actor, appearing in seven different films, shows and plays together. Damian and Helen’s daughter Manon, 15, delivered a touching reading and son Gulliver, 14, played the guitar for guests at the ceremony.
You can see part of the event programme from Mr. Cavendish’s tweet below. Bob Dylan’s To Be Alone with You was featured and a film titled In Her Own Words played. One cannot help remember that Helen chose To Be Alone with You as one of her favorite tunes during a recent segment of Desert Island Discs and she added that she had a blank check from Damian to run away with Bob Dylan. A close friend who attended the memorial service said, “It was just the most beautiful memorial. It was very touching. Speechless.”
View images of memorial service attendees in our Gallery here.
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Written By GingersnapComments Off on Damian Lewis on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert – March 11, 2019
Insider Information
by Gingersnap | damian-lewis.com | March 11, 2019
Damian danced his way onto The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Monday, March 11, 2019 in New York, bringing gifts of Michter’s Whiskey, so cheers to that! Watch his unforgettable entrance here:
When Stephen brings out cocktail glasses and an ice bucket from a secret bar beneath his desk and begins to pour the whiskey, Damian is amazed, exclaiming,
“This is fantastic, You can go home, it’s fine. We’re just going to sit and drink. This is amazing. Look at this! I’m very excited.”
Then they clink glasses as Damian “cheers” to Stephen in Welsh.
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Written By GingersnapComments Off on Damian’s Diary – Oct 20, 2018
Help! I’m Meeting Hanks
by Weekend Reporters | Daily Mail | October 19, 2018
Some of today’s biggest stars have written for us in the past – including Damian Lewis, who wrote this hilarious diary about his big break in Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg’s WWII TV series Band of Brothers. Weekend Magazine shared extracts from Damian Lewis’s diary as a rising star:
Late August 1999 – Call from my agent, Stephanie Randall. Hollywood’s coming to town. Hurrah. Another chance to record myself on a tape for some big blockbuster which will gather dust on a shelf in LA. ‘This is different,’ Stephanie stresses, ‘It’s Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg. They’re seeing everybody, and they want you to play an American. It’s gonna be huge.’
Day of audition – I head off on my motorbike. It rains on me, I arrive, soaked and walk down some steps into a colourless Soho basement.
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Written By GingersnapComments Off on Damian and Helen Attend Old Vic’s Bicentenary Ball – May 13, 2018
The Old Vic Theatre Weekend Celebration
by Gingersnap | damian-lewis.com | May 13, 2018
In February we reported about Damian and Helen’s involvement and preparation with Old Vic’s 200th bicentennial anniversary and this weekend the celebration abounds! The Old Vic Theatre, Britain’s first National Theatre, celebrated it’s 200th birthday the entire weekend in style.
Read about all the festivities here by clicking on ‘Continue Reading’
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Written By GingersnapComments Off on Preparation for Old Vic’s 200th Anniversary in May – Feb 12, 2018
Damian and Helen: Old Vic Theatre Ambassadors
by Matthew Hemley | The Stage | February 12, 2018
Judi Dench, Ralph Fiennes, Cate Blanchett and Eileen Atkins are among more than 100 actors, writers and TV personalities announced as ambassadors of the Old Vic as it prepares to mark its 200th anniversary.
They join Imelda Staunton, Ian McKellen, Maxine Peake, Damian Lewis, Derek Jacobi, Janie Dee and Simon Russell Beale as Bicentenary Ambassadors, who will be involved in a variety of initiatives to mark the theatre’s anniversary. These include curating monologues, attending events around the anniversary in May and raising awareness of its education work.
Peake will curate a series of monologues called One Hand Tied Behind Us, to mark International Women’s Day, while Helen McCrory will hold a workshop for aspiring actors. Bertie Carvel will run this year’s London Marathon to raise money for the theatre.
The Old Vic, originally named the Royal Coburg, first opened its doors in 1818 and over the last two centuries has played host to opera, dance, cinema, music hall, classical dramas, variety, clowns, big spectacles and novelty acts. It was the original home of the English National Opera, the Sadler’s Wells dance company and the National Theatre. It has also been a tavern, a college, a coffee house, a lecture hall and a meeting place. The theatre is unique. It stands alone, an independent charity producing groundbreaking work, with no public subsidy, and a social mission running through all it does on and off stage. The adventurous spirit that has permeated every chapter of its history remains as strong today, 200 years on, as it was in 1818.
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Written By Site AdministratorComments Off on Damian Lewis: I split my eye open while duelling with Ralph Fiennes, Metro, June 21, 2011
Original article at Metro, corrected here for many technical typos
Andrew Williams, Tuesday 21 Jun 2011 2:08 pm
Actor Damian Lewis talks to Metro about the worst job he’s ever had, starring in a musical and anti-ginger prejudice. The 40-year-old stars in the forthcoming BBC drama Stolen.
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Written By DamianistaComments Off on Fame Becomes Her: The Misanthrope’s Damian Lewis Chats About Co-Star Keira Knightley, Theatre.com, January 6, 2010
Fame Becomes Her: The Misanthrope‘s Damian Lewis Chats About Co-Star Keira Knightley
by Matt Wolf, Broadway.com, January 6, 2010
It’s tempting, but misleading, to think of the new London production of The Misanthrope as “The Keira Knightley Show,” if only because the movies’ popular “it girl” is making her West End debut at the Comedy Theatre with director Thea Sharrock’s production of the 17th-century classic. In fact, Knightley has a supporting role as an American film actress named Jennifer (the play’s Celimene updated to today’s celebrity culture) in this rewrite by Martin Crimp of the Moliere original. But it is leading man Damian Lewis, making his own West End debut, who does the heavy lifting as the misanthropic Alceste, a man who can’t help but calling life’s fakery as he sees it—and who has the dubious luck to fall hard for Jennifer. Broadway.com caught up with Lewis, newly returned to London after several years in L.A. starring on the TV show Life, in the midst of the festive season, where the gifted, ever-articulate Londoner spoke of many things, including his famous co-star.
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Written By DamianistaComments Off on Damian Lewis Interview for The Misanthrope, The Telegraph, November 24, 2009
Damian Lewis Interview for The Misanthrope
By Dominic Cavendish, The Telegraph, November 24, 2009
Damian Lewis talks about appearing with Keira Knightley as she makes her West End debut in an updated version of Moliere’s The Misanthrope.
Damian Lewis could well be the luckiest actor in London. Or the unluckiest. Luckiest in that he’s about to play the lead in The Misanthrope, which – with tickets flying out of the box-office at record-breaking speed – must be accounted one of the most eagerly awaited West End openings of the year. Unluckiest because the main reason for all the mounting hullabaloo is his co-star – Keira Knightley.
While there’s no disputing the combined allure of the assembled cast – Tara Fitzgerald and Dominic Rowan are also names to conjure with – when it comes to added spice, Knightley’s promised theatrical debut is eye-wateringly hot stuff. The prospect of a live encounter with the ravishing Pirates of the Caribbean star, recently ranked the second highest paid actress in Hollywood, has tipped the internet exchange price for tickets into triple figures. We’re potentially in the same realm of hysteria as that which enveloped Jude Law’s Hamlet, when fans queued through the night for a chance to bag a day-seat.
If the flame-haired Lewis, 38, feels any anxiety or concern about the fact that Knightley looks set to be the centre of much frenzied attention in the coming weeks, he’s not confessing to it when we meet. His last stage appearance, as the inwardly tortured businessman Karsten Bernick in Ibsen’s Pillars of the Community earned him rave reviews at the National in 2005. The part of the people-hating Alceste – the biliously witty anti-hero reconceived as a hip playwright in Martin Crimp’s smart update of Moliere’s 1666 classic comedy – should cement his reputation as one of theatre’s finest talents. But will he get his chance to capitalise on the opportunity?
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Written By DamianistaComments Off on Interview: The Charmer, The Times / Sunday Times, November 17, 2002
The Charmer
by Lesley White, The Times / Sunday Times, November 17, 2002
Smooth, confident and raring to reinvent himself, Damian Lewis is just the chap to play Jeffrey Archer, says Lesley White
When we meet on the Pinewood set of the slapstick satire, written by Guy Jenkin, creator of Drop the Dead Donkey, Lewis’s flaming red hair is dyed brown, the make-up department has achieved a not totally streak-free job with the fake tan, and, with his funky shorts, he is transformed not into Jeffrey, but a cross between an Ibiza raver and a boy scout. As Greta Scacchi is playing Margaret Thatcher, we can assume no attempt at impersonation is being made.
In some ways, Lewis, 31, and the celebrated fantasist have more in common than it might first appear. While the latter has spent his adult life embellishing his biography for public consumption, the actor went through a period of reverse self-invention. Rather than admit having attended Eton, for example, he told early interviewers that he went to boarding school, then changed the subject before they could ask which one. “I tried to sever all ties to my posh upbringing. It made me feel as if I couldn’t be a genuine moody actor. I’m desensitised to that now.” Continue reading Interview: The Charmer, The Times / Sunday Times, November 17, 2002
