Author: JaniaJania

Brody for NotLinda

Writing for a fan blog, you meet a lot of fans. We all know that Damian is one of the rare breed of actor who is able to convincingly straddle multiple genres of storytelling: thriller, romance, shakespearean drama, war drama, the list goes on. Thus he has fans from all over the place too. Lucky to be in a field where constancy is both something you want so folks know what they’re about to get when they see you on screen, as well as something you want to fight against to lesson the risk of pigeonholing yourself in one kind of role. Damian has resisted pigeonholing at every turn.

And, so, we meet Band of Brothers fans, and Forsyte fans, and Homeland fans. Most times we fans intersect over their one intersecting quality: Damian. I met one such true fan recently on my posts about Brody and Carrie’s love story. I’ve always liked the idea of having a sort of call and response in written form, fans interviewing each other, arguing respectfully, like we’re lawyers for the defense of our favorites. And it’s a lovely thing when something comes along to make you think deeper, maybe even change your mind a bit about the stuff you think you know inside and out. NotLinda did that for me, and, I’m happy to say, I for her. We had incredibly rich discussions in the comments sections. So much so that I’m gathering them together into a post or two of their own. For now, you can hear from her first. This is a response she wrote to something I said in one of my “Was it Love” posts. Enjoy!

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Much Ado About Nothing

Ah, the romantic comedy: A genre when presented as an evening’s viewing option has sent many an otherwise lovey-dovey couple to opposite ends of the couch. I have to say the romantic comedy has never been my first stop when Netflix surfing. Actually, it’s rarely my choice at all, unless When Harry Met Sally is on (the last great romantic comedy, IMO) or the least appreciated but my personal favorite of the Meg Ryan/Tom Hanks vehicles: Joe vs. the Volcano. [The guy falls for different versions of the SAME woman; how much more romantic (and comedic) can you get?]

William Shakespeare knew a thing or two about romantic comedies. In fact, he invented the genre! The formula of boy meets girl, they run up against some obstacles, surmount said obstacles with the help of a jocular coterie of friends, and live happily ever after: That’s Shakespeare! And perhaps the most seminal of his romantic comedies is Much Ado About Nothing. The plot and characters gave rise to many adaptations and permutations. There was the beautifully hilarious big-screen adaptation in 1993 with real-life couple-at-the-time Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson. More recently, in 2012, there was another lovely big-screen adaptation, this time by Joss Whedon, set in modern times but true to Shakespearean language. And between those two, in 2005, our very own Damian Lewis starred as Benedick in a BBC adaptation of the story, set in modern times with modern language, for their series Shakespeare ReTold.

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Damian as Antony

When is it a bad time to bring up Damian’s turn at Shakespeare? Why, never, of course! We’ve yet to see him live in a Shakespeare production, but, thanks to The Guardian’s video series, we got the next best thing.
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Bobby Axelrod and Wendy Rhoades Preincarnate

Now that we’ve had a fun peek at some filming and behind the scenes pics of Billions Season 3 featuring our favorite working couple, let’s revisit a post on how the relationship between Bobby Axelrod and Wendy Rhoades mirrors another relationship Damian has played: Paul and Lizzie from the BBC film Friends and Crocodiles.

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Generated by IJG JPEG Library
Generated by IJG JPEG Library

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Brody in Homeland S6

When Brody died on Homeland, I was one of those fans who searched high and low, scrambling to find somewhere to talk about him and about the show. At one point I ended up on the Facebook page for Homeland and tried fruitlessly to sift thru all the flat “No Brody No Homeland” pointlessness to find someone who saw what I saw in the character and in the show. Brody will never die, I thought. So why rage into the void, begging for him to come back from the dead? Shows do listen to such things, I suppose. But, even if they did listen to all the pleas from fans, what would Brody come back for? To be a dad to his new daughter? To live happily ever after with Carrie? Really, fans?

No. Brody was dead. In fact, he was dead from the minute he got off the plane and saw Jess for the first time. I spoke at length of this aspect of the character before, here and here and here. The remarkable thing about the character was this very thing, that he was a dead man walking. A cipher, a mystery, an empty vessel filled with nothing except what various people put in his head. The fact that Damian played that emptiness so FULLY is the remarkable thing, the memorable thing, the thing that compels us to never let go of the character. Characters written so completely and played so fully never die, do they? The truth and the reality of Brody lives on and will never die.

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