Ah, the Vanity Fair British Invasion shoot: where do I even start with this sweet highlight of 2015? Stunning shots of the many actors who have crossed the pond and made it big on screens in the US. The pages in the magazine were lovely, but the video and short film accompanying the shoot was to die for.
Where do I even start with a retelling of the events of October 3, 2015, my first time seeing Damian Lewis in person? Seems like my experience was clouded by a fangirl fugue state that started when he first walked into the theater for his interview with Lauren Collins, reached a new crescendo with the Cleo reading, and didn’t let up until days later, when I could sit and recall it all in a moment of tranquility. As we were wrapping up our immersion into The Weekend with Damian Lewis provided by the New Yorker Festival, Damianista wanted to talk about how we would write about the events, who would write what, and when. Truthfully, I said, I could take that 90 minute interview and churn out a post about every 15 minute chunk of it. And that’s not even including the Green Room time, which in my fugue state felt like 5 minutes, but, in reality, I’m assured, was much longer. Such was the richness of the experience.
Granted, for the hard core Damian fans, there were several things we’d already read or heard him say before. But even those topics that had been touched upon over the years in one forum or another (eg Damian being told he got the Dick Winters role when he was still drunk from a night carousing in Santa Monica and his visit with President Obama) were retold under a fresh light. And how fresher a light can there be than when the subject of the interview is sitting less than five feet in front of you. Blazing light, to be perfectly honest.
It’s quite fun playing a billionaire! I have been on more yachts, private jets, and helicopters than in my entire life in the space of the last two months.” – Damian Lewis
After the interview with Lauren Collins on Saturday, the second event for Damian Lewis at this weekend’s New Yorker Festival was a play reading of Lawrence Wright’s Cleo, with Damian Lewis playing the part of Richard Burton to Lily Rabe’s Elizabeth Taylor.
We’re all pretty familiar with “le scandale” that brewed behind the set of the filming of the most expensive production of its time, right? Lawrence Wright’s script gives us a story built around the events of Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor’s combustible love affair during the filming of Hollywood blockbuster Cleopatra.
Two of my MOST favorite things, Damian Lewis and the New Yorker came together at the New Yorker Festival this past weekend. I wrote earlier here about the proud fan moment I was having thanks to Damian Lewis making not one but two appearances at my most favorite festival! Just to re-iterate briefly, I’ve been reading The New Yorker quite religiously for more than a decade now. I don’t remember how many subscriptions I gave to friends as gifts over the years and it is still one of the few subscriptions that I receive in the mail every week. And, the New Yorker Festival feels like the pages of the magazine literally coming to life for a weekend throughout the city with talks, conversations, readings, performances, panels with individuals that are at the top of their game in their respective fields — including arts, sciences, politics, sports, theater, music, literature, film, TV, food and more… As someone that attended quite a few events at the festival over the years, I can confidently say that, independent of the context, all events share one characteristic: intelligence. The festival participants are without exception endowed with some real brainpower. They are, in The New Yorker‘s own words, “some of the most talented and influential thinkers about topics ranging from politics to pop music, science to cinema, and so much more.”
