musings about the actor and the characters he brings to life
One of the top war movies JaniaJania finds in the same league with Band of Brothers in her post on Damian Lewis as Dick Winters a few weeks ago was Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down.
Did you know that Damian Lewis was actually offered a part in Black Hawk Down after his big success as Dick Winters in Band of Brothers but he turned it down for The Forsyte Saga? Continue reading “Trivia Tuesday… From Dick Winters to Soames Forsyte”
In case you missed “Why Damian Lewis? Part I: The Actor” you can see it here.
Now that we have moved from the actor to the man…
Why Damian Lewis?
What are the qualities that I admire in him? How would I describe the man in a few adjectives?
Ok… I’d say… he’s a witty, kind, charming and articulate man!
I really ENJOY hanging out with witty, kind and charming people, and I deeply ADMIRE articulate people – it is just my soft spot, I just can’t help admiring people that can express themselves readily, clearly and effectively. Continue reading “Why Damian Lewis? Part II: The Man”
“Mad Men. I watch endless episodes when I should be working.”
-Damian Lewis
Oh, yes!
Damian, I cannot thank you enough for loving Mad Men; because, first, you give me the chance to write about something that I LOVE very deeply, and second, it is so much fun to share this love for Mad Men with you!
Get back to the quote: “Watching endless episodes when I should be working.” I know it well. Very well indeed. I cannot tell you enough about the sleepless nights my husband and I had while we were binge-watching Mad Men. We watch one episode. “One more?” “Oh, yeah. It’s only 10pm”. Second episode gone. “One more?” “Why not? Do we really have to get up early tomorrow?” Done. It’s already past midnight and my husband and I look at each other and simultaneously say “One more?”
So, we watched, exactly like Damian, endless episodes of Mad Men when we should have been sleeping so that we could get up reasonably early for work. And, I don’t know about Damian, but we watched some seasons multiple times, too! Continue reading “Damian Lewis loves Don Draper”
As Damian Lewis is preparing for a wonderful comeback to stage this spring in David Mamet’s modern classic American Buffalo… I thought it would be cool to travel back in time and visit some earlier stage work Damian did. We may start with Hamlet which Damian calls a “growing up, coming of age experience ” in his career.
Damian Lewis did his Broadway debut in Hamlet, and played Laertes to Ralph Fiennes’ Hamlet in 1995. The Almeida Theatre production was staged first at Hackney Empire in March 1995, and after its successful run in London, it came to Broadway in the summer of 1995 — OMG, yes, exactly twenty years ago! Continue reading “Throwback Thursday with Hamlet on Broadway”
Back to Brody
More than anything, and more than any other work about terrorism, Homeland is about exploring the gray areas, between good and evil, between “warfare and terrorism”. The show is about forcing us to think about the real costs and rethink our understanding of the real victims of both war and terrorism. We meet Brody and we see what he is planning to do. And we’re encouraged to think: Okay, if this conservative white man from middle America can become someone who would blow himself and a bunch of people up, then….maybe, just maybe, those men strapping on vests all over the Middle East, or even those men flying planes into buildings, are also men who were led on a path of evil the same way Brody was, by pervasive systematic abuse? And maybe, part of the abuse on those men and children strapping on vests was perpetrated by someone you and I and our neighbors voted for? I don’t think Homeland ever sought to be an apologist for terrorism, they’re not trying to justify any of the evil. They just want to shine a thoughtful, intelligent light on it; a light radically different than any other treatment of the subject.