Joining the Band: Paige’s Story

Hello all! Damianista welcomes you to a NEW fan story!

One of the most rewarding things about doing this fan blog is meeting fellow fans with whom you hit it off immediately. And, Paige is certainly one of them. We first met online but then in person at Damian’s Times Talks in New York last summer and have been in regular touch since then. Damian made Times Talks a special treat for the audience with his delightful stories and brilliant sense of humor. There was a lot of laughter in the room and I believe Paige and I provide concrete evidence in the picture below 🙂

Paige is not only a great Damian Lewis fan, she is also a brilliant blogger. You should definitely check out her blog Maximum Tuneage and read about how she almost did anything for Damian Lewis and why I am her walking .gif 😀

Without further ado, here is Paige sharing her fan story:

My first brush with Damian Lewis’ talent with swift and all-encompassing. The first thing I saw was Homeland, and right from the start, I was taken with his unique presence. Nick Brody was not someone we had seen before in any medium. We had reason to believe the prisoner of war wasn’t on the up and up — as the lead character was so sure he had been turned in captivity. But yet he still generated much sympathy as Sgt. Brody tried to reacclimate after whatever he had been through.

Then Brody met Carrie Mathison and it went to a whole other level. Watching Damian play off Claire Danes wasn’t just about seeing two professionals at the top of the game, for me, they generated a wide array of emotions — envy, sympathy and even lust.

To this day, my heart beats faster when watching the first-season finale. Lots of times, when there’s an attempted climax in the medium, the protagonist is stopped before he can do any damage. And yes, ultimately that’s accomplished by Brody’s daughter. But what I find so spine-tingling is that Brody did push that button. He would have completed his mission and Carrie/Dana would have been too late. That’s unrelenting. That’s great drama and I was just dazzled, particularly by Damian in that episode. He sure earned his Emmy.

Loving Homeland set me on a quest to see anything of Damian’s that I could get my hands on. (I mean his work, of course.) And as I waited for Band of Brothers to arrive in the mail, I binged Life. Again, I was just knocked out by him.

Life, on its surface, is another police procedural. At its heart, it’s something much more, thanks to Damian. Again, he inhabited a character we just hadn’t seen before. In his interplay with the rest of the cast — Sarah Shahi and Adam Arkin, in particular — he quickly carved out Charlie Crews, giving us his story not just in snappy dialogue, but in looks and gestures as well.

And then Band of Brothers. How difficult must it be to inhabit someone the stature of Dick Winters? From the first episode, we quickly saw why his troops would basically do anything for him, even though he was very different from all of them. We got just comfortable enough during “Currahee” to really understand the impact of “Day of Days.” In Damian’s portrayal, we saw a man become a hero before our eyes. Without a false note. That continued throughout the rest of the saga. When a stoic Winters first sets eyes on a concentration camp, we feel his reaction more than hearing it. Seeing the real Dick Winters on film before the various episodes only reinforces what a high bar there was for the man who played him, and Damian does an incredible and indelible job.

So my initial love and respect for Damian was initiated by Homeland, but I truly believe Life and Band of Brothers were crucial pieces of the puzzle that made for me a fan for life.

Thanks for reading!

Author: Damianista

Academic, Traveler, Blogger, Runner, Theatre Lover, Wine Snob, Part-time New Yorker, and Walking Damian Lewis Encyclopedia :D Procrastinated about a fan's diary on Damian Lewis for a while and the rest is history! View all posts by Damianista