Top Damian Lewis Moments 2019: Hand in Hand

Damian and Helen hand in hand at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards, November 24, 2019

It is no secret we adore these love birds and we are extremely pleased to end the year, exactly like we did in 2015, 2016, 2017,  and 2018 with our favorite Damian & Helen moments of 2019!

Well, it is obviously not easy to be two ridiculously talented and busy actors living together and raising a family. I remember Damian telling us at Cheltenham Literature Festival that the problem never goes away:

“When you’re two actors living together, you’re always asked to do work away from your home, so you just have to decide which ones are important enough to go and do away from home and try to spend the rest of the time together.”

And that is exactly what Damian and Helen have done in 2019.

While he needs to spend, give or take, half of the year in New York to shoot Billions, Damian goes back home often. Here is what he shares with The Evening Standard two years ago about his commute between New York and London.

“I’ve pretty much flown back and forth from New York to London every ten days for the last six months.

It’s not easy to leave my kids but I tell them I’m flying back to work so we can have a nice holiday later on with all the air miles that I’m amassing.

We muddle through but it is hard work. I must say, I’m getting quite tired of the departure lounge at Newark Airport.”

Thanks to numerous news articles, social media posts, a few interviews with Helen and as well as Damian’s own tweets, we know what our favorite couple has been up to this year!

There was a week to ten days in February that Damian seemed to have a break from Billions shoot and had some quality time with Helen and family!We first saw the two of them at the annual Charles Finch and Chanel pre-BAFTAs dinner party…

…followed by appearances at Erdem (with daughter Manon!), Roksanda and Christopher Kane fashion shows during London Fashion Week. You can see tons of pictures from London Fashion Week on our gallery.

Helen McCrory and Damian Lewis attend the Roksanda show, February 2019
Helen McCrory and Damian Lewis attend the Erdem Show with their daughter Manon, February 2019
Helen McCrory and Damian Lewis attend the Christopher Kane show, February 2019

Damian and Helen were spotted in New York – having lunch at Nello and then strolling on Madison Avenue by the end of Billions Season 4 shoot. It turns out that they were in the city as a family ready to fly to Cuba for vacation as soon as Damian was done with the shoot as well as talk shows and interviews to promote the show.

Helen tells Telegraph in an interview earlier this year that it was Damian that organized their family trip to Cuba. It was a road trip where they did not stay at hotels but at people’s homes. They are so my kind of people!

Damian and Helen kicked off the summer festivities in style at the Virgin Media British Academy Television Awards (BAFTA) at the Royal Festival Hall in London. And Helen’s presentation of the Best Actor Award was the coolest ever or what?

 

Yet, my favorite photo of Damian and Helen from that evening is not the kind of picture you would expect 😀 😀 😀

Huge thanks go to Helen’s stylist for taking this picture. Yes, these two are real stars in public but they are first mom and dad feeding the kids before a date night at the BAFTA Awards! And, hey, whose feet are they in the background? LOVE IT! You can visit our gallery for more pics from the BAFTA TV awards.

The summer continued with other performances, one at the opening night performance of English National Ballet’s “Cinderella” at Royal Albert Hall…

…another at the Press Night for the brilliant play Lehman Trilogy (I saw the play at Park Avenue Armory in NYC last spring!) at London’s Piccadilly Theatre…

…and yet another press night for Lynn Notage’s Pulitzer- winning play Sweat at the Gielgud Theatre in London.

And they danced to Fleetwood Mac at the band’s long awaited comeback concert in Wembley Stadium.

We found Damian and Helen late June at the Serpentine Gallery and Chanel Summer Party that raises funds for exhibitions, architecture, education, live and digital programs and celebrates all those who enable the Serpentine Galleries’ work. You can visit our gallery for more pics from the party.

Damian and Helen attend Serpentine Gallery Summer Party in London, June 2019

While she always attends the games that Damian plays in, Helen repeatedly says she is not as sporty as her better half. She tells Telegraph in 2008:

“Damian and I have separate interests. I don’t care if Liverpool win or lose. Nor could I explain any of the cricket scoring.”

😀

But, hey, it seems tennis is an exception!

Damian and Helen attended Wimbledon again this year to watch men’s semi-finals! And the matches they saw from the Royal Box did not only last four sets each, but the one between Nadal and Federer became an instant classic! You can see more pics from Wimbledon at our gallery!

Another summer highlight for the couple, at least for Helen, was the Bob Dylan and Neil Young’s British Summertime Concert, a truly historical double bill, in Hyde Park. Well, what Helen says about her VIP wristband as she was wearing it 5 days after the concert speaks volumes:

“I am never taking it off.”

😀

Next was a star-studded night at The Hunt at the Almeida Theatre in London where they both had pictures taken with the play’s child actor Abbiegail Mills!

While our favorite couple celebrated their 12th wedding anniversary in July, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gave them a brilliant gift earlier that week: Both Damian and Helen have been invited to join the Academy as members. Congratulations!

Then came the Peaky Blinders Season 5 BFI TV Preview held at BFI Southbank! While Helen got the spotlight with her fellow kick-ass actresses on the show, thanks to a fan photo, we know Damian was supporting his wife at the screening and the after party!

Our favorite couple put an end to their busy July at the UK Premiere of highly anticipated Once Upon A Time in Hollywood in which Damian brings to big screen Steve McQueen, a true Hollywood icon. The premiere took place at the Odeon Luxe Leicester Square.

Damian and Helen looked absolutely gorgeous on the white carpet…

…Damian mingled with the film’s lead actors and director Tarantino…

…and he gave a fun interview!

The tipsy looks our favorite couple had as they were leaving the after party attests to the amount of fun they had! <3

You can see more pictures from the premiere here.

Helen tells in an interview with The Times that the family is spending most of the summer in the family’s second home on the Suffolk/Essex borders.

“It had been on the market for a long time. You’ve got to be very careful with the second-home thing that you’re not buying somewhere someone else might have wanted. Now it’s just full all the time. Either we’re all there and we invite people or we give people keys to use it. There’s nothing in there, a sofa and a record player — we literally just gutted it, moved the furniture out and painted it white. The decorators were, like ‘What kind of white?’ and we were, like, ‘Just white.’ I don’t care about things like paint charts. For some people a home is a reflection of who they are; to me it’s just where I am.”

The family’s ideal vacation happens to be renting a camper van with Damian on the wheel. Helen tells The Times:

“It’s just the best. All the chickens are in the nest around you and you can just stop and say, ‘OK, let’s have lunch here or see what’s down there.’ “

One of the major stops this year was the Latitude Festival in Henham Park, Suffolk, an annual festival offering music, theatre, rides and games, street food markets, yoga workshops, art installations, and swimming in a close by lake. Thanks to Damian’s several tweets, we know a few of the performances the family attended at the festival…

…but what is sweeter is what Helen shares about how the family picks and chooses performances to attend at the festival:

“We are taking them [Manon and Gulliver] to Latitude next weekend, and the deal is everyone chooses two things [to see] and we all have to go. There will be no walking out halfway through Drake because it is not the clean version!”

One of the rare Lewis-McCrory family photos we have, Radio City, Christmas 2016

Long live democracy! 😀

For the last three years, Damian came to New York just after Labor Day to start the new season shoot for Billions. Yet, since they took a longer break than usual this year and the Season 5 shoot started only in November, Damian had two extra months with family and friends in London.

Damian and Helen were on the trading floor together on BGC Charity Day to raise funds for Sir Hubert von Herkomer Arts Foundation that is dedicated to ensuring every child is given a chance to connect with art when funding for the arts is squeezed out of the mainstream curriculum.

You can visit  our gallery for more pictures and videos from BGC charity day.

We have also seen fan reports on Twitter that Damian and Helen were at Chessington World of Adventures, the same theme park we saw our favorite couple wearing fun wigs and masks and feeding the giraffes last year! Wish we had a glimpse of them managing a bunch of pre-teens… but we at least know the reports were true! 🙂

Damian and Helen were in attendance for One Voice: Cracked late September at the Old Vic Theatre in London. Comedian, writer, actor and presenter Russell Brand curated the evening described as a night of seven one-off solo performances written in response to the growing conversation and changing attitudes around mental health and addiction. Despite an apparent injury with her arm in a sling, Helen performed on stage as Damian supported from the audience.

And they were also able to find some time in their busy schedules to read Shakespeare poems for the audio book version of Allie Esiri’s new compilation Shakespeare for Every Day of The Year! You can hear some lovely extracts below!

And while Damian started to shoot Billions in New York at the end of October, he came back home several times in the month of November. Damian and Helen attended the silent ceremony as well as the parade in honor of Damian’s older brother William Russell who recently became Lord Mayor of London…

..and Helen curated a poetry event along with Allie Esiri for the Lord Mayor’s Appeal where she and Damian read poems together on stage. You can read about the details of these recent events in Gingersnap’s recent “Top Moments” post here.

Our favorite couple were also on stage together as they co-hosted the Evening Standard Theatre Awards. We have tons of pictures from the ceremony which you can see on our gallery.

Now that Billions Season 5 shoot is having a holiday break, Damian is enjoying the holidays with his family! According to the following tweet by an actor in the play, Damian and Helen saw The Play That Goes Wrong, winner of the Olivier Award for Best New Comedy in 2015.

And it turns out that they called in for their New Year’s Eve fireworks yesterday!

We wish Lewis-McCrory family and all our readers a WONDERFUL New Year.

See you in 2020!

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!

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