Happy Birthday to my favorite actor, a very kind man and a fellow Aquarius 🙂
Dear Damian, hope you have a happy, healthy, lucky and successful year, with your family and all your loved ones!
If you believe in yearly horoscopes (I really don’t but I still enjoy reading them) then 2015 will be a really GREAT year for Aquarius. But, honestly, when it comes to Damian’s year, we don’t really need to read his horoscope or read the tea leaves, or having grown up in Turkey, the coffee cup for him 🙂 His record just speaks for the entire year!
2015 is such a busy time for Damian that it will be extremely difficult to keep up with the guy 🙂 He will be all over the place, on TV, at the movies, and on stage. Lucky, lucky, lucky US! I promise I will do my BEST to catch up!
Well… Let’s take a look… starting with the small screen…
Wolf Hall has already been STORMING the UK for the last couple of weeks as one of the BEST things that has ever happened to TV! And, it is coming to PBS Masterpiece theater on April 5. Damian Lewis’ portrayal of Henry is just FANTASTIC that he makes us see both Henry the God-like king and Henry the tender man, and sometimes he switches from one to another in the blink of an eye that is nothing short of mesmerizing. And, some good news have arrived on Monday for Wolf Hall junkies like myself: Radio Times has reported that BBC is poised to commission more Wolf Hall when Hilary Mantel finishes the third book in the trilogy “The Light and the Mirror.” It’s probably not a possibility for this year, but I keep my fingers crossed that the book is out soon, and stars get aligned that both Mark Rylance and Damian Lewis can find time in their very busy schedules and STRIKE again!
And then… it’s SHOWTIME again for Damian Lewis 🙂 Damian has been in NY for almost a month shooting the new Showtime Drama Pilot Billions. To my best knowledge, if Billions goes to series, they will shoot the First Season in the second half of the year. I am saying “if Billions goes to series..:” just not to jinx it. In fact, I have a very good feeling about this… How can you go wrong with these writers, director and actors? Oh, the actors! It’s a DREAM CAST. Damian Lewis. Paul Giamatti. Maggie Siff. David Costabile. Malin Akerman. Enough said 🙂
Executive Producer Bryan Koppelman tweeted Monday that it was Damian’s last day of shoot and added “Standing Ovation for him.”
Well, we never expect less from Damian 🙂
Damian is now back in the UK and he will probably start working on his FANTASTIC return to stage in the West End revival of David Mamet’s explosive play American Buffalo.
Celebrated director Daniel Evans, whom Damian trained with in Guildhall School of Music and Drama, is staging the new production. Damian Lewis is taking on the role of “Teach” where as two other great actors, John Goodman and Tom Sturridge are playing Don Dubrow and Bobby, respectively.
A side note for those of you that plan to see the play: Tickets are selling VERY FAST, so make sure to book your tickets as soon as possible, and make sure you buy your tickets directly from the theater for BEST prices.
From small screen… to stage… to large screen… We will see Damian Lewis in three movies in 2015. Of course, the lucky ones among us caught the World Premiere of the Silent Storm at BFI London Film Festival in October, and the World Premiere of Queen of the Desert at Berlinale last week. We, the mortals, will have to wait for the movies to arrive at a theater near us 🙂
The Silent Storm, directed by Corinna McFarlane, is a small, independent movie filmed on the Island of Mull. Damian Lewis takes on the role of a local minister, Balor McNeil. Balor has a troubled life personally and professionally. First, a storm is brewing in his marriage to a beautiful and young outsider Aislin. At the same time, people of the Island are leaving for the mainland, and Balor is fighting to keep his disappearing community together.
Queen of the Desert, a highly anticipated biopic of Gertrude Bell, more or less a female “Lawrence of Arabia”, directed by Werner Herzog, and starring Nicole Kidman, Damian Lewis, James Franco and Robert Pattinson had its World Premiere at 65th Berlinale on February 6. You can see my stories on Damian’s character Charles Doughty Wylie here and Damian’s TOP moments at Berlinale here complete with the Press Conference and Red Carpet videos.
Finally, we also have Our Kind of Traitor, a spy thriller adapted from John Le Carre’s novel. I am not particularly interested in spy novels, however, I really loved Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy that I was quite intrigued when I found out Damian was cast as a member of the British Secret Service in Our Kind of Traitor… and guess what? I read the book 🙂 It’s a good book, in fact, it was chosen as a “Best Book of the Year”by Washington Post. It’s a high-wire thriller in which Le Carre takes the global financial crisis and turns it into a story built on the functional and dysfunctional alliances between the Russian mafia, financial institutions, and the British Secret Service. We will talk about the book and Damian’s character Hector Meredith in much more detail later, but for now, let me at least say that Hector is quite a character. He is a complete enigma whose motives and interests are too difficult to figure out. I am dying to find out how Damian brings this complex character to life.
Just a quick look at the characters Damian Lewis plays in 2015 tells it all: Henry VIII. Bobby Axelrod, a 21st Century Wall Street hedge-fund king. “Teach”, a lower class, vulgar American. Balor McNeil, a righteous minister in on a remote island in Scotland in mid 20th century. Charles Doughty-Wylie, an Edwardian era soldier. Hector Meredith, a high up in the British Secret Service. AMAZING. In an era dominated by Hollywood stars that play the same role again and again — you know that, right? The movie title changes, the character’s name changes, but the actor is always playing the same role, I don’t want to name names, but I know that you get the picture — it is so refreshing to see an actor playing such a wide range of characters in a single year!
I know… this has been a really long story… but you can only blame Damian for it! He has SO MUCH on his plate… And, you know, when one has so many brilliant projects lined up in front of him… one may see some awards in the coffee cup… BREAK A LEG, Damian!
As we wish for a WONDERFUL year for Damian Lewis, dear fans, I just cannot decide if he or we will be having a better year! Let’s make the most of it! CHEERS!
