musings about the actor and the characters he brings to life
Henry VIII is a monster, but he’s our monster. We’re perversely proud of Henry. -Hilary Mantel
Now tell me… what are the odds your all-time favorite actor plays your all-time favorite historical monster in a mini-series based on your all-time favorite book?
I know! 🙂
In celebration of Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light arriving finally on BBC, I would love to share my own very personal Wolf Hall journey with you. ENJOY!
Continue reading “10 Years of Wolf Hall: A Personal Journey”
10 years?!?! Whaaaat? It feels like yesterday.
I was very lucky to be there in the room when Damian and Helen read love poems to each other from The Love Book, a brilliant collection of classic and contemporary love poems that vary from Shakespeare to E.E. Cummings to Maya Angelou coming together in a book as well as in an app. It was a moving and intimate hour with a powerhouse husband and wife team reading poems, teasing each other, and sharing their dynamic chemistry with the audience.
It turns out that when the festival inquired about a possible video recording of the reading in 2014, Helen and Damian said no. Damian tells The Sunday Times:
At a recent dinner party, we played a game where everyone had to talk about three things they thought changed their lives. I had two moments from my early life: one being the Live Aid concert back in July 1985 (I was 13!) that got me thrilled that the whole world, all of us, were watching it together, and the other was a political assassination of a journalist in Turkey in January 1992 (I was 20!) that taught me that a state can get rid of citizens that insist on looking for the truth. And the third moment I mentioned was Homeland. Because I was a regular academic attending to my own thing until a certain “pesky Brit” disguised as an American POW showed up and turned everything upside down! Homeland made me a Damian Lewis fan for life and I launched a blog in his name almost a decade ago. Go, figure!
Homeland, the show that started it all, premiered on Showtime on October 2, 2011, exactly thirteen years ago today. Continue reading “Happy Birthday, Homeland (Or How Brody Turned My Life Upside Down)”
Damianista’s note: I wrote the following post a few years ago as part of our “Dream Role for Damian Lewis” project. My dream role for Damian is based on a short story by Alice Munro, a Nobel Laurate and one of my favorite writers. Munro passed away yesterday and I would love to share my dream role for Damian in her memory. Rest in peace, Ms. Munro.
I was very lucky to meet Damian Lewis in person for the first time at Cheltenham Literature Festival in October 2014. I probably stood out as the crazy fan at their book signing after his and Helen’s brilliant performance of reading love poems to each other from Allie Esiri’s The Love Book compilation. The Brits are proper. They do not ask for photos. I think I was the only one in that long queue who asked for a photo but also for a bit of his time citing that I came all the way from North Carolina (his state of residence for six months every year between 2011-2013 thanks to Homeland) to meet him! Continue reading “In Memory of Alice Munro: A Country Doctor – Damianista’s Dream Role for Damian Lewis”
I was there in the room when Damian and Helen read love poems to each other from The Love Book, a brilliant collection of classic and contemporary love poems that vary from Shakespeare to E.E. Cummings to Maya Angelou coming together in a book as well as in an app. It was a moving and intimate hour with a powerhouse husband and wife team reading poems, teasing each other, and sharing their dynamic chemistry with the audience. And could there be anything better to share with the fandom on World Poetry Day?
It turns out that when the festival inquired about a possible video recording of the reading in 2014, Helen and Damian said no. Damian tells The Sunday Times:
Continue reading “A Treasure Rediscovered: Damian Lewis and Helen McCrory Bring Magic To Poetry”