Quiz Answer

So did you get it right? 

in 2002 Damian plays MP Jeffery Archer alongside Gretta Scacchi who plays a rather attractive ex Maggie Thatcher.

The film is a satirical look at the 'secret' TRUE life of Jeffrey Archer. The Truth, the whole truth and everything BUT the truth.  An amusing film written by Guy Jenkin.

I recall at the Times Talks Damian spoke about this project which sounded like a lot of fun to make.

Check out www.damian-lewis.com to see more pics and info on this project.

source- www.damian-lewis.com

Pic's for your weekend:-)

Its...... Quiz Time.

Can you work out what film and character a not so red head Damian is in below?

The answer will be revealed on Fridays blog so don't miss it

source - www.damian-lewis.com

Follow us on Twitter @emsjbabb and @DamianLewisCom

Pic of the day

Damien Lewis - All Shook Up

start the day with a smile:-)

Damian Lewis....and Emma re read her entry:-)

Emmas fan story....

It was September 2012 and I was getting a train into London with two friends to do a charity walk for cancer research - on the way into London we were discussing the TV that was on the night before and my two friends were discussing "Homeland" "noooooo" I said to them "I don't watch it" both friends agreed i was mad and would love it especially the main character Damian Lewis?? Who? We then googled him so I could see what they were on about! Yeah he's ok!  The next day I then asked my husband to download Homeland seasons 1 and 2! He was also interested in watching it as he had been told it was an excellent series we were missing out!
WOW not only was it one of the most fantastic things I had ever watched, I was officially a Damian Lewis fan! I got straight into the Internet to google what else this fantastic actor had appeared in! I knew I recognised him from The Sweeney which we had only seen a couple of weeks before,  but so many other things I had seen and not realised he was even in, including "Hearts and Bones" a very 1990's series on the BBC and a BBC film called "Stolen" which I had missed and recently watched thanks to my fabulous friend in Germany who sent it to me.  I then went on to watch "Life" which I think Is one of my favourite things Damian has done closely followed by the Baker, or Assassin in Love if your from the states.  I then found the fantastic website DAMIAN-LEWIS.COM which had some great photos and info on there to help feed my addiction.... From this I found the twitter site along with the twitter fan site and thanks to them, in may this year I was able to go to the Times Talks in London where Damian was interviewed - and even luckier that I was able to ask him a question at the end, and whilst in the que found someone who is now one of my best friends and work colleagues
There are so many reasons why I am a fan, not only because of his handsome face, his charming manner and of course his amazing acting but because he comes across as such a kind and nice person too and if it were not for him I would never have found my friend xxx

personal note: thank you Em,will never forget the start of all that....look forward to share more moments with you.thanks for a beautiful journey.S

I'm Henry the VIII.......

As its the week of the Emmy's and Damian has been nominated for one for his role as Henry in Wolf Hall, it has made me think back to when I was a little girl and we did a tudor school play.

I have not thought about this particular time in my life for years.  I was about 10 and we were told by our history teacher that we were going to do a school play on The Tudors as we had spent a whole term learning about them and wanted to show all the parents what we had learned.  We were all given parts to play and I got the part of a peasant street person (My drama was awful - not the greatest of actors, the closest I would get to an Emmy is my name lol) - at the age of 10 you can imagine what I must have looked like in the full tudor costume, dirty looking face and blacked out teeth.

Source: damian-lewis.com

The rest of the memory is a bit of a blur but all I can remember is this kid called Jack who played the part of Henry, not because of his fantastic acting skill but because he was the only ginger child in the school who could play the part - Jack's Mum had made his the most excellent outfit and I remember more than anything his fake ginger beard that he had made out of some felt fabric and the poor boy completely lost his lines just as his beard fell off.

The song is the thing that I don't think I will ever forget - about 30, ten year old kids dressed up as Tudors, all singing "I'm Henry the eighth I am I am, I'm Henry the eighth I am"

I wonder if Jack ever thinks of that play!

wow that was 32 years ago!!!!!!!

source: damian-lewis.com

Pic of the day

Eton Emma explains it to you:-)

Eton is one of nine English independent schools, commonly referred to as a "Public School" Following the public school tradition, Eton is a full boarding school, which means all pupils live at the school, and it is one of four such remaining single-sex boys' public schools in the UK.   Eton has educated nineteen British Prime Ministers.  Eton is the 6th most expensive boarding school in the UK.  Many an actor has been to Eton including our own Damian Lewis, Tom Hiddleston, Hugh Laurie and Dominic West.  Did you know fictional character James Bond 007 was also said to have been educated at Eton too.


When Damian Lewis had an interview when he received his OBE back in November 2014, he spoke about the educational establishment, previously Damian told Esquire magazine "Suddenly these little kingpins arrived from their own schools, your surrounded by the best of the best" he went on to say "Eton is an extraordinary place, and its interesting because unless you are going to Oxford or Cambridge, you feel a bit like you have been to the best university already."

However after receiving the honour, Damian said his time at the school had prepared him well for taking on his role as Henry V111 in the BBC adaptation of Wolf Hall which aired earlier this year on BBC2.

weekend picture

So who was this young Damian character?

The answer is Clive and he was a character who played a young TV  runner in Mickey Love, Damian was in this film for a few minutes, but long enough to see the flock of red hair.  The film stared the late and very talented Rik Mayall who I was a huge fan of when I was growing up - he was in great British comedies such as the Young Ones, The New Statesman, An American Werewolf in London and a great film called Drop Dead Fred , a huge loss to British comedy when he died last year.

Below is a short synopsis on the film.  I remember watching it myself in the 90's not knowing I was watching a certain Damian Lewis who was destined for bigger things.

"Mickey Love is an aging television quiz show host who after climbing his way back to the top after conquering alcoholism has hosted the highly rated "Family Values" for over ten years. But when he hears a false rumor that his show will be axed to make way for a new one to be hosted by young upstart Greg Deane. Mickey bitterly resorts to desperate measures to cling on to his career. Little does Mickey know however is that his bosses actually have something else in store for him. "            

Character Wednesay

So who is this character? and what is the British TV film he was in
Catch up on Friday for the answer.........

Pic of the day

still one of our proudest moments:-)

Tea and a Mag... Damian's London

Damian Lewis: My London (2005)
The Evening Standard ES Magazine, October 28, 2005


Where do you live and why?
Camden. I've always liked this part of London. I remember, when I was younger, I used to make it along to the Electric Ballroom in Camden High Street on a Friday night and jump up and down to the rock music.

How long have you lived there?
I've lived in North London all my life. I grew up in St. John's Wood, although I was at boarding school a lot of the time. Afterwards, I returned to London to study at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. I was at Guildhall at the same time as Joseph Fiennes, Ewan McGregor and Jude Law.

What was the last play you saw in London and did you enjoy it?
As You Like It at Wyndhams Theatre with my girlfriend Helen McCrory and Sienna Miller. Helen's performance as Rosalind was quite stunning -- I loved it.

What have been your most memorable London meals?
Long Sunday lunches in great pubs with good wine and good friends. I also like eating at The Wolseley on Piccadilly. I can't really tell if I'm in a Viennese brasserie or a car showroom -- but it's very grand.

What do you miss most when you're out of London?
The magnificent views of the city when you're standing on the top of Primrose Hill or from Waterloo Bridge -- they're breathtaking.

What is your life philosophy? 
Be brave. Regret nothing.

What items are in your winter wardrobe?
Long johns and woolly socks -- especially if it's going to get as cold as everyone is predicting this winter.

Which aftershave do you wear?
Acqua di Gio by Giorgio Armani or something by Christian Dior.

What are your current projects?
I'm currently rehearsing for a Henrik Ibsen play at the National Theatre called Pillars Of The Community, which opens on 1 November. Then I've got Much Ado About Nothing, which is on BBC One, also on 1 November. And there's my film Keane which is being screened at the London Film Festival. I play a man struggling to come to terms with the disappearance of his six-year-old daughter.

-- Bookworm --
What were the last books you bought?
The Spanish Game by Charles Cumming, a spy story, and an introduction to the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard. I get most of my books from Charing Cross Road.

-- Little black book --
Who is in your secret address book?
Paradise Cleaners, the flower stall, the Odeon cinema and Tupelo Honey restaurant for its chicken pie -- all on Parkway in Camden. I used to love flicking through books in Regent Bookshop, also on Parkway, but sadly it's now closed.

-- Hot tip --
What advice would you give to a tourist?
Bring a brolly with you.

-- Memory lane --
What is your earliest London memory?
Solving crimes along Abbey Road with my brother Gareth on our Grifter bikes.

-- Air waves --
What do you listen to on your iPod as you travel around London?
In a perfect world I would always be bicycling through Bloomsbury just as my iPod shuffled to Artie Shaw.

-- Top tracks --
What was the last CD you bought?
Damian Marley's Welcome To Jamrock. It's a reggae album by the son of Bob Marley.

-- Globetrotting --
Where were the last three places you went on holiday?
My family house in Wales, then Norfolk and before that Morocco.

-- Power trip --
What would you do if you were Mayor for the day?
Hand out bicycles, free, to everyone.

source damian-lewis.com

So...... This is what its like to write for the blog and post it too!!! This amazing blog was created by my beautiful talented friend Sabrina, who has always believed in me, and told me that it was not so hard to do the blog and help properly run it, but in my own way I have always been a bit nervous, not because I cannot write because writing has always been a passion of mine, but scared that I press a button and thats it the whole blog gone!!!!!!

But no... so far so good - SABRINA THIS IS FOR YOU!!!

The last few weeks have not been good for me, after the most incredible spring and summer I have felt a little low and I want to take this opportunity to say sorry to Sabrina for being a difficult and maybe sometimes a selfish friend, and sadly losing the fan aspect of everything which is something I never wanted to happen, so this, right now is my way of putting an end to the low and brining back the highs and remembering why we do this..... Spring 2015 will always be a wonderful memory for me it was the year that Sabrina and I were lucky enough to see American Buffalo and be invited by Damian into the green room at the Wyndham theatre in London.  Just over 16 months ago I was just a fan, someone who watched Homeland for the first time and loved it and from there got myself on IMBD to see what else this talented red head had to offer!  I then found DamianLewisCom on twitter and found out Damian was doing a live interview in London for the New York Times, without even looking at dates and times I booked 2 tickets, dragging my best friend Andee with me - that was the evening I met my friend Sabrina, she was standing outside the venue, also 2 hours early like I was, we got chatting and from there a friendship was planted and from that day it just grew!  Sabrina had always wanted to run a blog and over the weeks after Times Talks we chatted daily, in July 2014 I went to Cologne for a "business meeting" with Sabrina which turned into a weekend of shopping eating and laughing, we created the idea there and then and I guess the rest is history.  The fan blog is a great place to be - well I think so anyway, I adore the fan site too and think damian-lewis.com is a wonderful informative community, and the two complement each other so well.

This blog post is to say thank you - to say Sabrina you were right I can do it, thank you for telling me time and time again that its not as hard as it looks and thank your more than anything else for being my friend.

Pic of the day

Tea and a Mag...

Damian Lewis: my depression after motorbike crash

Damian Lewis says his experience of depression as a result of a motorbike accident informed his performance as Henry VIII in Wolf Hall

Damian Lewis has described how a brain injury sustained in a motorbike accident left him suffering from depression, a condition that has proved unlikely inspiration for his latest screen role as Henry VIII.

Lewis stars as the monarch in the BBC’s forthcoming drama Wolf Hall, based on Hilary Mantel’s Tudor novels.

The actor is intrigued by the theory that Henry VIII became increasingly tyrannical as a result of concussion suffered when he fell from his horse during a jousting tournament.

The insight comes from Lewis’s own experiences in a road accident when he was in his late 20s. He has seldom spoken of the crash or the trauma that followed. He made a full recovery, but in a new interview the 43-year-old gave a vivid description of his symptoms.

“I’ve suffered from concussion myself from a motorbike crash,” he said. “I spent three months afterwards getting into needless fights and suffering from bouts of depression, unable to watch TV or read because of migraines.

“I would often not get dressed and just do puzzles in my flat. So I think it’s absolutely plausible that it had an effect on Henry’s character.”

The accident occurred in 1998, when Lewis was appearing in a Royal Shakespeare Company production of Much Ado About Nothing in London.

Returning home on his motorbike after a performance, he was struck by a taxi that pulled out in front of him near Pentonville Prison in north London. He hit the windshield with such force that it shattered, and he was unconscious for several minutes.

Three weeks after the accident, Lewis believed he was well enough to return to work. But mid-way through a soliloquy during his first night back on stage, he sank to the floor.

“I gave the rest of my speech from there. If I hadn’t sat down, I would have keeled over. I probably wasn’t ready to go back.”

Lewis described his symptoms in an interview for the Mail on Sunday's Event magazine. In a 2003 interview, he recalled: “I know what it’s like to come round in the middle of a road in the middle of the night, with rain just dripping on your and the blur and sounds of a ring of faces peering down at you.”

The Homeland star mentioned the accident during a 2013 guest appearance on the BBC’s Top Gear, but made light of it. Lewis raised a laugh from the audience when he recalled that he was tended by a nurse who had been travelling in the back of the taxi after a night out, and who later admitted: “I couldn’t tell if you were actually dying or if I was just so p----- I couldn’t find your pulse.”

Lewis believes Henry VIII underwent a similar but more severe personality change as a result of his accident. In January 1536, the year that Anne Boleyn was sent to the Tower, Henry fell from his horse during a jousting tournament and the heavily-armoured horse fell on top of him. He was said to be out cold for two hours.

Lucy Worsley, the television presenter and historian, has claimed that the resulting brain injury transformed Henry “from sporty, promising, generous young prince to cruel, paranoid and vicious tyrant. From that date the turnover of the wives really speeds up, and people begin to talk about him in quite a new and negative way.”

Pic's of the day

Tea and Mag....an extract

When Damian Lewis was in his second year of drama-school, he and two fellow-students took the boat to Amsterdam. Lewis (laughing): "Guess what we did there ...

 I still remember on the way over there we were sitting all three on deck in the middle of the night gazing at the stars and we shouted in a romantic way that we were the new generation of actors and we were going to change everything, stuff like that. I would like to say that that really happened, but I think it didn't quite go that way. ..."

He is self-confident, sexy and certainly not afraid of Hollywood but doesn't want to be "sold as the newest sportscar!" He refused a nice role in Black Hawk Down in efavour of The Forsyte Saga.

For an actor it is always fun to play the bad guy. Was this also the case? "Soames has something petty and ugly, something I could only shake of with some alcohol at the end of the day. But I didn't hate him, if I did I couldn't have played him. In the book he is a complex personality; in the BBC-series from 1967 he was evil and Irene was only the victim. We wanted to show some more sides to him.

 Even if no one likes Soames -- he is a bastard, a racist, a sexist, a snob -- then still you should be able to understand his obsession for that woman and how it destroys his life."

Pic of the day

The Quote

Quote from Tom Hanks: "We were looking for an enigmatic leader, a guy you can't explain, but how explains himself by his mere presence. Lewis had that without question, as soon as he sat down we knew."
Telegraph, December 9, 2003

Bobby Axelrod….

I‘m sure many fans around the world were thrilled when the news came out Damian Lewis

would return to Showtime for a drama pilot called Billions so was I and all the fans I talked to as

well as my girls from blog and site.

 Once the pilot was finished everyone was waiting for good or bad news, of course no really wanted to hear bad news but there was a chance it’s a tough business isn’t it?!

I was in worry…well actually I was exactly the same wreck when the Homeland pilot was in the waiting lineJ

Sometimes Selene and I joke about the fact that I always reclaim myself as Miss Worry.

But this time I kept my fingers crossed the whole time because I was convinced the moment I read the plot and ask Emma and Selene I am not easy to convinceJ

But no other network approached the theme of high finance yet and that was the same with Homeland it was something new a bit risky and Damian Lewis has given PTSD a face and showed

us the effect that war has to our young men we send out to fight there for our countries.

And now again a plot of temporary premise surely not for everyone but so very new and interesting.

Bobby Axelrod will brings us the world of high finance into our living rooms which means we invite

Him again to be our guest and to be part of our daily life with a new series.

A series people will talk about….again…;

Bobby Axelrod a hedge fund titan a king in the world of money will be another step in Damian Lewis’s

career and a figure we haven’t seen before and frankly I really expect and hope for a bad guy because I doubt you can reach a Billionaires status without some dirty tricks in the pocket but I’m

also sure there will be something under the surface to discover….

Actually I cant wait!! 

source:damian-lewis.com

Pic of the day

source:damian-lewis.com

Read and listen..part two

Damian Lewis the audio book reader part two

He has the rare ability to create a world for the listener and it would be too easy to say that exactly

should be his job as an actor, no not at all not every actor who reads  a book is gifted to create a story. As an actor you have normally much more to show than a voice.

It’s all about the package isn’t it?!

A brilliant actor like Damian Lewis has a wide range of feelings and emotions to present and often he transport so much by doing so little like raising an eyebrow or just looking at someone and the audience knows within seconds what’s going on in this man he plays. 

Reading is the same the only difference and we talk about a big difference here is the fact that you need to transport the same feelings and emotions but only with your voice.

Yes Damian has a great voice and yes as a woman I find his voice quite sexy and interesting.

Its kind of husky and briskly and special so I think he is perfect to read an audio book but again a

Fantastic voice is just half the fun but Damian has the ability to transform words into creativity.

He has such a wide range of different tones and accents to bring every single character in the book to live and with a dash of humor and a bit of his own inspiration, he creates a world for the listener

and with this it’s so much more than just reading a book….

I will tell you about my favourite audio books with him….soon here on DFI

 

      

Pic of the day

source:damian-lewis.com