Almost doing anything for Damian Lewis

When I'm in-season at my job and for my own sanity, I generally stick to my regular schedule -- Fridays and Saturdays off -- so I can rest and recuperate. There are precious few things that make me divert from that course. Damian Lewis at TimesTalks would be one of those.

My first exposure to Damian came during the inaugural season of his Emmy-winning role as Nicholas Brody in Homeland. After that, I went back and saw everything I had missed ahead of that, including the amazing mini-series Band of Brothers and the offbeat procedural Life. I love all three of these to bits and pieces, and any given day of the week, I would probably tell you that any of them was my favorite.

Now there's a new one in the mix I haven't seen yet -- Damian is back on Showtime in Billions with Paul Giamatti. On the TimesTalks waiting line, I felt like the only one who hasn't seen it yet. Lots of glowing testimonials. Maybe enough to prevent me from waiting for the box set to come out and pay to watch it streaming. Of course, in the meantime, I could just continue my Homeland and Life rewatches, as well as Wolf Hall and a variety of movies that I already own.

There's something to be said for getting there early so you have a front-row seat. I met some very fine people who have many of the same tastes that I do. First, there was the artist known as Damianista -- she writes and coordinates the Fan Fun with Damian Lewis blog and companion Facebook group. She knew who I was the minute I got there. And we made a new friend, Joyce, who doesn't do the social media thing. We spent about 90 minutes discussing everything under the sun.

Until ... we saw Damian walking into the building. Holy crud, he's yummy. Anyway, when we got let in, Damianista, Joyce and I quickly slipped into the three seats in front of the stage.

Being a New York Times evening, it didn't seem too off the mark that the discussion started on a political note. (On "Brexit," he's in favor of staying.) I think most people who know of Damian Lewis do know that, although his American accent is flawless, he's actually a Brit. From there, moderator Cara Buckley delved into Lewis' personal history and his own opinion of the hedge-fund managers he researched for Billions, which prompted him to quip, "I was hoping it was going to be an easier evening than this. ... I just wanted to talk about what sort of [makeup] I was wearing on my skin. Whether or not I wore waterproof mascara or not during rainy scenes."

He had a great explanation about why he has been tapped to play working-class American roles, even though he comes from a privately educated background in another country. He called it a "genetic fluke," but I think that's seriously downplaying what he has to offer. He pinpointed it more clearly in regards to his casting on Band of Brothers. His demeanor meant he was well-suited for the maturity and bearing inherent in Richard Winters. And then once Hollywood saw he could do that convincingly, it became a lot easier to nab those kind of intricate roles.

Damian said he does identify with the characters he's been played, adding maybe his red-headed Irish blue-collar look helps him land some of those parts. But in Brody, Winters and Charlie Crews from Life, he appreciated their American sense of drive and desire, of wanting to build or achieve something with their lives.

Homeland became something of a zeitgeist, not in small part because he said the show "reeked of quality and class," mirroring real-life situations -- minus the part in which a CIA operative and a suspected terrorist get personally involved -- while still being able to entertain. Lewis nabbed the Emmy and the Golden Globe that first season. "I didn't know people could get that famous," he said.

He made us laugh quite a bit, whether it was talking about wearing a thong to get his character's walk right in The Escapist -- "it was a little divisive." He also detailed different groups of Homeland fans, including those who watched just to see the relationship between Brody and Carrie (Claire Danes) develop -- "They should have ginger babies, it's going to be so exciting" -- or liberals discussing what made for a terrorist act.

Damian's descriptions of his roles were as piquant as the parts themselves. Henry VIII from Wolf Hall was deemed "the lovable genocidal maniac." Brody from Homeland was described as "tumbleweed blown across the bleak landscape of his life," while Bobby Axelrod from Billions is "blowing the tumbleweed ... kicking it about."

He'll soon be seen on the big screen in Our Kind of Traitor, based on a John LeCarre novel. He considers his role of Hector to be the ambiguous LeCarre character in the story, he's exacting revenge for personal reasons but softened by Stellan Skarsgard's bid to save his family. The idea of Damian taking over as James Bond was not referenced, but the idea of him playing Steve McQueen in a biopic was brought up. "I consider it a lot, but I'm not sure anyone else has."

I do think his feathers got a little ruffled when his success was mentioned in connection with that of Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Hiddleston and Eddie Redmayne. As he pointed out, that is a tiny minority of actors who hailed from "posh" schools in Britain doing well at the moment. "There is every reason for you to fail, mostly because of typecasting. ... There are also a handful of actors, contemporaries of mine, who are doing very well as actors and they're wonderful and talented actors, but aren't big, big stars like Tom and Eddie, Benedict. [And some of them have taken the point of view that,] 'Oh, now, they're getting in on the act. ... I was going to be that star, but that got taken by a guy who got a nice education.'"

He told two very touching stories about Band of Brothers, one about the episode in which Winters and his company discover a concentration camp. Lewis and the rest of the cast were not prepped or rehearsed for it, as he explained, their harrowed reactions were very real. The other was about watching the final ep and seeing Winters' lip quiver. "It was the first time I had seen him express any emotion about the second World War. ... When he recounts the story of one of his co-veterans being questioned by his grandson, and his grandson says to him, 'Grandpa, were you a hero in the war?' And his grandfather says, 'No, but I served in a company of heroes.' It's difficult not to well up now, and Dick, his lip just quivers and his voice chokes, and it's epic. ... It's like a crack in a slow-moving glacier. It's an extraordinary moment when he just shows that little bit of emotion, because he's not given to that as a man."

After it ended, Damianista approached the stage to talk with him while the rest of us hung back and watched. And she said one thing and another and he nodded and she said another and another. And then ... "Paige'll do it." And I said, "I don't know what it is, but Paige'll do it!"

At that point, I went up to them at the stage. Bless her heart, Damianista introduced me as a "big fan." I think then I tilted my head, so he could see I was wearing my Life cap (the title being on the back of the hat). Damian extended his hand, saying, "Hi, Paige, thank you for coming." I think I got a two-handed shake on that.

Anyway, I found out that the "it" was a quick video they wanted me to shoot for the anniversary of Damianista's blog. It was arranged that she would go to the lobby and be taken to Damian from there. Great! Except for the fact that she disappeared in the throng of the exiting crowd and I couldn't find her again.

Now I wasn't exactly panicking during this time, because Joyce was with me and we were marveling over my unexpected introduction to Damian. I really didn't feel I should push my way through the crowd, so we just made our way to the lobby when we could, and then looked all around without success for Damianista.

Eventually I did find her, and the video had already been shot. So that was kind of a bummer, but I will never think of this night as anything but a big win. Especially since Damianista is my walking .gif -- repeating "Hi Paige, thank you for coming" -- at will. Won't tire of that any time soon.

P.S. from P.S.: Click here to read the fab Fan Fun blog of the evening, and below, the interview I almost recorded. I have to say, I am quite sure this person did a better job than I would have, since my heart certainly would have been beating double-time and my hands shaking even more than that.