Here are some photos from last night’s Olivier Awards in London. The Olivier Awards are – I think? – a lot like the Tony Awards in America, as in they are prestigious theater awards. Any number of celebrities were at last night’s awards, including Helen Mirren, Lara Pulver (Sherlock’s Irene Adler), Matthew Morrison, Kim Cattrall, and many others. But I’m not going to focus on them (at all). Because the dragonflies are fluttering and I know many of you only really care about Tom Hiddleston. Hiddles attended the Olivier Awards – I think? – as merely a presenter, and probably to support his many friends in the English theater community.

At this point, Tom kind of goes to the opening of an envelope. I’m not complaining about that! I wish Michael Fassbender went to the opening of an envelope (God, it’s been a long time without Fassy pics). Tom knows his dragonflies want to see him – especially when he’s wearing a tux. Tom does look good here. He’s still too twee for my tastes, but God knows, I love a lanky bastard with light eyes. And in case you wanted to hear Tom’s posh voice today, did you guys see Tom’s video for Live Below The Line? He posted it on his Twitter. That’s his real kitchen!!!

PS… I’m also including some photos of James McAvoy and Damian Lewis, just to mix it up a little bit.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

I was just going to do a simple “Who Would You Rather?” between Damian Lewis and Eddie Redmayne, but then I got sidetracked when I saw the photos of Luke Evans. Luke has been popping up a lot on red carpets lately, and I guess I should start paying attention to him because he’s really my type too. Dark hair, light eyes & an accent = my type. Those men will be my downfall, mark my words.

Anyway, these are pics from last night’s London Evening Standard British Film Awards in London (obviously). Damian attended the event with his wife Helen McCrory, and Luke Evans and Eddie Redmayne came without dates (or so it would appear). Luke is probably best identified as “the new Orlando Bloom” maybe? I don’t know, I haven’t seen him in anything, but he’s got a big part in the new Hobbit movies, he was in The Immortals and the stupid-looking revamped Three Musketeers movie a few years ago. And he’s in the latest installment of Fast & Furious. So… he’s “arrived”. And he’s a welcome addition to my Dong List, although he looks like a heartbreaker.

As for Eddie… he continues to be the Best Dressed of the Awards Season. This young man can wear the hell out of a suit, can’t he? He could teach a master class in dressing for an awards season. So… who would I rather? Damian first – fast and dirty. Then Luke. Then Eddie for forever? I don’t know, I can’t decide!

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet.

I love a good acceptance speech where you learn something new about your favorite show. When Claire Danes won “Best Female Actor in a TV Series” for Homeland, she dropped a great little detail in her speech: she and Morena Baccarin (who plays Brody’s wife) are tight and Morena cooks dinner for her while they run lines. For some reason, I find that so sweet – mostly on Morena’s part. Nice lady! As for Claire, she continues her sweep of all of the awards forever and always, even though Damian Lewis and the cast of the Homeland were shut out in their categories. Claire wore this one-armed Givenchy which… I kind of hate. The cut was off, right? The sleeve was poorly done, the leg slit seemed awkward, and Claire just didn’t look comfortable at all. Plus, her makeup was much, much too heavy. It bordered on ghoulish.

Morena Baccarin wore Basil Soda. I really don’t care for it at all – too much fabric, it weighs her down. I’m starting to worry about her, actually – she never gets it right for these awards shows, which sucks because I think she’s extraordinarily pretty.

Damian Lewis and ABU NAZIR!!!!!! Actually, the actor’s name is Navid Negahban and the photo of Damian and Navid together is making my life. I was sad that Damian didn’t win, but I was glad that Bryan Cranston finally got something, you know? Damian looked disappointed to lose, but he didn’t seem grumpy about it. No worries – I’m sure Homeland will dominate the WGA Awards, the DGA Awards and then the Emmys in September!

Photos courtesy of WENN, Fame/Flynet.

I’m aware that some people really didn’t like Claire Danes’ whole Golden Globes look last night. Like, you were expecting her to do the teenage-princess thing in a soft Calvin Klein look, or you wanted her sleek and minimalist, like she normally does. But if you saw her red carpet interviews, you know. Chica is STRUNG OUT. She only gave birth a month ago, and she has that look of a completely overwhelmed new parent. She probably felt like this was all a very lucid, vivid living nightmare because she’s so sleep-deprived. So I applaud her for changing things up and doing an unexpected (and not unwelcome) look.

Claire wore this red Versace gown that emphasized her new-mom boobs and her postpartum weight loss. Her hair was long and fluffy and all over the place. She didn’t seem “contained” or “together”. She was worried about “leaking” on the red carpet, and she said so to Ryan Seacrest. So… I kind of love her. Head to toe. I think if you take into account how strung out she was, this appearance was a complete and total victory. Her sheer exhaustion made her likeable and interesting, and I like that this wasn’t some super-pulled-together look, because she’s done that so many times before.

Claire won too, as did Damian Lewis. Homeland won Best Drama, meaning that it swept the major categories again, just like at the Emmys last year. Homeland is the new Mad Men (only Homeland gets all of the acting awards too!). I’m including some pics of Damian and his wife Helen, as well as his on-screen wife Morena Baccarin in a particularly hideous Valentino.

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet and WENN.

Damian Lewis (ginger heartthrob, English star of Homeland) has a fascinating interview in the new issue of Vogue UK. Damian is discussing how difficult it is to be away from his family (who live in England) for five months a year while he’s in North Carolina working on Homeland. In the past, Damian has emphasized how he and his wife Helen make it work, and how Helen and his kids (Gulliver and Manon, 5 and 6 respectively) come to visit him while he’s filming, but in this interview, Damian is talking about how really hard it is on him, and he tells a story about one of his kids that kind of broke my heart.

For many women the demands of juggling work and motherhood is a continual source of heartache. But Homeland star Damian Lewis has confessed that, for busy fathers, the guilt over being absent is just as strong. The 41-year-old is married to acclaimed actress Helen McCrory and the couple have two children, Manon, six, and five-year-old Gulliver.

The couple have a live-in nanny but Lewis admitted it was not a ‘substitute’ and children wanted their parents around.

The star’s career is booming because of the success of the political thriller, in which he stars as a US marine who has been hired by Islamic terrorists to attack his home country. But the series demands that he spends five months of the year filming in Charlotte, North Carolina and Mr Lewis admits he feels he is missing out on the children’s lives. He revealed his children had been honest about their unhappiness at his prolonged absence.

Mr Lewis told Vogue magazine: ‘I was talking to Gully about something completely different and suddenly, without even looking at me, he said, “D’you know Dad? When you’re away sometimes I look out of my bedroom window at night and I call your name, and I cry”. I wrestle with this. I wrestle with it. Children like you being around. They just really like you being around. I don’t think there is any substitute for doing it well and just doing it right. And doing it right is just being there. Nobody is perfect but being there is a good start.’

Miss McCrory, who has starred in Harry Potter, The Queen and Skyfall, said while she had her children relatively late the benefit had been that she established her career and was now in a position to choose which projects she undertook. She said the couple tried to ensure that only one of them was away working at a time and she organised her career around her children’s needs.

The 44-year-old explained: ‘It has got to be a damn good offer to coax me away from them, which is probably why the projects I have worked on since they were born have been such interesting ones.’

When they are not working, the pair live in London, a city to which Lewis feels “committed”.

“As much as we may look like power-hungry, mad people, we are very committed, first and foremost, to living our life,” said Lewis. “LA is interesting but it’s not one of the great places. It’s an inferior city to London.”

Lewis described his life in London, where he grew up, as close to his “fantasy” of “the happy, slightly chaotic, noise family” that has “sunday roats, and friends coming round and walks with the dog”.

[From The Mail & The Telegraph]

Damian’s story about his child made me wonder what our reaction would be if a mother had shared this story. I think we would be much, much harsher. I think we would be judging her for working in another city for five months a year while her husband stayed at home with the kids. I know this because it seemed like too many of you freaked out when Claire Danes admitted that she really had no interest in being a stay-at-home mom in a magazine interview – Claire said: “I think I would make a lousy stay-at-home mom. It just wouldn’t suit me. I feel so fortunate, in that I’ve had this arrow-straight focus…that I wanted to act.” If saying that makes Claire a lousy person (which I don’t agree with – I think it was brave of her to talk about how much she loves to work, regardless of motherhood), then is Damian a lousy parent too because he prioritizes work ahead of his children’s wishes?

Photos courtesy of WENN, Vogue UK.

THIS IS A POST FULL OF SPOILERS

SPOILERS FOR LAST NIGHT’S HOMELAND FINALE

I might go through Homeland withdrawal now. I waited for Season 2 to start for a year, and when it finally did, it was like a series of gut-punches. Monday mornings, I was always out of it because I couldn’t get to sleep after watching Homeland. For the record, I think the first season probably had stronger writing overall, and it felt like there was so much more in Season 2 which we all had to suspend our disbelief. Like, I’m no expert on security and the Secret Service and all of that, but even I know that Brody wouldn’t have had access to all of the stuff he had access to, and there were too many “O RLY?” leaps that the audience had to make to stay engaged in the story.

But let’s really talk about what went down. 200-plus dead at the CIA. Carrie helping a suspected terrorist (Brody) get across the border (on foot?). Brody was played by Nazir. We all were. The cell which was caught several episodes ago was sacrificed for a larger purpose, to manipulate Brody and Carrie into killing the vice president. What we found out in the finale was that the vice president’s death was merely the instigator for a larger attack, the bombing of Langley. Some various points/thoughts/questions:

*So, Walden’s memorial service was being held at Langley? He was a sitting vice president and the presumptive presidential nominee – his memorial would have been held at Washington National Cathedral. The end. I don’t care if he was the former DCI (Director of Central Intelligence). It still would have been held at Washington National Cathedral.

*I loved everything about the scenes with Brody and Carrie at the cabin the woods. Damian Lewis and Claire Danes have an extraordinary amount of chemistry, and whenever they are together, it just feels natural, no matter what.

*Brody praying in daylight… with Quinn standing behind him with the gun. I’m sorry, but I loved everything about the Quinn character’s arc. I loved that Quinn made a choice for himself as to what kind of man he is. I love that Quinn went to Estes’ house and threatened him. I loved everything about Quinn’s speech to Estes about killing bad men.

*CB and I have debated in the past whether Estes was one of Nazir’s moles. I guess we can say definitely that he wasn’t, right? I don’t believe Estes would have sacrificed himself like that for Nazir’s greater cause. That being said, there HAS to be a significant mole in the CIA. Setting up Brody as Nazir’s patsy, moving the car and bringing that much C4 into Langley (a hella secure area) would have taken an insider. But did that insider sacrifice himself (or herself)? Or does the mole still walk among them?

*How much did Brody know about THIS plot? We really don’t know. I think he knew more than he was saying, but he might not have known all of the moving pieces.

*I love that Carrie always had an exit strategy. All of this time, she always had a way out in case she was burned.

*SAUL!!!!!!! I love everything about Saul. I love Saul and Carrie’s conversation about whether she would be made a station chief. I love Saul’s call to Carrie, the message he left for her. I love his face when she appeared at the staging hanger (God, how awful was that?). I love that Saul is the presumptive CIA director now.

*Seriously, where the f—k is the president?! The president didn’t even come to the memorial service of his vice president?

*I really hope Rupert Friend gets invited back for the third season, because he is a gem.

*You could really tell that Claire Danes is pregnant in these last few episodes. Her face looked so much fuller, and she just glowed.

*SARITA CHOUDHURY!!!! I’m so glad she came back and did a cameo. I missed her.

*I love the respectful way they handled Nazir’s burial at sea. It matters.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

It’s kind of funny to me that Pres. Obama is such an unabashed fan-boy of Homeland. He brings it up all the time, and he always name-checks the (brilliant!) show as his favorite. I don’t think he’s ever named another show as his favorite – maybe an ESPN show or something, but he really does get all fan-boy-ish about Homeland in particular. He’s such a fan that he invited Damian Lewis, the English star of the show, to the White House for a state dinner, and Obama even had Damian and his wife placed at the president’s table during dinner. Unfortunately, the one time I saw Damian discuss the honor of a state dinner invitation, Damian seemed like he was kind of bragging about being rude to the president (it might have been awkwardly worded though – Damian might have been aiming for self-deprecating and it just failed).

Anyway, Damian was on The Jonathan Ross Show over the weekend, and he told another Obama story. This one is hilarious, though. The headline at Entertainment Weekly was “’Homeland’ star made Muslim joke to Obama” and I thought “Oh, God. This is going to be AWFUL.” But I ended up LOLing. Here’s the video and the context:

Homeland star Damian Lewis told a British talk show he sent a Muslim joke to president Barack Obama. During an appearance on The Jonathan Ross Show Saturday night, the Emmy-winning actor says the president wanted a signed DVD box set of the Showtime hit to give to the Teamsters labor union (the president has previously revealed Homeland is his favorite show).

Lewis says co-star Claire Danes wrote something along the lines of, ”I was a fan of yours long before you were a fan of ours.” But when it was the British-born Lewis’ turn, the actor says he jokingly wrote: “From one Muslim to another.”

“I thought I’d think of something great and funny … and wrote: ‘From one Muslim to another’ in an indelible Sharpie,” the actor recalls. “And I couldn’t take it back … I was then writing emails for the whole of the next week going: ‘I do hope he understands irony.”’

Lewis’ character on Homeland is an America POW who was tortured while in captivity and converted to Islam. Now back in the United States, he’s wrestled with a terrorist agenda and keeps his religion a secret. Obama, of course, has been pestered by unsubstantiated conspiratorial theories suggesting he’s a Muslim.

Lewis adds that he asked the president during a dinner how he finds time to watch the show.

“Aren’t you busy running the free world?” the actor recalls asking. Lewis, while impersonating the president’s speech cadence, says Obama replied: “On Saturday afternoons. Michelle, she takes the two girls, they go play tennis. I go into the Oval Office. I pretend I’m gonna work and I switch on Homeland.”

[From Entertainment Weekly]

I think that joke is the kind of thing that a Homeland-watcher would laugh at, and therefore it’s something that would make Obama laugh. But I’m sure that kind of thing will just become further fodder for the birthers and wingnuts.

SPOILERS FOR HOMELAND SEASON 2 BELOW:

We’ve had some requests to discuss Homeland, but I sometimes have doubts about how many people are actually watching it as the episodes air these days. I do think this season has been… interesting. It wasn’t what I was expecting, and I’ve been impressed with some of what the writers have come up with. Like, I loved how Carrie was initially brought back into the agency and all of the Lebanon storyline. I loved Saul finding Brody’s suicide video. I loved everything about those two episodes where Carrie is trying to knock Brody off-kilter (once she knew she was right) and then the interrogation. And I about had a heart attack when poor Rupert Friend and his team were taken down by terrorists in SWAT gear. But this past Sunday’s episode was kind of dull, right? I only liked two parts – Carrie and Brody in the woods, and Rupert Friend’s cute farmer’s tanned butt. How excellent is this role for Rupert Friend? I was not expecting to like him as much as I do. He’s a lot like Carrie, I think. And he could be a great ally for her and for Saul, they just need to let him in. Oh, and I did enjoy Carrie’s “Cease and f–king desist.”

Photos courtesy of WENN.

I’ve mentioned before how much I enjoyed the first season of Showtime’s Homeland. It was a really, really great show with wonderful writing and incredible performances by the two leads, Claire Danes and Damian Lewis. I rarely get a chance to discuss Lewis, mostly because I feel like most people don’t know who he is. I’ve followed his career since Band of Brothers, through the underrated and too-early-cancelled Life, and now on Homeland, where he is simply excellent. I never really knew that much about his personal life, just that he’s English, married and the father of two kids. I wish I could go back to that place, because I just read this interview with him, and now I kind of think he’s a douche. Maybe I’m being hyper-sensitive (it happens), but it seems like Damian is bragging about being a giant brat to President Obama!

Despite the mixed reviews about its season finale that had viewers across the world on the edge of their seats, it proved to be one of this year’s smash-hit dramas. And Homeland can also boast one of the world’s most powerful men among its fans – according to its leading man.

Damian Lewis, who wowed viewers and critics alike with his portrayal of troubled Marine Sergeant Nicholas Brody, said President Barack Obama told him that it is his favourite show.

As he posed for a smouldering shoot for Mr Porter, Lewis told the men’s retail website about being a guest at the White House state dinner.

He said: ‘I thought we were going to be sitting by the kitchen or something. Next to the revolving door that would repeatedly hit us on the back of the head, as waiters came in and out. But when we got to the marquee on the South Lawn we found that out of 396 people at this dinner, we had been put at the President’s table. I was opposite Obama. He said Homeland is his favourite show.’

He said the President also asked him how he got the part in Band of Brothers, which was not only his big break, but the first time he had to portray an American.

He said: ‘He thought it was because I looked like the guy I was playing. So I made a joke – I said, “No Mr President, it was because of my outstanding leadership qualities and moral probity.” And he wasn’t sure for a minute – he was like, “Who the f*** is this guy?”. It’s not as if I come from a military family or anything. My dad did national service in the 1950s, but he wasn’t very good at it. He lost his platoon in the woods.’

He said: ‘I knew we were doing something a bit better than your average TV show or movie for that matter. But there was no telling the way in which it touched a chord. People get a strange thrill out of being made to feel anxious and worried!’

Damian is about to start filming the second series of Homeland in two weeks time in North Carolina, which doubles as Washington DC.

He said: ‘It’s great. I’m closer to home. And I don’t have to work so hard because it’s more of an ensemble cast. So I just jump on a plane if I get a few days off. And the kids can come out and see me for the summer holidays, jumping in and out of the pool all day. It’s perfect, basically. All I have to do is get the acting right – make sure I’m not the tosser that lets it all down!’

His family – actress wife Helen McCrory and their children, daughter Manon, five, and four-year-old son Gulliver – are back in the UK, Islington, north London to be precise and are staying in Hugh Laurie’s old house. Hugh has been a huge success across the Pond in House and Damian said: ‘That’s how it works, you’ve got to be English on a popular show and then you get to sell each other property.’

[From The Mail]

CB thinks there’s a good possibility that Damian was just being very “English” and attempting to be funny/self-effacing. But it just sounds like Pres. Obama asked him an innocent question (“How did you get cast in Band of Brothers? Did you look like the real dude?”) and instead of answering simply, Damian decided to “take the piss”. I mean… I’m not saying everyone has to genuflect around the President of the United States, but if you’ve been invited to a state dinner and you’re sitting at his table, don’t “take the piss” when the president asks you a question! RUDE.

Photos courtesy of Mr. Porter/The Mail.