Damian Lewis is unrecogniseable as Rob Ford in Run This Town

Damian Lewis has completely transformed to portray former Toronto Mayor Rob Ford in his next film, ‘Run This Town’. 

On set in Toronto on Monday, the usually svelte British actor was utterly unrecognizable as he walked around in a fat suit and a thick layer of make-up and prosthetics.

Lewis, the star of Showtime’s Billions who broke out in America as Nick Brody on Homeland, was perhaps an unlikely choice to take on the crack-smoking mayor, since the obese Ford was about 150 pounds heavier than him.

Actor Damian Lewis was spotted in heavy make-up and prosthetics to play Rob Ford in his latest film, ‘Run This Town’

The 190-pound British actor is wearing a fat suit to portray the obese former Toronto mayor

The 190-pound British actor is wearing a fat suit to portray the obese former Toronto mayor

In an interview with Kit Magazine earlier this month, Lewis said he was being fitted for a prosthetic so he could bulk up his physique to play Ford.

Lewis said the process takes an entire afternoon and involves ‘getting his face and head completely covered in silicon strips, breathing through a small hole near the nose’.

According to its IMBD description, ‘Run This Town’ is currently being produced in Toronto and follows ‘the inner workings of a city seen through the eyes of the interns and assistants that run it’.

In an interview with Kit Magazine earlier this month, Lewis said he was being fitted for a prosthetic so he could bulk up his physique to play Ford

Former Toronto Mayor Rob Ford

In an interview with Kit Magazine earlier this month, Lewis (left) said he was being fitted for a prosthetic so he could bulk up his physique to play Ford (right)

Although many of the details have not been revealed, what is known is that the film follows a reporter, played by Ben Platt, working to expose a politician – Ford – who is deep in scandal.

Meanwhile the politician’s aides, played by Nina Dobrev and Mena Massoud, try to handle their boss and keep the story from getting out.  

The Hollywood Reporter confirmed the film will take place during Ford’s tenure as mayor of Toronto, from 2010-2014.

Writer-director Rickey Tollman says that Ford will be a minor character in the film but that he wants to create ‘a sympathetic portrait’ of Ford’s turbulent political career, a according to CBC.

Lewis is pictured on the left in March 2017, and on the right in costume as Rob Ford

Rob Ford pictured on the left in March 2014, compared to Lewis on set on Monday, right 

During his mayorship, Ford was famously captured on video smoking crack-cocaine from a glass pipe and was accused of sexual harassment.

Despite calls for him to resign, Ford refused to step down and even ran for reelection in 2014. However, he dropped out of the race just a month before the vote when he was diagnosed with cancer. 

He died two years later from lipsarcoma, a rare form of cancer that arises in fat cells in deep soft tissue, at age 46.

The casting news was not well received by real-life reporter Robyn Doolittle who exposed Ford’s scandal. She took to Twitter to slam the decision of casting a male and not a female in the lead role of the journalist.

She wrote on Tuesday: ‘I’m glad they’re rewriting the fact that it was a female reporter who investigated Rob Ford. Why have a woman be a lead character when a man could do it? Ammaright?’

In response, Ben Platt tweeted: ‘I have the utmost respect for your accomplishments- I play a totally fictionalized character, an entitled, incapable entry-level reporter (my boss is played by Jennifer Ehle) at a fictional competing newspaper. The film alludes to the successful reporting from the Toronto Star.’

ROB FORD’S TUMULTUOUS POLITICAL CAREER

Rob Ford became internationally infamous in 2013 after the Toronto Star and American website Gawker obtained a video which appeared to show the then-Toronto mayor smoking from a crack pipe.

He denied the existence of the video but later backtracked when police said they had obtained it. Although he became the subject of a police investigation, Ford was never charged with a crime.

‘Yes, I have smoked crack cocaine,’ Ford told reporters in November 2013. ‘But, no, do I? Am I addict? No. Have I tried it? Probably in one of my drunken stupors, probably approximately about a year ago.’ 

According to police interviews, members of Ford’s staff accused the mayor of frequently drinking, driving while intoxicated and making sexual advances toward a female staffer.

Ford drew gasps when he used crude language on live television to deny telling a staffer he wanted to have oral sex. The father of two school-age children said he was ‘happily married’ and that he enjoys enough oral sex at home.  

He was accused in 2013 by Sarah Thompson, publisher of Women’s Post, of sexually assaulting her at a public event.

Thompson detailed in a Facebook post Ford grabbed her butt while a photo was being taken. Ford labeled the allegations as ‘completely false’.



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