The first episode of Sharon Horgan's HBO Max comedy series Youth kicks off with a hilarious celebrity cameo, with Damian Lewis playing a version of himself who is pitching a book to the literary agency at which Horgan's character Alex works.
Lewis comes in for a meeting to pitch his fiction writing debut, a social satire about the Yulin Dog Meat Festival, which he has imaginatively titled Dog Meat. Alex suggests he writes a children's book instead, but he seems set on comparing himself with Stephen Fry.
Speaking exclusively with Radio Times, Horgan explained why she decided to make Alex a literary agent, explaining that "it felt like one of those jobs that women are really good at, and one of those jobs that doesn't really have a start point and an end point".
She continued: "You're always going to be thinking about that job, and I've got a lot of women in my life who are really great at their jobs, but don't really know when to switch off because they care too much. In that role of an agent, you're kind of mother to all your clients, really.
"So I wanted that kind of a job, but also the literary world, I found so fascinating, and I hadn't seen it on screen before. We've seen Call My Agent!, kind of TV and film, but the literary world just felt so interesting because there's so much about social media in the show and the new way we absorb content.
"And yet, that world, the books world, is such a different, slow-moving environment. But just also fun, really fun to think up authors and book titles, I really enjoyed that."
On Lewis's cameo, Horgan noted that that concept of the 'celebrity writer' is a big part of the industry, and revealed that it wasn't always going to the Band of Brothers star who appeared in that scene.
"We're just very lucky that he has a great sense of humour," Horgan said. "I'd met him a few times, and I sent it to him, and he was just game. Not everyone wants to play themselves on screen and to do it in such a fun send up kind of way. So we were so happy when he said yes."
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The series doesn't just focus on Alex's work life - it also looks at her attempts to get back into the dating world after her divorce, and her struggles with raising her son Ruari, played by Cillian Murphy's real life son Aran.
Youth releases new episodes on Mondays on HBO Max in the UK. Subscribe to HBO Max from £5.99 a month.
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