Damian's Dominion: The Damian Lewis Digest

THE DAMIAN DIGEST
A Library Of Excerpts From Articles About Damian Lewis

EXPRESS, WINTER/SPRING 2002:

Carrot-topped Band of Brothers star Damian Lewis has relinquished his chance to play super-smooth spy James Bond. Damian, 31, shortly to be seen as the cold, calculating Soames in the ITV remake of the Forsyte Saga, has admitted he pulled out of the running to play 007... and the opportunity of being the first Ginger Bond. "I had heard they were keen on me," Damian divulges. "I did an interview and screen test and they were still keen. But I had to sign an option deal before the final screen test, which means they own you until they have decided who they want for the part. You have to forgo any other parts that come your way, even though they might not pick you for the role. It was a gamble, so I pulled out." He adds: "I grew up with Bond but I wasn't sure it would be as exciting as it looks on screen. Maybe I just want to be Bond in real life." Pierce Brosnan will be relieved. He is currently filming his fourth Bond flick, Die Another Day -- the last he is contracted to do -- but he has let it be known that he wants to do another.

OBSERVER, 3/10/02:

The middle-aged Italian waitress clearly does not recognise the actor she is shouting at or, if she does, she has had enough experience at being a sour faced waitress not to show it. This is the second time she has asked Damian Lewis to choose what he wants for lunch and it is the second time he has asked for a few more minutes. "Look," she says with a fearsome shrug, arms spread wide, "We are busy. You don't order now, then the kitchen, it become busy. You wait too long for your food. You get cross." There is a convincing logic here: the small, smoky cafe in London's St. James's is indeed already crammed with people. I assume Lewis will cave in immediately and just pick something at random, because it is exactly what I want to do. This woman scares me. But then Lewis has a head start on me. He knows how to play a man dealing calmly with fear. In Band of Brothers, the TV war extravaganza produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, he played an American soldier constantly facing up to fear with a quiet certainty. As if slipping into character, he raises his hands in a sign of mock surrender and, keeping his voice low, his eyes fixed on hers, says simply, "It's not a problem. Just give us another minute and we'll be right with you." She retreats and he breaks into a broad grin. "Wasn't that great?" He spreads his arms wide, shoulders up, in tribute to our waitress. "Looook!!!" he says, with just the hint of an Italian accent. "You want to eat? You order now!"
He says he knows what fame means and he thinks he can handle it. The key, he says, is to carry on doing good work; to follow each good performance with another one. Simple as that. "There are ways of avoiding becoming tabloid fodder and therefore giving people license to pry into your private life. And there's a distinction between being an actor and being a celebrity. You may become a celebrity through acting, but you don't need to do so. For example you don't need to appear in Hello! or OK! magazines, both of which have asked me to do it. I mean, what it must feel like to be Brad Pitt with all that interest in you?" I suggest it's inevitable that people will pour over every detail of your life once you start appearing in huge, multi-million dollar films. He shakes his head. "But Harrison Ford has managed to avoid it. It's a lifestyle choice."
"A cricket ball broke my nose when I was a kid so I couldn't breath through it. Before I had it operated on I used to stand on stage with my mouth slightly open. Perhaps it made me look a little gormless. Anyway, the drama critic in The Financial Times wrote about me having this strange little mouth."
"He was always the person most likely to make it," [actor Rashdan] Stone [from RSC] says. "He was someone who would make the most of a break. He always had his eyes open. He was primed and ready. But he's also very easy going, one of the guys."
"Damian's full of beans, [says Emma Fielding, costar of School for Wives at the Almeida Theatre]. "He's classically trained, but what he's also got is this Celtic thing going on. It's not just all neck up. He uses his body. But what was really unusual about him was his dynamism. And he's bright. You don't normally get all of that in one package."
"[Winters] has a natural economy with words and emotions." This, he says, led him back to the very classic on-screen acting skills of the Steve McQueens and Gary Coopers, "people who achieved a lot by doing a little. If you set up an intensity and a stillness to someone you only have to show a flicker of a smile and it will show volumes." It is also, he says, about listening. He sites his onscreen hero, Robert De Niro. "He's brilliant at it. It's his listening which gives him his mercurial quality. It shows a certain humility." It's clear this is the stuff, the mechanics of building character, that gets him going. He agrees. "There's this preconception which irks me that there must be a show-off in one who acts, but the reason people start acting is because of the love of theatre. The reason you want to be at drama school is not 'tits and teeth.' It's because you want to tell stories. You have to decide whether you want to write the story, direct the story or act it. I want to act it. For me the rehearsal period is the part I most enjoy. It's the creating of the story." It is, he says, about the choices you make as you create the role. "That's what differentiates good actors from bad actors. The quality of the choices they make." Are you a good actor? He hesitates, clearly looking for an answer that he hopes won't make him sound like a total arse. "I don't know. I do know I could be better."
In between all this he's trying to do the most difficult thing when the work is pouring in: have a life. He's planning to buy an electronic keyboard so he can practice his piano skills while hanging out in his Winnebago in the down time between shots. He still plays football to keep fit in a team called the Ladbroke Rovers -- "essentially just a bunch of west-London types."

USA WEEKEND, 3/10/02:

You've said you'd much rather do quality TV than big films that aren't very good. Was that your take on Black Hawk Down? "No, not at all. I would rather do films, given the choice, over TV. There's such a hunger in young actors to do movies, but actually some of the best quality writing is in TV. It's just not as high-profile or glamourous. All the glitz and the glamour is fun in the film industry. I want all of that. I want to do big screen. But I don't have a child or a family to support right now, so I can afford to choose quality TV [and not get paid as much]. Maybe when I have three kids, maybe then I'd take work I'd be less proud to do. But I haven't encountered that yet. I'm lucky."
Producing, directing and writing. Any aspirations there? "I've always thought I'd move on to one of those things from acting. I've always loved acting and I think I am in every way an actor. Actors have something instinctive in them that makes them act. Anyway, I have aspirations to do these things but they're not clearly in focus yet. I do think I have ambitions to direct or produce, but I just know I'm not ready to do that. I've thought about it a lot though. I think I surprise people when I stick around on the set. Most actors go back to their trailers, but I like to be out there, a part of the process, even on night shoots. I like to see the decisions directors make and hear why. I feel more a part of the process."
How does it feel to be known as Hollywood's "next big thing" ? Does the pressure make you nervous? "Thank God I haven't read too many of those or else it would make me nervous. 'The next big thing' is only exciting while your the next big. I'll be the next big thing for a small window for the next six months, and it's very flattering, but you've got to try and remain the next big thing. you've got to think of how much you want it. What level of stardom do you want -- what kind of a life you want to lead? I don't want to be so famous that I have people taking photographs of me with my girlfriend or [future] wife on holiday. I don't want people with long lenses hiding in the bushes. I don't want that kind of scrutiny. Take Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston. How do they cope with their lives? I've met Brad and he's one of the most normal guys I know. I want to do well in my career, but how do you get to the top without compromising your private life? It's tough, but I think you can do it. Look at Harrison Ford."
Who did you grow up admiring? "I've never been one who has heroes -- I'm too egocentric for that maybe, I don't know? -- oh, except for Elvis. I used to dress up like him and look in the mirror. I used to spend hours coiffing my hair with the blow-dryer and wax. Then I'd play this double LP at home and look into the mirror for hours."
Do you have any pets? "I grew up with dogs, but I have no pets now."
What's your biggest weakness? Are you a glutton for something? "Oatmeal raisin cookies and ice cream. I have a sweet tooth. Otherwise, emotional complexities."
What is your biggest pet peeve? "Selfishness in people."
Do you have any regrets in life thus far? "Yeah, that my mother died."
If you could have dinner with anyone in the world, who would it be? "Jesus. He's got a lot of explaining to do and I'd like to hear it. Other than him, I'd say Osama bin Laden. I'd like him to come and give me some tips on how to decorate my house."
How do you like to spend your down time? What are a few of your favorite pastimes? "My hobby at the moment is my laptop because I'm so backward in all things having to do with computers. I'm teaching myself how to type and use e-mail. I'm finding it very comforting and fun to e-mail all of my friends in London when I'm away, but it takes me an hour to write a letter. I also play the piano. I taught myself how to play."

TELEGRAPH, 3/17/02:

And there is Lewis as Soames, the life and soul of the party off screen, checking to see if shooting is on schedule so that he can get off up the road in his new sports car to Anfield to see his beloved Liverpool play Barcelona, but straight and unbending on it.

EXPRESS, 3/30/02:

But there's one recent project we didn't see him in, despite it being a who's who of British actors -- Band of Brothers. "I was doing Hornblower at the time and I heard that Damian Lewis, who's a mate of mine since Warriors, had got the lead. If I'd been available and heard about it I'd have gone for it. Damian was amazing. He's out in Hollywood now doing a movie with Morgan Freeman."

ESQUIRE, 3/02:

I sought advice from a little bird who worked with you and he suggested I ask you this: How would you describe your unorthodox table-tennis style? [Hysterical laughter for about three minutes, punctuated by much coughing and sputtering] "Where did you get that from?" Just a friend of mine who played one of your merry band. "It's true, I'm afraid. There was a table on the set that we used to play on whenever we weren't shooting. And I have to say that it was probably Rick Warden and myself who were best. [With mock arrogance] Though I'm pretty sure only I stayed unbeaten." What about the unorthodox style? "Well, it's in the backhand. I sometimes do this karate thing when I play a backhand shot, like this ... [Stands up and performs a Cato-esque karate chop with accompanying sound effects]. It's extremely effective. I've been thinking of joining a table-tennis club, actually, but I can't possibly do that seriously, can I?"

NOW MAGAZINE, SPRING 2002:

"Damian Lewis plays Soames, who commits the rape. Damian is very charismatic so we hope he'll be able to persuade people to understand what motivates his character." -- Gillian Kearney

BIRMINGHAM POST, 4/1/02:

The 31-year-old actor was so keen to play the cold and manipulative Forsyte that he turned down offers from Hollywood so that he could star in the drama. "They just weren't right," he says. "There's so much pressure to get on and be in films in this business. They're great fun but you've still got to keep doing the best material that comes your way. ... I thought it was going to be one of those big TV moments which I couldn't afford to miss. I also had this feeling of wanting to pit my wits against great actors of yesteryear. The show was a huge success the first time around and I thought 'Oh they want me to do it'. It fluffs your feathers a bit."
But his part in The Forsyte Saga hardly got off to a flying start. "On the first day of filming I got appendicitis and it screwed the whole thing up. They had to reschedule everything. So when I came back it was all pretty fraught. But I just felt that it was going to turn out to be very good. You just get a feeling when you are making something."
"Hollywood has become one of the places I can work but I think it's no different from working in this country. It's just that there is where all the money is. I could go there, make lots of money and just appear in rubbish. It is more difficult going there and making good things."
And Lewis claims that he turned down the chance of playing this country's most famous secret agent -- 007 James Bond. "I had heard they were very keen on me," he says. "I did an interview and screen test and they were still keen. "But I had to sign something called an option deal where you sign something before the final screen test which means they own you until they have decided who they want for the part. You have to forego any other parts which come your way, even though they might not pick you for the role. It was a gamble. So I pulled out. I grew up with Bond. But I wasn't sure it would be as exciting as it looks on screen. Maybe I just want to be Bond in real life." he laughs.

EVENING STANDARD, 4/4/02:

"My mum was a beautiful, gorgeous woman, a very loving and giving mother, and we all miss her terribly. That she died when she did still seems so shocking and cruel to me. The temptation is to throw yourself into your work -- to try to lose yourself in it. Work can be a kind of therapy and escape from yourself. But you have to give yourself time to sit and think about these things, time to reflect on them and to let them affect you. Otherwise it will hurt you much more later. From that point of view, running around playing other people probably isn't that healthy. So it's also good to take a break, which I did, and let it all wash over you."

ULSTER TV QUICK, 4/6/02:

"I think it's important to be 'the next big thing' for as long as possible so that people are still talking about you. It seems that as soon as you actually become the big thing people start talking about someone else."
This is one actor who loathes the thought of being part of today's celebrity cult. "I don't think that will happen because of the sort of projects that I choose to be involved with," he says, although Damian freely admits that in the future his choice of roles could be influenced by commercial reasons, as well. "Something that pays for the new shower, for example," he smirks.
"I try to avoid conversations about red hair, but I am now about to have one. I hadn't realised the effect it had until I came out of the theater on Broadway where I was playing, and these two Americans said, 'God look at his hair! Red hair in Hamlet doesn't go.'"
"I felt like a 12-year-old until I was 28. Then 30 came and I thought 'Now I feel like a man, and that's good.' I realised that all those pretensions you have when you're 19 are about trying to be 30. I don't have to pretend anymore."
"My mother had the most loving, giving and generous spirit, and my dad does as well. As parents they were great. Really strict and quick to slam down any ego crap. But they never left us in any doubt of how much we were loved."
"I want to control my own career so I can travel between America and Britain. I suppose it is about wanting a little bit of celebrity, but not too much of all that sort of stuff. As soon as you become a 'celebrity' you miss out on certain roles, because you are only cast in 'fashionable' projects and that is what I want to avoid, I still want to be asked to do the serious stuff. I am ambitious, I would like more than just an English career, I want an international career if I can have it."

BBC NEWS, 4/7/02:

All are extremely good [in The Forsyte Saga] and the supporting cast is peopled with fine actors such as Barbara Flynn and Amanda Root. But your eyes zoom straight to Lewis, formerly of Band of Brothers, Hearts and Bones and Warriors. Funnily, Lewis does very little indeed. One scene has him manipulating events to his way of thinking without actually saying a word. But there is a smouldering power to him and you correctly fear for anyone who tries to confront him.

EXPRESS, 4/7/02:

On reading glowing reviews and predictions of being the "next big thing": "It gives me a warm, tingly feeling when I read them, but I know how I have felt when I've read those 'next big thing' articles about other people. I've always thought, 'so who is it this time? What have they got to say?' I'm wary of moving into that role. I'm a bit of a snob about celebrity. The trappings are fantastic, but I think the cult of celebrity is something to be avoided because it's short-lived and I'd like to be employed as an actor for a very long time."
"I think it's part of an actor's vanity to enjoy being pitted against great productions of the past. There's something satisfying in the challenge of a remake. I'm nothing like Eric Porter and this will be nothing like the original series. TV has moved on in such a huge way since the Sixties. The fat that it was such a huge success first time round is a frisson."
When we meet after filming [The Forsyte Saga] he is warm, urbane and amusing. He tucks into a huge portion of jam roly-poly from the catering van while Kylie Minogue blasts from his stereo. "I think I understand those stiff-upper-lip characters," he admits. "I went to boarding school and there is this thing that boys don't cry. You grin and bear it and have cold showers and wear corduroy shorts in the middle of January. There's a natural military aspect to it. It's very ordered and order is something very important to Soames."
Lewis, 30, grew up in a wealthy London family. When he was eight he went away to prep school. "It was a way of thinking that was ingrained in our family, and it wasn't the Dickensian set-up that people imagine those schools to be. It was like something from Enid Blyton or Swallows And Amazons. They were halcyon days."
It was then that Damian discovered his love of the stage. He took part in school plays and, at 16, wanted a career as an actor. "I enjoyed school, but I felt most alive when I was on stage. During school holidays, our family treats were always to go out to the theatre in the West End. Dad would have loved to have been a song-and-dance man."
At 18, he announced he did not want to go to university and began work he hated fitting car alarms in south London. He quit to backpack around Africa before taking up a place at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He graduated in 1993 and soon became one of the most sought-after actors on the London stage.
"I'd like to just be really cool, but I think there's an old-fashionedness to most of the parts I've played. Some of the men have been heroes, others have been anti-heroes, but they've generally all had a sense of order about them." So does he think he has a certain look which makes him a natural for these parts? "I've been incredibly lucky, but I think I do have a look, which I'm hoping is a leading man look with a sort of character angle to it," he laughs.
His versatility is undisputed. His Pennsylvanian accent in Band Of Brothers was impeccable and during our interview he effortlessly flips from a Ghanaian accent to Welsh to Yorkshire, to a convincing impression of Michael Caine. "Accents are about rhythm. I have a musical ear and I pick up on these things."
He flew out to Canada in January for Dreamcatcher and is thrilled by the role, but he misses his new house in north London and his girlfriend, a Channel 4 news producer. He is aware that by the time he returns to Britain his face will be recognised everywhere. Yet he almost turned down Soames. There was the possibility of roles in two American films and he agonised for three weeks. "I eventually realised that it was actually better to do good TV than a film just for the sake of it. There are so many bad movies which bomb, so why not go and do a big TV series which is on screens for weeks and is full of kudos and prestige and has lots of exposure?"

RADIO TIMES, 4/13/02:

"No one is ambivalent towards a redhead. They like it or don't. Tom Hanks joked I could become the world's first red-headed film star, which is now my ambition. There's a distinction between acting and being a star, though. Tom Cruise is a classic example. He can act well enough to be enjoyable -- he wouldn't survive if he was bad -- but his innate charisma and pizzazz prevail. My vanity is that I act rather than turning up, being lazy and doing 'Damian Lewis, star' -- but of course you see aspects of me in every part I do."
"I've been pretentious. Self-preservation has taught me to moderate what I say. I communicate my passion in a way that takes me on the express train to Pseuds Corner in Private Eye. Acting indulges me. It's my mistress. It's with me in the morning and puts me to bed at night."
"I'm perhaps an anomaly as an actor in that I do quite like myself. I think I'm disciplined enough to immerse myself in roles. I hope Soames will seem radically different to Richard Winters and Winters was different to my part in Hearts and Bones."
"I looked forward to becoming 30 because I assumed, from the age of 12, that I'd be married when I was 29. I'm not, but I'll do it at some point. I'm sold on the idea of family. A relationship stagnates if you're away from the person you love for long periods. At some stage, I suppose, you make a choice between work and commitment. Women are just as likely to say, 'I don't want to marry. I'm chasing a career.' Then they reach a crossroads -- 'have I got where I want by 35?' If the answer is yes, they look for an appropriate man to have a baby with before it's too late. It's a biological inconvenience."
"Acting is less easy but more rewarding the longer I do it. I never thought I'd hear myself say that. It's so pretentious, but if you play a repressed, fastidious, emotionally barren solicitor like Soames, it affects you in the same way as real people -- editors or bankers -- are worn down by office politics. I'm more ebullient and gregarious than most of the uptight characters I play. I think I'm chosen for them because of my background, although it's wrong to assume all public-school boys are the fifties idea of repressed Englishmen."
"In moments of preciousness I think with typical upper-middle-class guilt, I should be doing something more useful with my life, but communication through artistic forms is important. All civilisations should have paintings on walls, people standing on stage shouting, and others behind a camera having their photos taken."
He's the third child of four, all by the same mother, Charlotte. Her first husband died when daughter, Amanda, was three and her son, William, was one. She married Damian's father, Watcyn, five years later and had him ["the ham in the sandwich"] and younger brother Gareth, a scriptwriter. It's clearly been a happy, successful family -- Amanda organised the Prince's Trust and was awarded an MVO. She now runs a pub in Bristol. William is a wealthy stockbroker. Watcyn, of Welsh descent, worked in re-insurance. "My grandparents paid for Eton. They're Bowaters on my mother's side, whose newsprint firm sold lots to Rupert Murdoch's father." Both parents were keen on the theatre. "Our holiday treat was a West End show. Dad has a beautiful voice. He lived in Chicago for five years and was dancing in a bar when a Hollywood producer invited him to be in a chorus line. He never quite had the balls, and it's a huge link between my parents and myself that I give them that show-business element."
Tragically, his mother was killed last year in a car crash in India. "That makes time seem important. I wasn't to use it better, although I can't say I've succeeded. It also makes you honest, suddenly. You tell people things you wouldn't have before -- how much you love them. The clinical explanation is 'post-traumatic stress disorder.' For Warriors we researched what happens when you undergo extreme stress -- like getting a phone call saying your mother has just been killed in a car crash. You think you've experienced something no one else can understand, and that you're justified, because of your pain, in wrecking a car, screaming out loud in a supermarket. I'm not saying I did any of that when Mum died, but it made me feel I didn't need to pussyfoot around. Life has an urgency. I haven't said this before, but Dad is my hero. He's been the most remarkable and positive force in my life. He spent 31 years with Mum. The crash was horrific, unfair and cruel, but it's happened and you don't get over it. He's distraught."
"At the moment I say, crudely, I'm on a financial curve, which is seductive. I don't want to do Ibsen and Chekhov all my life, but I do want to do them -- in the same way as I want to jump out of helicopters and shoot people."
He's about to return to Canada to finish filming Dreamcatcher, from a Stephen King novel. "The rewards are exponentially greater than theatre, so there's the question: 'Am I selling out and making a crappy Hollywood movie?' I never had a problem with that because I don't see it as selling out. I'm clear about when I'm making something worthy, or fluffy and superficial. I enjoy both equally. A large part of me is fluffy and superficial, as well as worthy. I'm over the moon about the film. It's going to be remarkable or atrocious, and you never know. I'm told the trick is to book your next one before this one comes out, in case it's a disaster. I exercise quality control and don't like to think I'm a hired hand. Although that, of course, is exactly what I am."

MARIE CLAIRE, 4/02:

He is full of ice breaking mockney banter -- half the time you don't know whether he's teasing or not.
I ask Damian if it's true he was taken ill with appendicitis on the first day of filming The Forsyte Saga. He shows me the scar from the surgery and then jokes "Ioan and I had a bit of an argument over a scene. He slashed me with a knife." "He was in serious pain, bless him," says Ioan. "I'd been told it might be trapped wind and so I had a couple of suppositories whipped up my backside," adds Damian sharing too much information.
We move on to relationships and here's a surprise: neither has ever lived with a girlfriend. "It detracts from the romance of making a home together," Damian says, growing serious for once. "I love the idea of doing it, once you've decided that person's the one you're going to spend the rest of your life with. People have told me you just know, but I've never been close to that."
"I'm quite a late developer, emotionally, so I've learned a lot from Ioan."
I put it to them that they are irretrievably old fashioned. They seem quite taken with the idea. Damian: "I think that's rather nice. There's so much emphasis on cool and hip and trendy these days. There are very few old fashioned film stars at the moment -- someone who brings a Burt Lancaster sort of thing to a movie."

THE TV MAG, 4/02

"I can't say I had serious ambitions as a footballer, but I did have school trials for England, so I got to that sort of level. Now I'm a massive Liverpool fan."
"In about 10 years, I'd like to think I'd be happily married with kids. Maybe three -- I'm fond of a family of four but I'm not sure I could deal with that, let alone expect my wife to!"
In another scene [in Archer], he ends up making love to the former Prime Minister. But all is not as it first appears. "They got a Chippendale in to be a body double for some of the sex scenes -- only for a tiny bit of it you understand," laughs Damian.
"I am single again and I'm enjoying it for the time being."

IN STYLE, 5/02:

Is there any role he's still hankering after? "I'd love to play Elvis, but I'm not sure they'd let me."
Have you ever had to wear anything embarrassing? "Once on stage I had to wear a whalebone dress, corseted to push up the boobs, and four-inch heels, a wig and lots of make-up, but I didn't really find it embarrassing. I quite enjoyed it."
Is there anything you wouldn't wear or do? "Take my clothes off." Never? "Maybe with a three-month warning. That would give me just enough time to start doing Pilates and get my abs in shape." Do you keep fit? "I don't have a fitness regime because I play a lot of sport -- tennis and football -- so I stay fit that way. I'd like to do yoga and feel soft and loose and creamy in my hips. I feel a bit cranky and stiff."
Describe your style: "Today I'm in leathers and jeans as I'm on my motorbike [a red Honda VFR 750]. This sweater is Armani, these jeans are Diesel and that's my Steve McQueen leather jacket. Steve McQueen epitomises cool in the way that no one else does."
Are you a jeans or suits man? "I do suits. I like Gucci suits and shirts and I've got a really nice Aquascutum suit which is very conventional in an English sort of way -- kind of Sixties with two vents. Suits must always have a double vent at the back, it's very important."
So you're quite fashion conscious? "I do like clothes but I think what I probably try to do is wear expensive clothes and make them look scruffy. I have a very nice Prada mac -- sort of retro sixties crombie style -- which is also very Steve McQueen.
Do you like shopping? "Yes and I love shopping for girls. I love buying underwear." ... "I think it's more fun to buy someone something than go through a nightly shall-I-wear-this selection process. I seem to get it right most of the time. You know when you've got it wrong as the thing doesn't get worn."

SCIFI.COM, 6/20/02:

"...Damian Lewis, the only time I'd seen him was in [HBO's] Band of Brothers. He really held the center of that huge project, and I thought, 'Oh, my God. This guy has enormous soul.' His Jonesy character is the soulful center of this group. A lot of crazy and scary things happen around him. [He's] a guy who is essentially a sensitive college professor who then becomes a very dangerous alien all in the same body, so it's kind of fun, and I thought, 'There's the guy that could do it.'" -- Lawrence Kasdan

(PUBLICATION UNKNOWN), 7/02:

"Damian Lewis, the only time I'd seen him was in [HBO's] Band of Brothers . He really held the center of that huge project, and I thought, 'Oh, my God. This guy has enormous soul.' His Jonesy character is the soulful center of this group. A lot of crazy and scary things happen around him. [He's] a guy who is essentially a sensitive college professor who then becomes a very dangerous alien all in the same body, so it's kind of fun, and I thought, 'There's the guy that could do it.'" -- Lawrence Kasdan

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS, 9/27/02:

Lewis found the key to Soames in the character's repressed, buttoned-up Victorian temperament, and used his own experience as a onetime boarder at Eton to get into character. "There are still traditions and characteristics of the school that I went to that are kind of Victorian," says Lewis. "And so I feel I understand that quite well. I'm a more effusive person than Soames myself, but I probably have [a certain English reticence]. It didn't seem a huge leap to make in the end."

VANITY FAIR, 9/02:

As the wife of possessive Soames Forsyte, she [Gina McKee] has a pound sterling to play against. He is, as his uncle jibes, a "man of property," and if there is a villain in the story it is Soames. But played by Damian Lewis, the actor who was Steve McQueen-steeley in Band of Brothers, he is impossible to hate. In this unlovable man we feel the ache of a poet, a poet who has no words. The power he brings to the final minutes of this amazing series is a breakthrough of blossoming -- a masterpiece.

TV GUIDE, 10/5/02:

How much of Lewis is in Soames? "Holy Moses! Is he like me? No, I like to think of myself as a little lighter than he is. But I understand elements of emotional repression. I think my friends might accuse me of that."

"LEWIS GOES IN BOOTS AND ALL," NEWSPAPER UNKNOWN, AUSTRALIAN, FALL 2002 (DATE UNKNOWN):

Lewis ... has plenty of charm and charisma and an inner strength that impressed the Spielberg camp immediately [during the casting process for Band of Brothers].
"Damian was fantastic in training [for Band of Brothers], busted his butt -- there's something in that little ginger shit's eyes," [Capt. Dale] Dye says.
A sense of determination, combined with a natural authority, while at the same time possessing an ability to be easygoing, enabled Lewis to fit in straight away when he turned up for training [for Band of Brothers].
What has Lewis taken from the entire Band of Brothers experience? "Well, an incredible amount of history!" he replies. "Plus the fact that I don't want to go into the army but I'm happy to act it."

DAILY MAIL, 11/16/02:

There is a veneer of Old Etonian confidence, a touch of city slickness.
On his first attempt at comedy (Jeffrey Archer: The Truth): "The other stuff I've done has not exactly been a bundle of laughs. I've been lucky enough to be asked to do A-grade quality drama -- posh TV. And that image stays with you. So it's great that Guy (Jenkins, the writer and director) thinks I can do this."
Presumably Damian Lewis is now able to pick and choose exactly what he wishes to do? "Yes, I am. Except that even the top Hollywood actors squabble over parts, so no one obtains total power of choice." He sounds very confident. "I don't think I'm neurotic, put it that way. you're right; I do feel quite certain about what I want to do. I think I have quite good instincts." In another actor, such self-assurance would be alarming, but he does not seem an arrogant man. Last year, his mother, Charlotte, was killed in a car crash in India. Lewis himself was lucky to survive a motorcycle accident some time ago. His ego is tempered by the awareness that silver-spoon backgrounds do not guarantee an easy life.
Lewis grew up in the prosperous London suburb of St. John's Wood; the third child of wealthy parents. His father, Watcyn, was a reinsurance broker and a Lloyd's "name" who lost money when the organisation's syndicates crashed. "He had all the problems everyone else did. Though Dad never invested beyond his collateral, so he was relatively unscathed. They all made shedloads of money in the 1970s, when the Middle East boomed, and the lost it."
At the age of eight Lewis was sent to prep school in Sussex, as a boarder. "People seem quite shocked by that, but my parents were very liberal. It was all discussed within the family. I was a bumptious, physically-developed little boy with loads of energy, and I was dying to go."
"I got a phone call in the middle of the night to say that she [his mother] had been involved in a car accident. I think one just goes into a shock that manifests itself in many different ways. you're not catatonic, but everything goes dull for a period of time, a long time. Maybe a year, or a year and a half."
The crash happened on a spring day last year [2001], as his parents traveled through India. As Lewis learned later, Watcyn had pulled his wife's body from the wreckage. "Afterwards Dad was just so incredible. We all took our strength from him. Inevitably he had spent much more time with Mum than any of us had and then he was with her when it happened. So for him it was a far more graphic experience than for us. But he has been absolutely wonderful. His example, in trying to find some positive outcome from her death and to live his life in a positive way, has been heroic."
As for Lewis, his mother's death altered him in ways that he still cannot understand. "It just kind of changes your perception of the world around you and the way you live. And of course it makes you reappraise your relationship with your parents. It gives you a strange objectivity."
He bought a house in Camden, north London, when he moved out of a flat where he lived with his brother Gareth.
"I've never lived with a girlfriend, actually." Is that because of his schedule or because he clings to his independence? "I'm a commitment-phobe. No, it's probably a mixture of all three. Eventually I would like to be married of course. I come from a big, happy family and we are all very close. If one of your fantasies is lying on a bed in Hollywood surrounded by eight naked women, then another 'tis to have a beautiful wife and a nice rambling house in London with three kids running around ... perhaps it's good to have a bit of tension in your fantasy life."
He certainly doesn't sound exceptional husband material, but then he has never pretended to be. Years ago, he used to spend his holidays touring the South of France on a motorbike, playing guitar and busking in smart resorts, not because he needed the money but because he aspired to an Easy Rider image. More recently, he was hurled through the windscreen of a taxi that pulled out in front of him as he rode home from the theatre.
"I actually hit the frame of the windscreen. Thank God I had a full-face helmet on, rather than the open-face one I usually wore. I suppose I might be dead. Certainly I would have had my face rearranged. I went flying over the car, and I was out cold in the road for five minutes before I woke up to see this male nurse who had been in the back of the cab. I could feel him gripping my pulse and as he told me that it had disappeared for a while. Afterwards I went around with concussion for three months, arguing with people, getting depressed and not being able to watch TV because it gave me such a bad headache. My girlfriend at the time bought me a pile of jigsaw puzzles and I sat at home doing those. When I went back on stage I nearly passed out and had to sit down in the middle of a scene."
On ambition: "If your self-employed you need to expand your business, and for that business to get bigger and better and more fulfilling. If you're seen in a successful Hollywood movie, then any theatre and most TV companies will want you to work for them because you're high-profile and put bums on seats. People say going to Hollywood is selling out, but I don't think the distinction is as clear as that. You might do an artistically bankrupt project as a business choice. I don't think business should be a dirty word. And if you can be in Los Angeles, sitting by a pool in January, then I'll take it. It's like a big resort for me. I'm meeting exciting people who seem to like English actors and it's all quite feel-good. If I was waiting for the phone to ring and working out where my local grocer's was I would find it depressing. But to go in with trumpets is a lot of fun."
Damian Lewis is charming company and not at all arrogant. Even so, his ambitions contain just enough of a hint of hubris and materialism....

SUNDAY TIMES, 11/17/02:

Lewis is the sort of echt young toff that Archer so admires: rich insurance-broker father, St. John's Wood childhood, mother on the development boards of the Almeida and Royal Court theatres, the whiff of Brideshead about him, in a modern sort of way.
"The camera was intrusive. I was always darting around it, looking for my audience, just wishing it wasn't there. Now ... you're gonna ask if I love the camera. Come off it! Oh, all right then, yeah, I do. I love it."
Lewis can't help fizzing with confidence. He is the sort of boy who could charm grannies, dogs and leading ladies, who could walk into any party, onto any set, and make it his own: funny, smart, irreverent and with manners so beautiful you could frame them. Tea with the Queen, one gets the impression, would pose no problem, while his mockney mode would rival Guy Ritchie's. When his savoir-faire accidentally fails him, he looks almost comically stricken.
There is a restless, reckless quality to Lewis, the sort of daring that no doubt has him riding his motorbike too fast, and has inspired comparisons to Steve McQueen. When he raves that The New York Times devoted a whole page to the thrilling stage fight in his Broadway Hamlet with Ralph Fiennes, you sense he'd like to do it all again -- right now! -- the urgency of the boxer to get back in the ring.

BBC, 11/21/02:

In preparation for his demanding role [as Jeffrey Archer], Damian Lewis immersed himself in the noble pursuits of the great man -- "I'm learning how to hurdle, I'm learning how to dance, I'm learning how to make love. Because, as we all know, these are things that Jeffrey does amazingly."

THE OBSERVER, 11/24/02:

[In Jeffrey Archer: The Truth,] Damian Lewis, still in the run of success that has included Band of Brothers and Soames in The Forsyte Saga, finds exactly the right level of self-delusion and caddish mania. Lewis says he made no attempt at all to impersonate Archer, rather he 'saw the role as an audition for the next James Bond'. Even so, he captures enough of the Boy's Own anarchy to make him easily recognisable.

INDEPENDENT, 11/24/02:

Having Lewis's name attached to anything is starting to look like a shrewd investment. Something about his aura of self-control, and maybe his cool blue-grey eyes, has prompted comparisons to Steve McQueen from several reviewers. In person, what's particularly striking is the whiteness of his complexion under his copper-coloured hair.

ES MAGAZINE, 11/28/02:

In person, he is bigger than you'd imagine -- fleshier and surprisingly relaxed and friendly, though he has a noticeable self-assurance and confidence that directors are drawn to. He's 30, but somehow he has the composure of someone older, and he's charming.
You sense that Damian is not without vanity. He volunteers the information that he was voted one of Britain's 50 sharpest men by Esquire magazine, and mentions being miffed at a critic's description of his small mouth. Yet he has neither the poster-boy looks nor the egocentric approach to acting associated with the professional love interest. He is destined to be a serious quality actor and, though there's a part of him that wants to be chased by screaming girls, deep down he knows it. "This might sound naive, but my overall ambition is to be employed for acting ability. I do it because I love it."

TELETEXT.CO.UK, 11/29/02:

On Archer: "I really wanted to do this and comedy's not difficult for me. I'm clownish most of the time anyway."

THE WESTERN MAIL, 11/29/02:

Lewis ... has a Welsh grandmother from Carmarthenshire.
"There's a gulf between one's own self-perception and the way people view you. I wouldn't have thought it was a huge leap for me to do comedy, because I feel quite clownish most of the time anyway."
"A lot of people might be saying 'Why's he doing this Jeffrey Archer thing for the BBC? That sounds risky,' but for me there was no question about it," says Lewis. "I read the script and it was hysterical. It's an interesting acting challenge, and that's what I'm about."
"After Band of Brothers, I got offered lots of stuff," he says. "I know it sounds pious, but you can only follow the good scripts. I was offered a couple of movies. One was a part in Black Hawk Down, for example, and that would certainly be following talent, Ridley Scott, but I'd just been a soldier for eight months, and they hadn't let us see a script at that point. If I'm cocky, it's probably there that I'm cocky. Whoever is asking me to work with them, I've got to see a script."
Instead of movies, he chose The Forsyte Saga -- a job he thought long and hard about accepting. "I read it and thought, 'Do I really want to do another five months on a big TV serial?', but you end up doing it because the script is so good. Of course you lose a little bit more control if you're contractually obliged to turn up for the second year running, whether you like it or not, but happily I do like it."
He describes last year's run of The Forsyte Saga as "unquestionably the biggest costume drama since Pride and Prejudice. It made a huge impact." The role of Soames Forsyte cemented his household-name status in Britain. But because the character is such an unloveable one, Lewis has attracted strange reactions from people in the street. "Personally, the reactions I got after The Forsyte Saga were 'Ugh, you're horrible,' to people screaming at me in the street, to people going 'Ah, we feel really sorry for you.' I tried to help a very drunken young lady in Trafalgar Square one Saturday night. She looked far too well presented to be in the state she was in. It was about 3am, and she was lying on the pavement. I was with some friends and said 'We've got to put her in a cab, we can't leave her there.' We tried to get her into the cab, but she was so far gone, she couldn't remember where she lived. Then suddenly she turned around and looked at me and started screaming at the top of her voice. I jumped back, I thought 'Christ, the cops are going to come!' She was going 'Aah, you're horrible!' and I decided that was enough of my Good Samaritan moment -- and I just legged it."
Working on Dreamcatcher, was clearly another type of experience, but Lewis still plays it down. "It's the same as making an English film, just on a slightly grander scale. But I did have the chance to work with some great international reputations. Lawrence Kasdan, who directed The Big Chill -- it's fantastic being in a room with him, it's fantastic being in a room with Morgan Freeman, and other young American actors like Donnie Wahlberg, Tom Sizemore and Jason Lee. The one bit of control you can have over your career is who you choose to work with, and as long as you keep picking them good, you've got every chance of having a rewarding career."

DAILY RECORD, 11/30/02:

And men's style mag GQ last year voted him 31st in a poll of the UK's sharpest dressed men. "I've no idea who was 30 or 32," he says. "I've no idea what makes me sharp. They obviously haven't seen me in the morning."

BBC.CO.UK, 11/02:

In preparation for this demanding role [in Jeffrey Archer: The Truth] Damian Lewis has been immersing himself in the noble pursuits of the great man - "I'm learning how to hurdle, I'm learning how to dance, I'm learning how to make love. Because, as we all know, these are things that Jeffrey does amazingly."

DAILY MIRROR, 12/6/02:

"I'm only as good as the last thing I've done. I try to build up my reputation so I'll be offered the best scripts for the best money and achieve world domination!" The strategy is paying off. He's done Shakespeare in Stratford and worked in Hollywood. But which way would he like his career to go? "Before I'd have talked about selling out, but now I'd be tempted to do something if it was an awful lot of money. Equally, I'd love to do a good show in the West End, perhaps a remake of Saturday Night Fever. I do things I know I'll enjoy."

DAILY EXPRESS, 12/17/02:

"I have a secret hankering to sing and dance on stage. I like to think I can sing I mean I've got a musical ear. I was in a musical once at the Donmar Warehouse but no one seems to remember that."

DAILY POST, 2002 (exact date unknown):

The 31-year-old actor was so keen to play the cold and manipulative Forsyte that he turned down offers from Hollywood so that he could star in the drama. "They just weren't right," he says. "There's so much pressure to get on and be in films in this business. They're great fun but you've still got to keep doing the best material that comes your way. I knew very little about the original Forsyte Saga. But it was a fantastic script and they told me the names of the rest of the people they were trying to get involved. I just jumped at the chance. I thought it was going to be one of those big TV moments which I couldn't afford to miss. I also had this feeling of wanting to pit my wits against great actors of yesteryear. The show was a huge success the first time around and I thought 'Oh they want me to do it.' It fluffs your feathers a bit."
But his part in The Forsyte Saga hardly got off to a flying start. "On the first day of filming I got appendicitis and it screwed the whole thing up. They had to reschedule everything. So when I came back it was all pretty fraught. But I just felt that it was going to turn out to be very good. You just get a feeling when you are making something."
Lewis was cast as American war hero Major Richard Winters and had to undergo a grueling 10 day boot camp before filming started. But he had no complaints. "It was fantastic role," he says. "When we met the men who had been involved in the real thing we realised that we were suffering very little hardship. The boot camp took me back to when I was at boarding school and had to share a dormitory. And it was great having no mobile phones for a few days."
Lewis is currently in Hollywood filming Stephen King's Dreamcatcher which co-stars Morgan Freeman. But this doesn't mean he is planning on a permanent move to the States. "I play one of four friends who take an annual holiday together. They have done the same thing for the past 20 years. It's our favourite weekend of the year. When we are on holiday we get invaded by aliens. The film becomes really weird. I get possessed by an alien so I end playing two people -- which is great fun. Hollywood has become one of the places I can work but I think it's no different from working in this country. It's just that there is where all the money is. I COULD go there, make lots of money and just appear in rubbish. It is more difficult going there and making good things."
And Lewis claims that he turned down the chance of playing this country's most famous secret agent -- 007 James Bond. "I had heard they were very keen on me," he says. "I did an interview and screen test. They were still really keen. But I pulled out because I had to sign something called an option deal. That is where you sign something before the final screen test which means they own you until they have decided who they want for the part. You have to forego any other parts which come your way even though they might not pick you for the role. It was a gamble. So I pulled out. I grew up with Bond. But I wasn't sure it would be as exciting as it looks on screen. Maybe I just want to be Bond in real life," he laughs.

THE FORSYTE SAGA: THE OFFICIAL COMPANION, 2002:

Sita Williams, producer (pp. 45-46): "I had a few people very clearly inmy head when we started the casting. I was looking for a particular type of actor: not necessarily posh actors, but people who could handle a style that is very different from the social realism that you see in most dramas. Television tends to strive towards the way people really behave in the modern world, and I needed actors who could show how people from the upper classes used to behave around the turn of the century. So they've got to have that seriousness, that emotional restraint -- but they've also got to be able to convey to the audience the feelings that are going on under the surface. It's quite a hard trick to pull off. ... Perhaps [Damian Lewis is] not an obvious choice [to play Soames], but for me he's the only man for the job. From the moment we met him I knew he was it, he was Soames. He has tremendous self-assurance and poise, so you're very drawn to him, but he can also give the impression of being quite distant. ... All of that [international attention he's received as a result of Band of Brothers] helps, of course, but I still wouldn't have cast him if he wasn't right for the job. Damian wasn't sure at first. He said to me, ‘But surely you don't want a red-haired Soames, do you?' The colour of his hair just doesn't matter! What I like is this chilly, interior quality that he has, combined with the fact that a lot of people find him tremendously attractive. That's the key. You have to see him being cruel and unsympathetic towards Irene, but you have to be sufficiently attracted to him to want to dig a bit deeper and understand why he's behaving this way. Most actors just want to be loved in whatever role they play, but Damian's always been very keen to bring out the cruelty in Soames as well as the more admirable qualities. That way you can see him doing wrong, but you can also understand that he's the architect of his own destruction. I've watched some of the rushes and I've sat there going, 'Oh, no, Soames, please don't do that!' I hope that audiences will be shouting at their televisions in exactly the same way. You can see why Irene hates him, but he just can't stop himself. He never says what he really wants to say, he gets it all wrong and he ends up doing terrible things within that relationship."
Christopher Menaul, director (p. 45): "I'd seen [Damian Lewis and Ioan Gruffudd] in Warriors [Peter Kosminsky's award-winning film about peacekeepers in Bosnia], which I considered to be one of the best films I've seen for a long time. I thought they worked very well together in that, so it's no coincidence that they're both in this. I wanted two young men who were very contrasted in looks and personae, which they are. And they had to be able to bring out all the layers of a character. It would be very easy for some of these characters to come across as one-dimensional, and that would be a disaster, because the whole point of The Forsyte Saga is that the more you get to know about these people, the more you understand and appreciate them. It would be no good if Soames was just a villain, or if Bosinney was just an arty prig. With Damian and Ioan, you've got two actors who can bring out those depths individually, and who spark off each other very well and add a whole new dimension through that contrast."
Jan McVerry, writer (p. 58): "Soames is absolutely fascinating for any writer to play with, because he's so complex. There's a temptation to rein him back a bit and make him more sympathetic, because for all his faults you do end up loving him. But the producer was always pushing us to go further, to bring out his dark side, and I was worried that people would just hate him. Now I've seen Damian Lewis's performance, though, I'm not worried, because he brings out all the sympathetic sides of the character that the words themselves don't always contain. Soames is a very disturbed individual, and it's interesting for a woman to write for him. I mean, he's a rapist! But you can understand what's driven him to it. You can see the turmoil in his mind that's twisted him into doing a thing like that."

AMAZON.CO.UK (PROBABLY 2002):

Now that Band of Brothers has gone out to universal acclaim, and with The Forsyte Saga set to consolidate his position with British audiences, Lewis finds himself in a very different position from this time last year. "I don't know what to expect, I'm hoping that the phone will start ringing a lot more, because there was a huge buzz about both of the shows. Until we've got some reaction to The Forsyte Saga, I've no idea what kind of direction I'll go in. I'm in a state of flux, really. I just sold my house; I'd been living with my brother for the last three years, and he got married so we decided to get rid of the house. So although I live in London, I don't actually have a place there at the moment, apart from my girlfriend's and a room in a friend's house where I keep a lot of stuff. When we were filming The Forsyte Saga, I had a flat on Canal Street in Manchester, which was pretty lively. I'm rather enjoying the experience of being homeless, and I'm in no hurry to buy a place. It's nice to have the loose change, having just sold a house. I can do really responsible things like buying sports cars."

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