Damian's Dominion: The Damian Lewis Digest

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

DAILY EXPRESS, 12/03 or 01/04:

On Five Gold Rings: So are you moving away from television? "I'm doing this because it's such an exciting piece of writing. There are good roles on TV, but I haven't been on stage for four years and I thought it'd be a good time. I'm terrified!"
Do women throw themselves at you? "I don't really know, erm, I don't know. It's ... ah, sometimes! One woman recently organised others from around the world to send me their knickers. I got 40 pairs in the post. Some were nice."
So what did you do with the knickers? "I threw them out after a couple of days, but one night some winos went through my garbage and found them. There was a trail of girls' knickers leading out from my house!"
"I'm single. One day I'll settle down. I think getting married and having children would be extraordinary and challenging. And certainly it will affect my career, because if I've got a young kid and I'm asked to be away for three months, I might choose not to take that job."
Do you prefer London or LA? "I have a lot of good friends in LA and I like the change of lifestyle, the sun, the easy life. I think, in the end, LA would not be as culturally stimulating as London."
Do you like being famous? "Well, the money makes life easier. But fame doesn't really help you spiritually. The only way to avoid fame is not to take big projects that will make you a household name. But that's basically saying stop being ambitious. You get recognised, but sometimes that's good -- like when someone in the sock department at John Lewis will help you!"

METRO CAFE, 02/05/04:

Ever miss being a promising, but relatively unknown RSC stage actor? "No, because now I'm a promising but relatively unknown film actor. I'd be lying if I said I don't enjoy the fact I've met who I've met, the kind of people who ask to work with me and the types of projects I get to do. You have choice, the lack of which is one of my bugbears in life. I like creating as much choice for myself as possible."

NCRV TV GUIDE 02/21/04 (translated from Dutch to English):

In London Lewis can still do his grocery-shopping without difficulties, but that will soon change. ...
When Damian Lewis was in his second year of drama-school, he and two fellow-students took the boat to Amsterdam. Lewis (laughing): "Guess what we did there ... I still remember on the way over there we were sitting all three on deck in the middle of the night gazing at the stars and we shouted in a romantic way that we were the new generation of actors and we were going to change everything, stuff like that. I would like to say that that really happened, but I think it didn't quite go that way. ..."
He is self-confident, sexy and certainly not afraid of Hollywood but doesn't want to be "sold as the newest sportscar!" He refused a nice role in Black Hawk Down in favour of The Forsyte Saga.
For an actor it is always fun to play the bad guy. Was this also the case? "Soames has something petty and ugly, something I could only shake of with some alcohol at the end of the day. But I didn't hate him, if I did I couldn't have played him. In the book he is a complex personality; in the BBC-series from 1967 he was evil and Irene was only the victim. We wanted to show some more sides to him. Even if no one likes Soames -- he is a bastard, a racist, a sexist, a snob -- then still you should be able to understand his obsession for that woman and how it destroys his life."
So, there is still some good in him? "Soames is evil, but I think, even he, has the right of some form of forgiveness. But saying that, I do believe that absolute evil does exist. I used to think that there was always an explanation that would justify or make it understandable why someone does something, how bad it was. But take Eichmann for instance ... how logical his development was, in the end he does something pure evil in a Biblical sense. Soames isn't like that. His problem is that he only understands the world in terms of "possession" and "material wealth," not in an emotional or spiritual sense. That's how his relationship with Irene is. He builds a house for her; he tries to buy her love. He thinks it works that way, because he thinks it is the proper way to handle things. But she rejects him from the beginning. She doesn't love him, she should have never married him. Out of frustration he forces himself on her. That's called rape in a marriage, but in those days it wasn't seen that way. A man had the right to force himself on his wife; it was the duty of the wife to have his children."
You come from a good background. You were at Eton, where Prince William and Prince Harry got their education. A cricket ball broke your nose. Did you learn the Forsyte world there? "Eton has the reputation to be the center of everything of wealth, power, nobility and privilege, but Eton isn't that at all. It's a boarding-school, so your life and time is strictly in order, but otherwise I thought it to be a free space, with liberal ideas, not at all Victorian. I did lots of theatre there, even performed Nicholas Nickleby there, started my own group and that was stimulated by the school. It was at Eton that I decided to become an actor. I think the Princes did like it there. Besides I don't think they were bothered with a shilling or two more, like I was. As for the cricket ball, yes, I did break my nose. ..."
Soames is just like Major Winters in Band of Brothers: an introverted, closed man. Is that a coincidence, or do those roles just fit you? "I think I'm much more extrovert than Soames or Winters, but I do have the urge to bottle everything up, so maybe there is that similarity in my play. It's obvious that acting is a form of free therapy. You sure learn a lot about yourself by acting. Maybe I am the right man to play frustrated, tangled up loners!"
You met the real Major Winters, now 85. How was he, and what did he say about your role? "He is a simple and very direct man. Winters has a religious background; he was very suspicious from the beginning; had to be reassured that Spielberg wasn't going to Hollywood or sugar his story. Everything is realistic, from Normandy to Berchtesgaden. I thought it was brilliant. Winters did loosen up along the way and when he saw the result he loved it!"
In one of the last episodes, Winters and his men discover a concentration camp. "It was unbelievably reconstructed and awful, very shocking -- and that shock came directly on camera."
How much has this affected your view on war and military in general? "Warriors is maybe my favourite piece, a fantastic example of how drama can work at its very best -- on a low fire, slow with slink camerawork in a semi-documentary style. It strengthens your belief that war has to be avoided at all costs, because the human price is too high. It doesn't matter how many strategies, rules and systems you make, when you find yourself in the middle of it, it's always chaos! That was sure the case for the soldiers in Bosnia where their instructions were not really clear, they didn't know what and what not to do. All of those young men who were sent there had to watch while the most horrendous cruelties took place. Most of them came back with a huge trauma. Warriors also tells how they were let down and abandoned by the army when they came back, because the army refused to acknowledge that there was a problem. I met the former commanding officer of the UNHCR in Kosovo, general sir Michael Jackson a few times. A fascinating man, a real fire-eater! We now get along friendly, but when we first met we both had a few drinks too many and almost got into a fight! He attacked the movie vigorously: 'Artists! You don't know really what it is like. ...' Because of Warriors and Band of Brothers I thought I did know how it really is and we got into a heavy discussion. Jackson said: 'I'm a soldier. I know what war is. I know what it costs.' Meanwhile the army does recognize post-traumatic stress syndrome and that people have to be treated for it. 'But it's still the cruel reality,' said Jackson, 'that you should not care for those people too much, acknowledge that they could develop a trauma. You have to deny it for the morale and the self-confidence of the soldiers still on the battlefield.' Astonishing, that with these roles I played I could talk to him about this. I just knew how 'the soldier' changed since WWII. It has become a different species."

EVENING STANDARD, 07/17/04:

Damian Lewis was hither to not known for his dance moves, but after the Sargent Cancer Research bash at the Sanderson hotel last week he will forever be. A whole host of beautiful ladies made their way into his dance routine ... as fellow guests ... looked on in awe at the prowess of the John Travolta-for-our-times. A raffle played its part in the proceedings, of course. But dancing lessons from Mr. Lewis were regrettably not up for grabs.

EVE, 07/04:

Speaking of flesh, he's quite happy exposing his. Not surprising, considering the shape he's in. (Small-hipped, expanding to wide shoulders, I note, just in case you wondered.) Stripping off as we get ready for the shoot, he gathers three of our female crew about him to canvas opinions on what he should wear. This is a man comfortable in his own skin but, rightly or wrongly, he does have a rather debonair image. I decide to catch him off guard and put it to him that he's not the sort of man you'd expect to hear went to a friend's wedding and fell into a pond right up to his middle, then returned to the wedding marquee sporting a wet-shirt-and-pond-weed Mr. Darcy look. I've stumped him. Blushing, he pauses for a while, obviously racking his brains. "I haven't said that anywhere else, have I? You've actually spoken to someone about that, haven't you?" I confess I have. "That's funny," he laughs at my having found him out. "I'd had a bit to drink. The wedding was in the countryside in this family's beautiful garden. They had lit-up trees and big rhododendrons and all that sort of stuff -- it looked beautiful -- but it just meant where you were walking was completely dark. At least that's my excuse. It was actually tied in with a massive row I was having with someone at the time. I went stomping off drunkenly to look for her and I just walked into a pond up to my middle. Thankfully, I was drunk enough to go back into the marquee completely soaked and just grin at everyone."
Down to earth he is, but spend a short time with Damian Lewis and you realise he says nothing lightly. Every one of his replies is considered and deliberate. In response to each of my questions he pauses, considering its whole meaning before carefully answering. You get the impression he would never say anything he didn't mean. "I think my biggest fault is that I try to control environments that I'm in," he confesses. "I think I suffer from that in life generally. Anything I've done must be seen to be the appropriate thing, the right thing, the thing that people admire or respect."
"When big decisions present themselves," he continues, "I prevaricate. It takes me forever to come to a decision because I have to absolutely thrash it out in every possible way. I do it with myself, and I'll definitely use friends and family as sounding boards. I find decision-making utterly debilitating because it takes me such a long time. And it stultifies me. I can't function properly when I've got huge choices to make."
"I always wanted to be an actor," he continues. "I didn't know until I was 16 that I was actually going to do it, pursue it professionally and really have a crack at it. But my parents were lovely and liberal and supportive and said: 'Go for it. We'll support that decision.' This may sound pretentious," he apologises, "but it seemed inconceivable, really, that I would do anything else, other than what I'm doing. I would be crap at anything else."
Born in London, and brought up in affluent St. John's Wood, Damian is the son of a successful reinsurance broker Watcyn, his late mother Charlotte's second husband. Her first husband died when Damian's sister Amanda was three and brother William was one. "I grew up with my parents always saying, 'We love you whatever, but you'll only disappoint yourself if you don't do the best you can.' I can't shake that off. That's at the root of my work ethic," he explains stretching his lean frame out on the sofa we're sharing.
As we talk more about our families, I realise that not only do we share a west London upbringing, but that we have another shared link -- the loss of our mothers. Dropping his eyes, Damian pauses and then quietly explains his mum was killed in a car crash in India in 2001. "I got a phone call in the middle of the night, and went into shock and stayed there for a year. Mum took so much pride in my success. I just wish she could have seen more of it," he says, before adding, "Actually, I probably don't want to talk about it much," and excuses himself for a moment.
So, with his film career going up a gear, could he imagine moving to LA full-time? "It would be difficult for me emotionally to leave London forever, being very much a Londoner and family-orientated," he answers, thoughtfully. "I like my friends and all of that sort of thing. I know this sounds a little self-righteous," he says, apologising for his view for the umpteenth time, "but there is something displacing about just always going off to the next thing on your own, without anyone you know. You have to be good socially or you have to be very self-contained and very happy with your own company, because it can be rather a lonely existence. So being at home is great."
"When I've been in London and I'm about to fly off to another film set, there is a moment when I think, 'Why can't I just be here? Why don't I set up my own theatre company? Why don't I live in London and be in the town I grew up in and live here for a bit and enjoy it? Have a steady girlfriend, get all my friends round for dinner parties?' That does sound quite fun to me." But then, he admits, he is still too ambitious for that. He once said he thought it was too early in his career to turn down work "in order to be around for other people." Does he think that now? "I'm ambitious in the best sense of the word," he answers. "I'm ambitious for myself. Not in a comparative sense with others, not in a competitive way with others. I'm just ambitious for myself for me to be the best I can."
"There's been a lot written about you and Kristen Davis, star of Sex And The City. Are you seeing each other?" He smirks, laughs and shakes his head. "No. I'm totally and utterly single. Yes, we're mates. We've emailed and chatted to each other -- but I've only met her two or three times."
And if his fierce ambition means there isn't a constant companion in his life since splitting with Channel 4 news producer Katie Razzall, then he's determined to enjoy himself. "I have tremendous fun. But I know fun and profound happiness are probably two different things. I really believe that true happiness comes through actually denying yourself things. At some point one's ability to commit to something -- for example relationships, or a cause, or a job -- and to focus single-mindedly on one thing will give you a profounder experience of life. What that means is that you have to deny yourself trappings and temptations elsewhere in order to just focus on one thing." Smiling and fixing me with that famous lopsided grin, he finishes: "I don't do that denial thing at all well. But I suspect that is the way to be truly happy."

VARIETY, 09/07/04:

Just as "Clean, Shaven" relied to a great extent on the creepy power lead actor Peter Greene brought to it, so does "Keane" rest squarely on the exceptional talent of Damian Lewis to put it across. Red-haired British-American thesp, who first came to prominence in "Band of Brothers," is onscreen here virtually every second expressing, to varying degrees, how unbearable it must be to be responsible for the disappearance of one's child.
Watching Lewis so thoroughly inhabit the demented Keane, one can only wonder how an actor can live with such a character for weeks and weeks and maintain a semblance of sanity and contact with real life. Thesp amazingly manages to find nuances of character while running his engine above the emotional red line throughout. It's a resonant, haunting performance. Throughout, lenser John Foster's largely hand-held camera is focused either on Keane or what he's seeing, and pic's gritty look is part-and-parcel of this strong, raw work.

DAILY MIRROR, 09/25/04:

"I'd love to be able to say, 'My name is Bond ... Ginger Bond,' but it's never going to happen. What I'd love to see is the Welsh wizard Ioan Gruffudd win the part. He's my good mate and he's brilliant. He'd definitely make the best Bond."

DAILY EXPRESS, 09/30/04:

Damian Lewis is sick of being an appalling father. The actor has played bad dads three times now and is concerned this inadvertent typecasting will spill over into his personal life, if, or when, fatherhood beckons. "I play a very dysfunctional father," says Forsyte Saga star Damian, 33, of his forthcoming film Chromophobia. "It's actually a great cause for concern because this is the third time I've been a bad father. I'm hoping I'm not picking up bad habits for when I have to be a dad for real."

SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE, 09/04:

[article title unknown; article on men's take on women's knickers, with several quotes from various people as to their favorite knickers]: "crisp white ones" - Damian Lewis

REELFILM.COM, 09/04:

Keane doesn't contain much in the way of a plot -- if you've seen Clean, Shaven, you probably have a good idea what to expect -- but that soon becomes irrelevant thanks to Lewis' astounding performance. Lewis, best known for his work in films like Dreamcatcher and various British mini-series, is an absolute revelation as the title character and he delivers a daring and completely riveting performance. It's the sort of role most actors would kill for, though very few would be able to disappear into it as effectively and thoroughly as Lewis. Keane is one of those rare movies that rattles around in your head long after the credits have rolled, and if there were any justice, both Kerrigan and Lewis would receive Academy Awards for their work here.

ITV.COM, 10/04/04:

Commenting on location [while filming Chromophobia], Damian said: "London where I grew up and feel passionate about, is fantastic when it's shot well. We don't have the light here that you get in New York or other major cities in the world but when it's shot well it's fantastic. It's incredibly filmic."

EKATHIMERINI.COM, 10/13/04:

You have classical training, with theater experience. Why do you think British actors are so popular in the movie industry? "Working in theater gives you a discipline that makes a lot of British actors good to work with. A lot of American actors don't have the theater discipline, but what American actors have is a naturalistic way of being. There is something that an English person can bring; an old-fashioned moral quality to the work. That's partly to do with being English, maybe, and with having to do classical theater where you're dealing with things like Greek tragedy, with themes bigger than ourselves, moral themes, ethical issues, betrayal and trust, love, murder of one's own family and the vengeance of the gods. Maybe this makes you think differently as an actor and you bring that to a film. I'm not sure. ..."
What are your expectations for your career in film? "If, for example, there are 50 films being made in [a month], five of those films will be good, probably. The other 45 will be OK, some terrible. If you want to work all year round in films, you're not always going to get the good ones. So you find yourself doing work that you don't always believe in fully but you're doing it because you want to be a film actor. This is something that is very confusing for me. If I can, I only want to do films I believe in. If that means there are no films because all the good films are being done by someone else, then maybe I just won't work and I'll develop my own projects or do some theater. But that's in an ideal world. I enjoy the fact that I'm becoming a bit better known internationally, because it gives you more choice. But I have always said, ever since I was in drama school, that I don't want to be a 45-year-old man walking into the office of a 25-year-old director and saying, 'Please, can you give me a job?' I want to have control, be my own boss, and that means being able to make your own choices. So that's what's good about what is happening now, because it gives [me] more power, for myself. But do I want total control? Do I want to be Tom Cruise or Tom Hanks? I don't know if I want to be that famous, or if I'll have the opportunity. If ever that opportunity came to me, I don't know what I would do."

DAILY MIRROR, 11/01/04:

"Saw Damian Lewis cycling through a red light at the Oxford St end of Charing Cross Road ... have to say ... very nice ass!" -- Jonnyboy122 from London, November 1, 2004.

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