Gareth's Gateway - Notable Quotes

Notable Quotes

Exposure, Summer 2006:

"I think we [Damian and I] were both looking forward to working together, but also a little apprehensive. We get on very well though like any other siblings we have bust-ups. But having said that, having lived together for as long as we did we can have those and move on. You just get on with it -- it's not terminal. We're quite close in age; there's only two years between us, so we're mates. I respect his work and, I think, he's coming to respect mine."

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The Baker - Production Notes - Bankside Films, August 2007:

Like most young boys, brothers Gareth and Damian Lewis enjoyed bike rides. After school and on the weekends they would get on their bikes -- in this case Grifters -- and go exploring, winding their ways through the streets around their childhood home. Growing up in Abbey Road, North London, the brothers would spend their time conjuring up characters and embarking upon specific adventures, solving crimes and charting new territories.
"With my brother, we're just doing what we've always done, which is making up characters. As kids we had these two different sets of personas that we'd adopt and go on little adventures with our bikes. It was all action-adventure stuff and we'd have back-stories -- Bob and Charlie were the two main characters. I guess we were aspiring to the Hardy Boys!"
"Our dad's Welsh and we've been coming on holiday to Wales forever. We come to Wales a lot as we have a house in Llandeilo."
Gareth: "I've always been writing and it's always been an aim of mine. I studied film; I did my degree in Spanish and French and studied French and Spanish cinema and theatre, so got very interested in the New Wave and the Surrealists. The screenwriting fed into that. Then I realised that this wasn't going to be quite enough and that I wanted to see it through to the end. Be in control," he laughs, "have total domination."
"Writing's lonely. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone; it sucks. If you're a sociable person, which I am, then it's torture, so I decided quite early on that just writing and not getting involved in the rest of the creativity was going to be very frustrating. Watching a lot of people have a lot of fun working on my scripts while I just sat there in tears, tearing out my hair, rewriting, being told by development executives to go away and make it better or funnier. No-one ever remembers who the script writer is and that's a shame because no matter what people say, if you don't have a good script you can't make a good film. You can develop a good script with your actors, there are a number of ways of getting there but in the end you've got to have the script, otherwise you're just making it up as you're going along."

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The Sunday Times Magazine, February 17, 2008:

Damian: "I was so confrontational as a child, my mother took me to the family doctor and said: 'It's either him or me. One of us has got to go.' I just remember feeling fretful -- she found me impossible. If I was challenged, I felt I was being backed into a corner, metaphorically and sometimes physically. Gareth was a far cleverer child than I was. Less emotionally direct. He was much better at nodding, saying yes, then sliding off in his own direction. I remember one fight -- I was about 10 and he was eight -- when I had been particularly pedantic and annoying. Suddenly he started pummelling me with his fists, so I whacked him and he went down like a sack of potatoes, screaming his head off. Mum appeared and saw little Gareth, crumpled in a heap, wailing, but with one eye open, as always, to see what the reaction would be. She gave me this almighty clout around my head, the only time she ever hit me, and I ran down Abbey Road, saying I was never coming back. Afterwards I expected her to take me in her arms and say she was sorry. Instead she sat me down and gave me a right talking to. She'd had enough, I suppose."
Damian: "We're a strong, loud, intelligent, opinionated family. The Sunday-lunch table was always an epicentre of activity, where everyone was encouraged to talk and air their ideas. Because we were away at boarding school a lot of the time, there was a lot of questioning when we came home. Information and emotional responses were constantly demanded of us. Gareth was into gadgets and fads, which never lasted longer than a few months. I remember him saying at one point: 'I want to be a lawyer.' And my parents, in a very loving way, asked him to substantiate what he'd said -- I think they actually used that word. Suddenly, Gareth was expected to give weight to this rather transient thought, and he resented that. He felt he'd rather not say anything than have to explain himself. It was the same when we went to a play or a movie. We'd all sit around afterwards discussing what we thought the themes were, and Gareth would go: 'Why do we have to look for the meaning in everything? Can't we just enjoy it?' I think he found it all a bit tiring."
Damian: "Mum always wanted to know how we were and what we were feeling. It was quite a complex relationship, and Gareth slightly withdrew from that. If you're the fourth child of two very dynamic parents, maybe it's easier not to compete."
Damian: "Our mother was an incredibly strong woman, extremely opinionated, quite controlling, but hugely loving and giving, and at times very needy of love. She was sort of all-encompassing and a very dominant figure in our lives. I think Gareth's relationship with her eventually became less intense, a bit simpler, whereas mine was more immature. I still fought with her over everything. What I regret most about Mum dying [in a car crash in 2001] is not fully realising a friendship with her."
Damian: "When Gareth is sitting around a table in a pub with friends, he naturally takes centre stage, but it's not something he consciously seeks. He's incredibly entertaining and amusing, but there's a softness about him and a quietness, which means he doesn't impose himself. Gareth and I have got closer and closer as we've got older. It's like that moment when you first see your parents as real people and have to decide whether you like them or not. It's quite daunting. For a long time I thought we were much more similar than Gareth thought we were. He's been a bit more perceptive than I have. I don't think I'd stopped and thought about quite how many resentments he'd built up over the years. If you're the youngest of a big, innately ambitious family, you inherit so much tradition, it's almost expected that you fall in line. For a long time, Gareth just didn't want to. He felt different and he saw the world a bit differently. He was a bit more of a maverick, less clubbable than the rest of us, and not so easily drawn into the group. I'd always thought, without examining it too much: 'We're great mates and we've always got on.' But it's become apparent from things Gareth has said over the last few years that he's wanted to say: 'Yeah, we do get on, but let me tell you, there have been times when I've felt incredibly distanced from the family and you and your achievements.'"
Damian: "I feel hugely protective of Gareth -- I think I always have -- and very nurturing of him. We shared a flat when I was filming Band of Brothers, and every day he'd get up and write, which must have been incredibly hard. Confidence is related to your recent successes, and if you're not published or produced it's really difficult to maintain a sense of entitlement. When The Baker was finally made, he thrived. As a director he was humble and responsive and he listened, and the set was a very happy place. Before I married, he made it clear that he doesn't have the same nostalgic, sentimental attachments that I have, because he has his own family now. I understand that, but I think Gareth has a habit of resisting family gatherings, then regretting it. I think he's beginning to realise that, okay, we are loud and opinionated, and we do all talk over each other. But we're also a really nice, fully formed, functional family."
Gareth: "Damian was a bit of a golden boy at school. He was in a different house from me, so we didn't see that much of each other, but I liked to think he was looking out for me. At home we were great mates, with a tendency to violence. We used to ride round on our Grifter bikes, solving mysteries. We adopted these personae -- we were Poncherello and Baker from the California Highway Patrol, or we were Bob and Charlie, or Pete and Dave, depending on how we felt. Ultimately he had the final say, by virtue of the fact that he could punch me up if I didn't do what he said. We had some pretty ferocious fights. Like most boys, there were no boundaries, we really used to go for it. At that point I was the actor -- I knew how to get him into trouble. He'd give me a nudge, I'd fall to the ground screaming, and Mum would come racing out saying: 'What have you done to your little brother?'"
Gareth: "We were a very tightknit family, and when we were home from school there were a lot of big, noisy lunches, with everyone talking, not a lot of listening. And it's still like that. My wife finds it quite difficult. If you like to have a two-way conversation, you're a bit stuck, really. As a child, you were just waiting for the last person to shut up so you could have your say. Damian was very combative and he was always in the thick of it. I'd get sulky and moan that I couldn't get a word in edgeways. Even now, if I'm sitting round a lunch table with another family and there's a silence, I feel deeply uncomfortable and get prickly heat all up my neck, because in our house that would never happen."
Gareth: "Damian went to Guildhall and I went to Edinburgh [University], and we kind of reconnected when I came down to London and we shared a flat in Kilburn. But we didn't really know each other as adults, and it was a bit weird to begin with. We had all that history, but we hadn't really crossed paths for six years. Damian's days were spent lounging round in his dressing gown, getting ready to go to the theatre in the evening, and mine were spent doing a range of crappy jobs. I worked in telesales and bars, constantly having ideas but never settling on one. I travelled a lot. I felt I needed to get away from the family to be my own person, and I'd make for the border at the drop of a hat. Damian was becoming successful quite quickly. He was 23 when he did Hamlet in Regent's Park. I've always loved being part of that success, you know, going to the shows and saying: 'Yeah, that's my brother.' But there was a moment when I thought: 'Why have I gone into an area of work where I'm going to end up being unfavourably compared?' Writing is something that doesn't come easily to me. I'm naturally gregarious, and it took a few years to grasp that my future was going to involve spending a lot of time in a room on my own. Damian never had that struggle, as far as I can tell. He's had six or seven months out of work, but other than that it's been pretty constant. It kind of helped me, actually, because with everyone focused on Damian being starry I could slip under the radar and quietly get on with my own thing. I was working in a pub when I got a call from a production company who wanted to option The Baker, and I said: 'Guys, I quit.' I really regretted that because I needed the money. It took four months to get a meeting, and then they wanted rewrites. It was another six years before the film finally got made. I was an ingénu. I knew nothing."
Gareth: "Having lived together for three years and rebonded, getting on set with Damian was like playing again. I'd come over to give him a note after a take, and he'd practically know what I was going to say. He knows when I'm not happy and I can tell by looking at him when he's about to lose it. But it was a tantrum-free set. We shared quarters in a converted monastery in the Wye valley, and every night one of us would be cooking up pasta and sticking the rushes on. We didn't even pay him -- well, a fraction of his market value."
Gareth: "Damian spends a lot of time in LA. Up until now his world has been quite orderly and glamorous, but I don't think you can be that glamorous when you've got kids. It's 'Welcome to milk and vomit and no sleep,' and I've watched him slowly crumble. I went through it all before him -- I sent him a script I wrote just after my last daughter was born, and he said: 'Yeah, it starts off okay, then it all gets a bit surreal.' It's a bit of a bind trying to be funny on three hours' sleep."
Gareth: "On some level, Damian and I have become much closer. Not in a way that we ever talk about, but he definitely has it in mind to look after me. I'm only realising now that he's had my interests somewhere in mind for a long time, even if it's just generally wondering what he can do to help. I'm just the spoilt, selfish little brother who thinks only about himself. It's a stereotype, isn't it? But maybe it's one I fit into slightly better than I thought."

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The Baker Official Site (2Entertain), February 2008:

"[Damian and I] had a great time making this film [The Baker]. We've always got on well, and I knew what he was capable of as an actor, so I felt very safe in that respect. We had a kind of shorthand on set. He knew what I was going to say before I said it half the time!"
"I came to film as a writer, but the intention was always to be behind the camera. I was just always drawn to telling stories with a camera. That said, I wasn't one of those directors who knew at the age of four, when they picked up their first super 8 camera, that the future was written. It didn't dawn on me till quite late that I could actually make a living from doing this. I still can't believe it."
"There's no one film that made me say, 'I want to make movies', and to be honest, I couldn't tell you one film that I enjoy more than all other films -- how do you compare Duck Soup with Wild Strawberries? There are films I can watch again and again and find inspiring. Annie Hall, Kind Heart and Coronets, A Touch Of Evil, La Grande Illusion, Fanny and Alexander, Citizen Kane, Pulp Fiction - This Is Spinal Tap! I could watch that forever! There Will Be Blood! No Country For Old Men, The Big Lebowski. Can I stop now?"
"I think there must be something of the performer in all directors -- look how many have put themselves on film. I'm no different; I love acting and the acting process. Okay, I confess, I'm a frustrated actor. Maybe I should be in a film with Damian one day! Maybe I'll write us a brothers script."
"[Wales is] a country I know and love. I think it's a magical place. My lineage is Welsh, even if my accent betrays me. I can't speak Welsh though I know a few phrases, which I can pronounce very badly. My favourite is: 'chwarae teg'. It means, roughly translated, "fair play" and is like playing a trump card in your sentence -- gives you pretty much free rein to say what you like!"
"I've written another comedy -- not set in Wales this time -- but again it features a man having a crisis -- well writing's cheaper than therapy isn't it?"
"[My favourite cake is] Chocolate!"

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The Guardian, February 22, 2008:

"Damian Lewis and Kate Ashfield lie at my feet, all but naked, covered in flour, eggs, jam, custard, cake mix and glacé cherries. From the shadows, a group of men and women stare at the bodies on the floor. In this cramped room, the temperature has risen to that of a Swedish sauna; sweat trickles down the inside of my shirt. I put my hand on the table to support myself and inadvertently squirt cream all over my trousers. Looking down at the mess, I find myself wondering, not for the first time, how I got into this position. More importantly, how did they get into that position? And will we be able to untangle them? The answer has its roots in a conversation that took place a couple of years ago between myself and the lead actor in this scenario, Damian Lewis -- my brother. It went something like this: Me: 'You want to be in my film?' Damian: 'Sure.' A taut and dramatic scene, full of pathos, I think you'll agree. At that point it hadn't really occurred to either of us what it would be like to work together. We'd mooted the possibility as a sort of 'wouldn't it be fun one day to work together on something?' -- but hadn't actually considered what that might mean for us, either personally or professionally. It just seemed like a good idea: Damian was perfect for the role, he liked the script, liked me, I liked him, I bought him another beer and thrust the contract under his nose. It was a beautiful moment."
"In the cold, grey light of dawn, we started to understand what we'd got ourselves into. He was going to commit to saying words I'd written, under my direction, on film, a film that was going out into the big, wide world to have a life of its own beyond our control. I was going to be responsible for keeping his reputation as an actor intact. I wondered if I hadn't just muddied the waters of my first feature film experience by getting family involved. Would there be an added level of emotional tension? I was going to have to tell him what to do on occasion, and he was going to have to do it. That would certainly be a first - at least since he was 10 and I was eight and I had the moral authority of our mother behind me when I asked him to stop sitting on my head."
"We got to work on the script, and as Damian got his teeth into the role, I started to get a feeling for how the character was going to play out in his hands. This was before we got anywhere near production, or even full finance. By the time we got to the first day of the shoot, we seemed to be working well together. So far, so good. But now would come the real test: working under the intense pressure of a film set, in the public gaze, as it were, of the crew and cast. How would it play? If we disagreed, would we do it nicely, through gritted teeth, or just shout and scream at each other? Would he sit on my head again? Would I sit on his?"
"I'm from the school of gritted teeth, with the occasional explosive release under (semi-)controlled circumstances. As it turned out, my teeth were no more worn down at the end of the shoot than at the start. It seemed to me that the same was the case for Damian. He was loving it. Wasn't he? Well, he's a great actor, and when he tells me he had a great time, who am I to doubt? So he had to go for long walks, clenching and unclenching his fists and chanting a mantra he'd been given by his yogi, to help him calm down. But otherwise it was like being kids playing make-believe again - only with more expensive toys."
"There was still the small matter of the sex scene. Was it going to be weird directing my brother getting semi-naked with a beautiful woman? It's hard enough to direct a sex scene without inviting your family to get involved. Put it this way: in the end, it was weirder filming him getting knocked unconscious by a sheep's head. Read that how you like."

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Go Triad, April 16, 2008:

"Frankly a film should be judged on its merits, regardless of genre. If it's a tearjerker that makes you weep buckets, is that somehow more of an achievement than making people weep with laughter? ... I suspect that all comedians feel underrated when it comes to awards, but the reward, if not the award, is seeing a theater full of laughing people."

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Total Film, May 2008:

You talkin' to me?
Gareth: "That was my stock reply when my actors would ask me a question. There's a bit in the film where Damian's character is making a date-movie video and, you know, it's sort of Travis Bickle lite."
Do you feel lucky, punk?
Damian: "I feel incredibly lucky. There were times when I'd romanticise making a feature film with my brother. He'd written a film and was going to direct and I was going to act in it. It seemed an incredibly privileged thing to be doing ..."
Gareth: "... and to work on such a quality script."
Damian: "Ugh, the material. ... Rewrites every morning!"
Play it again, Sam ...
Gareth: "That's not right."
Damian: "It's 'Play it, Sam.' Play It Again, Sam is Woody Allen. Woody works nice hours. He wraps at four."
Gareth: "I heard he falls asleep at four. ... But the guy's churning out movies. You'd think at some point he'd realise that a bit more script development might be in order. But his early stuff is pure genius. He's one of my heroes."
What if you could go back in time and take those hours of pain and darkness and replace them with something better?
Gareth: "You gotta be kidding. I love pain and darkness!"
Damian: "You can't have one without the other."
Gareth: "As my wife will testify, there's this perception that if you write comedy, you're a fluffy person who's always seeing the funny side. But actually what happens is comedy gets sucked out of you and it doesn't leave a lot of laughs."
You ever danced with the devil by the pale moonlight?
Gareth: "Not since I was married."
Damian: "There was a time -- when you got married and had children and I was just running around being irresponsible -- I felt like your younger brother. It was quite interesting and then a bit alarming. Then I got married. I didn't get married just to feel older again -- I'd like to make that clear in case my wife reads this. I fell in love with a beautiful girl."
What is the last thing you do remember?
Gareth: "Changing a nappy at 2:35 am last night."
Damian: "I found myself stroking rare-breed sheep and pigs and goats somewhere on the edge of Tenby."
Gareth: "I thought you were going to say somewhere on the edge of sanity. ..."
Damian: "Somewhere on the edge of my bed! I saw a furry pig for the first time."
Gareth: "It's amazing -- the names people come up with for their private parts."
Damian: "My wife and I, we have little romantic nicknames for each other."
Gareth: "'Put the "Hairy Pig" away!'"
You either surf or you fight. ...
Gareth: "Huey."
Damian: "Huey Lewis?"
Gareth: "No, the helicopters in Apocalypse Now. Coppola had a breakdown and Sheen had a heart attack. It makes our whole experience seem quite parochial and lovely. It was just like one big hug, wasn't it?"
I'll make him an offer he can't refuse. ...
Gareth: "Well, that's basically what I did to Damian. If you hadn't done the film, you would have had to answer to our dad."
Damian: "I actually made Gareth the offer. I said, 'I will be in your film.' That was the extent of my magnitude."
Gareth: "I knew what he meant was, 'I expect the favour returned, when I'm down on my luck and you're riding your star. I expect you to reinvent me like Travolta and Tarentino.'"
Damian: "In a surfing movie."
I took the liberty of bulshitting you. (The Blues Brothers).
Gareth: "Would you see yourself as Jake or Elwood?"
Damian: "Elwood was Aykroyd. Dan Aykroyd was funny."
Gareth: "You're definitely Jake."
Damian: "Oh, I'm dead."
Gareth: "Yeah, you're a bloated drug addict. Hey, didn't we have that great swim in the pool next to where Belushi died? Oh baby, that was so money."
Damian: "Naked swimming at Chateau Marmont, with the spirit of John Belushi looking over us."
Gareth: "Those were the days."

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