Brit thesp Damian Lewis tells FHM about mixing it with Spielberg, Hanks and Schwimmer in war epic Band Of Brothers.

FHM, October 2001

When fresh-faced actors first start treading the boards, appearing in "hilarious" skits at parish halls or gurning theatrically as a member of the Puss In Boots chorus line (starring "that bloke from The Bill"), they can but dream of rubbing shoulders with big Hollywood actors. But for 29-year-old Brit Damian Lewis, the fantasy has recently come true, thanks to a major role that has seen him trading lines with Friends star David Schwimmer, rehearsing scenes with Oscar-laden Tom Hanks and taking direction from bearded movie mogul Steven Spielberg in the big-budget, ten-part war series Band Of Brothers, coming soon to BBC 2.

"I learnt what kids they are!" Lewis laughs. "They're so normal because they absolutely adore what they do. They've never allowed their status as Hollywood royalty to interfere with what they love. Steven will sit for hours with you and a tea-boy telling you exactly how he got a certain shot in Jaws."

Weighing in at the princely sum of $120 million, Band Of Brothers is the most expensive television series ever made. Based on the acclaimed non-fiction book by regarded historian Stephen E. Ambrose, the drama charts the travails of Easy Company, 506th regiment of the US Army's 101st Airborne Division from their arduous training camp in Georgia during 1942, through D-Day to the liberation of Hitler's Eagle's Nest at Berchtesgaden in 1945. Executive-produced by Spielberg and Hanks, the series has an eclectic cast including Spaced's Simon Pegg, Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels' Dexter Fletcher, ex-New Kid On The Block Donnie Wahlberg and David Schwimmer as a sadistic drill sergeant.

Over lunch, Lewis -- who appears in virtually every minute of the ten-hour drama -- tells FHM how he felt a huge responsibility about playing a real character in Band Of Brothers (US hero Major Richard Winters) and an equally huge sense of relief when he received the on-set approval of the real-life Winters for his portrayal.

Lewis, who trained at The Royal Shakespeare Company and Guildhall drama school alongside Ewan McGregor and Joseph Fiennes, secured the part after three auditions and four screen tests in London -- plus a terrifying face-to-face meeting with Hanks and Spielberg in L.A. "It was my big Hollywood moment," he laughs. Even then, Lewis himself didn't immediately grasp the hugeness of what he had landed.

"It only became clear to me when all the cast were at boot camp before shooting," he says. "I thought, 'My God, I'm playing one of America's own, still-living heroes -- and they've given it to an English guy.' It was then that I started to realise the enormity of the task."

Tom Hanks, for one, is in no doubt about Lewis's suitability for the role. "The trick was casting this very enigmatic man," says Hanks. "You never know where you stand with Winters. But when we heard Damian read, we'd found our guy. Maybe it's his delivery, a kind of 'less is more' thing."

Band Of Brothers was filmed at the Hatfield Aerodome, and the muddy set has seen a lot of gunfire of late -- the big finaley of the 1998 war epic Saving Private Ryan was filmed here, and by the third episode, the special effects department will have used more pyrotechnics than were used in the entire production of that movie. Thankfully, unlike the Spielberg Oscar-winner, this time the Brits do get a look in and the Yanks haven't just re-written history once again.

"As a British actor in the lead role, I was as diligent as I could be to make sure that the British were not seen as tea-drinking Hoorays," says Damian, who you may already have glimpsed in TV dramas Warriors and Hearts And Bones. "This is not just American revisionism telling us how they won the war single-handedly. It's chronicling the extraordinary lives of a group of young men between 1942 and 1945. It's incidental that they're American -- they could just as easily be French or British. It's a documentary drama in a way that Saving Private Ryan, Pearl Harbor and U-571 never were. They were all fictionalised; this is well-researched and completely accurate."

With its graphic and lavish war scenes, the series is almost certain to be a TV hit -- but it will have an even greater impact on Lewis's career. And that's fine by him. Unusually in a profession overflowing with false modesty, the plucky Brit is more than happy to own up to a searing ambitious streak.

"I'm essentially a self-employed businessman," he says, "and I want to build my business to the point where I have a greater quality of work to choose from. I'm selling my toothbrush door-to-door like everyone else. So the profile of Band Of Brothers is heaven-sent for someone who does want to go on and be a big film star. I want to drive faster cars -- and I want to go out with more women! I want to do all those things that are central to every man's psychological make-up."

Band Of Brothers starts on BBC 2 in October.

Caption: At the siege of Hull, Private Smith deftly caught the cannonball.

Callout: "I was diligent as I could be to make sure that the British were not seen as tea-drinking Hoorays."