An Englishman's American Dream

How playing American Heroes has helped British Star Damian Lewis win Hollywood's heart.

by Thomas Quinn, The Ticket (The Daily Mirror magazine supplement), April 25, 2003

Damian Lewis has to be the best-educated British movie star of the moment. He has the sort of upper-class credentials that make Hugh Grant look like a reform school oik. Educated at Eton, he mixed with the great and the good who go on to rule our green and pleasant land. Yet here he is in the blockbuster movie Dreamcatcher -- an adaptation of the Stephen King bestseller -- playing an American whose body is invaded by an alien.

When we meet in Paris, where Dreamcatcher is being shown to the European press, Damian is relaxed and confident. Dressed casually in jeans and an open-necked shirt, he looks fit and glowing with health, as if he's just emerged from the gym.

He may have gone to Eton, but his upper-class accent has been softened by a sort of mockney that, far from seeming false, actually manages to be charming. He is certainly taking fame in his stride. With his name linked to Stephen Spielberg -- he had a starring role in the director's acclaimed TV series Band Of Brothers -- and his currency high in the United States, Damian seems destined to be Britain's biggest leading man in Hollywood.

He has certainly had a busy 12 months. Last November, he took the lead in the Beeb's hilarious spoof biopic, Jeffrey Archer -- The Truth, and he has just completed a second series of the costume drama The Forsyte Saga for ITV1, in which he plays the emotionally repressed Soames Forsyte. But aside from his versatility, it is his ability to assume a convincing American accent that has impressed US directors.

In Dreamcatcher, he plays another American, Prof. Gary "Jonesy" Jones, but his character slips into an aristocratic English voice when Jonesy's body is taken over by an alien. This rather complicated scenario calls on Damian to have conversations with himself using both voices -- and it is to his great credit that he manages to pull it off.

"I Know in Hollywood films the bad guy is English, even when there is no reason for it," laughs Damian, 31. "The director Lawrence Kasdan and I figured this was the best way because the alien had to be quite conceited and sound old-fashioned. Using an English accent made it clear to the audience when the alien was taking over.

"It is nice to know that people like my American accent -- commercially, it certainly opens up a lot of doors. And there is nothing worse than an actor doing a bad accent. Although someone wrote in to the Dreamcatcher website to say, 'The guy's English accent was terrible.' And I don't think he was joking!"

For Damian, Dreamcatcher is yet another rung up the career ladder. The blockbuster casts him alongside the likes of Tom Sizemore and Morgan Freeman, whom he describes as, "the Zen, Jedi master of acting -- a lovely man."

Even so, rubbing shoulders with the Hollywood elite hasn't convinced him to move to Los Angeles permanently. "I could get rid of my London house and buy a new one in Los Angeles, but if I was working I'd only live in it for a month a year," he explains. "These days, movies are made all over the place. You are far more likely to be shooting in Vancouver or Poland or Namibia, say, than working in Los Angeles. They don't make that many films there now."

Damian was born and raised in St John's Wood, North London, with his brothers, William and Gareth, and sister Amanda. His late mother, Charlotte, was on the board of the Royal Court Theatre -- she died in a car crash in 2001 -- and his father, Watcyn, who made a fortune as an insurance broker, once danced in a Chicago nightclub. So it was no surprise to his parents when Damian said he wanted to act. After Eton, he studied at the capital's Guildhall School of Drama.

"My family and friends are all around London and I would really miss them if I did leave the city for good," he says. "London is my town and, when I am away from it, I realise how much I like it. And every time I go to America it occurs to me how European I am. Americans and American films have a different sensibility to Europeans. I'm not saying one is better, they're just different."

If it wasn't for the lure of Hollywood's dollars, Damian insists he would never cross the Atlantic. "If there was a movie industry in Europe that was like the one in Hollywood -- with a studio system and big films being made all the time -- I wouldn't think of going to L.A. at all," he insists.

Although he split from his ling-term girlfriend, Katie Razzall, a year ago, they remain good friends and attended the London premiere of Leonardo DiCaprio's Catch Me If You Can together in February. Katie, a Channel Four new producer and on-screen reporter, is a Middle East specialist who works abroad as often as Damian does, although she has been based in London during the war in Iraq. He has spoken of being used to long distance relationships, but the months apart took their toll on that romance.

When I ask him if he is enjoying being single and a sex symbol, he just shrugs his shoulders and is a touch evasive, saying, "Yeah, I suppose. I spend a lot of time with my friends, but I work a lot too."

His next project, the film Unfinished Life, casts him as the boyfriend of megastar Jennifer Lopez. But the catch is, as the movie starts, their relationship breaks down and J-Lo goes off with another, older man -- Robert Redford.

"I can't deny that I'm more than a little intrigued at the thought of working with J-Lo, to get up close to her," confides Damian with a cheeky grin. "She is an amazing person and I would love to know what she's like. I play her abusive boyfriend who she runs away from. Mind you, at one point I was being considered for the role of the sheriff -- the guy she has sex with all the way through the film. But I turned it down. I didn't want that!" He suddenly bursts out laughing and starts singing Sinatra style, "Regrets? I've had a few ..."

He may feel he has lost out in the onscreen love stakes, but does Damian harbour a secret desire to play the villain instead? After all, when it comes to bad guys, surely you can't get any worse than being the sworn enemy of J-Lo, currently Americas favourite sweetheart. "I hadn't thought of that" he says frankly. "I agreed to do it because it has got such a nice script and also because it is the kind of character-driven, poetic film I want to go on to do. It is a real actor's piece with an A-list director, Lasse Hallstrom. It is a lot of fun to make a big £80 million alien movie like Dreamcatcher, but I want to make smaller films too."

Yes, Damian. And then again, who wouldn't want the chance to get their hands on J-Lo?

Dreamcatcher opens today.

Life Sentence
Morgan Freeman

by The Ticket (The Daily Mirror magazine supplement), April 25, 2003

Born on June 1, 1937, in Memphis, Tennessee, Morgan celebrates his 20th wedding anniversary next year, when hopefully his four children -- he has a daughter called Morgana -- will buy him and his missus something nice; maybe a sideboard on which to display his Golden Globe for Driving Miss Daisy (1989) and leaver space for future gongs -- despite having three Oscar nominations, he is yet to win an Academy Award, so keep your fingers crossed for him in the current blockbuster Dreamcatcher. ...

Caption: Armed and dangerous: Morgan.