Press

Arena
November 2001
by Stephen Dowling
Scans

Drop Shots

Playing the lead in Steven Spielberg’s World War II epic was enough to make Damian Lewis dizzy

Its one of the most expensive drama series ever devised $125 million budget buster recounting the true story of a WWII US paratroop unit fighting its way from the drop zones of Normandy to Hitler’s strongholds in the Bavarian mountains. Band of Brothers, the ten-part war epic executive produced by Saving Private Ryan director Steven Spielberg (and also featuring a Tom Hanks directed episode) is the latest high profile remembrance of the American war effort. So far, so apple pie you might think- except that the lead part of the teetotal, serious soldier Captain Winters is played by Brit actor Damian Lewis, recently seen in Hearts and Bones. Band of Brothers saw Lewis go through Boot Camp like any other recruit, and receive tips from the survivors of the original squad of paras. Fortunately they didn’t suffer from Lewis’s very un-paratrooper- like fear of heights or have a cast member of Friends as a drill instructor…

This seems to take over from Saving Private Ryan in the ‘realistic’ WWII action stakes…
HBO’s slogan is ‘It’s not TV, it’s HBO’ and they have proved it in this case. It’s got this huge cinematic scope. It’s really harrowing, but it’s exactly how the veterans told it. At no point does it become a fictionalized account, it’s a retelling of a book, and the book is history. Stephen Ambrose wanted to tell something a bit more personal and he went to all these veterans for their memories.

The drop sequence is really impressive…
We shot the interior in a massive hangar at Hatfield – it was even bigger then the James Bond studios in Pinewood – and they rigged us up this thing like a fairground ride and attached a plane fuselage that this guy steered with levers.

So did you jump yourself?
I couldn’t do a jump because of the insurance! But they did hang me upon this crane 150 feet up to make it look as if I was leaping out of a plane. I’m not so good with heights, I get sweaty palms and dizzy, and there I was with this panoramic view of the Home Counties. All I could hear was the wind whistling in my ears.

Tom Hanks directed on of the episodes. How was your first meeting with him?
I went into the room and he said: ‘Damian thanks for coming. I hope you’re not tired after all that flying.’ I stuck my arms out and said: ‘Well it was a long way,’ and started flapping them up and down. The whole room just went silent. Tom just looked at me and said: ‘OK, OK. Funny guy.’ I so wanted to leave.

He got over it obviously.
He’s a good guy. Everyone thinks he’s a bit ‘apple pie’ and conservative, but I think he’s a great actor.

You filmed for eight months- must have been quite a wrench when it all ended?
I’m incredibly close to all the guys, I have all their numbers. I was in LA last week and we all went out .

David Schwimmer crops up as the drill sergeant in episode one. That’s a bit of a surprise…
He plays an integral parts in the drama- ask any of the Easy Company veterans. Herbet Sobel was the guy they all loathed. He was quite sadistic towards them, but he bonded them all together because they were unified against him. Everyone might think he’s one of the guys from Friends, but he is a proper actor.

No Hollywood tantrums? No ‘My trailer has to be bigger than Damian’s trailer’?
We were all on the same deal, I dunno what he got paid, but it better not have been more than me! I had a lot of scenes that I had to do with him, so we became quite good friends. He had a weird part, he didn’t get to know a lot of the guys because he was playing this asshole. And it’s strange how that affects the dynamic of a group of actors, because everyone had been in character from the word go, and everyone had worked out what their friendships were historically. They knew who they liked and disliked.

So at the end of the day everyone goes down to the pub…
He was left on his own and I wasn’t invited to the pub either because everyone knew my character didn’t drink! Schwimmer and I went off holding hands…